Masterpieces of Terror and the Unknown

by Marvin Kaye (Editor), Joyce Carol Oates (Contributor), Carole Buggé (Contributor)

This new treasury of terror will propel you through fifty-eight stories and poems of fear and nightmare. Like its companion volume, Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural, this collection intends to terrify the reader with the cosmic fear of the unknown, not merely horrify with blood and gore.
The modern and classic authors represented are some of the most distinguished and popular of our time. Joyce Carol Oates writes about a man who starts to see long-dead acquaintances - alive. John Jakes recounts the unnatural desire of "The Man Who Wanted to Be in Movies" and Winston Churchill tells of the natural fear of a man lost at sea. Of special interest is the poem by W. S. Gilbert (of Gilbert & Sullivan) and the story by Gaston Leroux (author of The Phantom of the Opera).
Other authors include Ray Bradbury, H. P. Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, Richard Matheson, Joanna Russ, Theodore Sturgeon, Guy de Maupassant, Michael Moorcock, Parke Godwin, Willa Cather, A. Merritt, Isaac Asimov, Frederick Pohl, and Jack Vance.
Masterpieces of Terror and the Unknown is expertly compiled by Marvin Kaye, who provides fascinating notes with each selection and an Introduction that provides further insights into the genres of terror and horror.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies, Fantasy, Gothic Horror, Collections

573 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

Marvin Nathan Kaye was an American mystery, fantasy, science fiction, horror author, anthologist, and editor. He was also a magician and theater actor. Kaye was a World Fantasy Award winner and served as co-publisher and editor of Weird Tales Magazine.

Reviews

[Danielle The Book Huntress · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection has some really weird stories in it. The weirdest and most disturbing one is a story called The Throwing Suit. I don't remember the author's name. The unlucky protagonist is offered a goodly sum of money to spend the night in a haunted place and to wear a suit that is found therein. The suit is cursed and haunted. Gosh, that story gave me the weebies. I don't really remember the stories that well, but I do remember the sense of unease reading these stories gave me.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fantastic anthology! A quick rundown of my favorites:

1. The Others by Joyce Carol Oates
2. Tap Dancing by John Gregory Betacourt
3. The Lost Room by Fitz-James O'Brien (Creepy as hell)
4. The Happy Children by Arthur Machen (Village of the Damned meets RiverDance)
5. Darby O'Gill and the Good People by Herminie T. Kavanagh (Now I understand by this movie freaked me out as a kid. It's based on a horror story!)
6. Keeping His Promise by Algernon Blackwood (Very Lovecraft)
7. A Day in the Life of Comrade Lenin by Carole Bugge (Flipping hilarious)
8. The Throwing Suit by Darrell Schweitzer and Jason Van Hollander (Maybe the best of the bunch. Super scary.)
9. Fidel Bassin by W.J. Stamper (Evil guard gets his due.)
10. Unsigned Original by Parke Godwin (The perfect murder hypothesized.)
11. The Empty Zoo by Edward D. Hoch (Tremendously creepy.)
12. Bianca's Hands by Theodore Sturgeon (Love is in the hand of the beholder.)
13. The Iron Man by Frederick Laing (Another shining star. A must read for the oppressed and downtrodden. Vengence shall be yours.)
14. Sagittarius by Ray Russell (Great combination of Dr. Jekyll and Jack the Ripper. Fantastic.)
15. An Illusion in Red and White by Stephen Crane (Creepy Boogieman story.)
16. Man Overboard by Winston Churchill (Yes, that Winston Churchill. Simple, dark, pessimistic, effective.)
17. The People of the Pit by A.Merritt (Another that reminded me of Lovecraft, specifically "At the Mountains of Madness." Great story.)
18. In the Valley of the Shades by C.H. Sherman (So dark, so tragic. Had kind of a "Sixth Sense" vibe.)
19. Mr. Wilde's Second Chance by Joanna Russ (A fun tribute to one of the greatest writers ever, Oscar Wilde.)
20. The Dreams in the Witch-House by H.P. Lovecraft (A classic "am I going crazy or is this really happening" tale.)
21. Remember Me by Joan Vander Putten (A "be careful what you wish for" story.)
22. The one Thousand Dozen by Jack London (Literally a "don't count your chickens before they hatch" story.)
23. The Cripple by Maurice Level (A deliciously dark workers' compensation story. Right up my alley.)
24. The Squaw by Bram Stoker (The predictable nature of this revenge story is greatly improved by how dark and gory it is.)
25. The Necklace by Guy De Maupassant (A classic tragedy.)
26. The Necklace: A Sequel by Jack Moffitt (A modern closing to the classic open ended story. I actually enjoyed this one more. A great character study and what an ending!)
27. Simpson's Lesser Sphynx by Esther M. Friener (Some blue bloods spill some red blood. They make a classic mistake: Never ask a question you don't already know the answer to.)
28. Snow White Waking by Adele Slaughter (Great poem.)
29. The Little Witch of Elm Street by Mildred Clingerman (Really funny. How this never became a Twilight Zone episode is beyond me.)
30. The Brown Man's Servant by W.W. Jacobs (Slightly racist but completely creepy and engrossing.)
31. In Letters of Fire by Gaston Leroux (Don't make a deal with the Devil. People we should know this by now!)

Just a great book all around. Terror-rific. You see what I did there?

[Shawn]

Placeholder review as I'm reading a bunch of H.G. Wells at the moment

"In The Avu Observatory" is an odd story - not in its contents, but in its general concept. Essentially, it gives us the tale of an astronomer working one night in a remote region of Borneo at the titular site. An animal breaks into the darkened interior arena of the observatory and attacks the astronomer, who fights it off. End of story. It almost seems more like a "real-life lived" anecdote than a fully plotted "story", but I did enjoy the detailed description of what it meant to be a night astronomer doing observations in 1894, as well as the contrast between the story's distanced opening, with its descriptions of the jeweled array of stars in the darkened sky, etc. and then the rather brutal, real-world level battle between the astronomer and the invading animal. Not anything amazing but competently done.

[Meliae Sybella · Rating 2 out of 5]

A big disappointment from what I was expecting. The earlier counterpart to this book; Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural had some amazing selections and while they both had a lot of the same authors, it was easy to see that he had chosen the best works the first time around. I did however enjoy the selection from Bram Stoker titled The Squaw which I would rate at a 3.5. I also liked In Letters of Fire by Gaston Leroux (the author of Phantom of the Opera) which I would rate at a 4.

[Kathryn McCary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marvin Kaye has made anthologizing ghost, horror and related pulp fiction practically an industry. This anthology is not nearly his worst, although not nearly his best; about 1/3 of the stories are ones I would voluntarily read again, and about 1/5 are ones I regularly reread during my annual fall ghostly-fiction orgy.

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good collection. Kaye includes well known writers as well as more recent writers. The collection also includes some hard to find stories.

[Lindsay Farassat · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very excellent collection.

Favorites:
The Hungry Stones - Rabindranath Tagore
This was originally written in Bengali in the 1890s. It was excellently translated. A creepy little story about a man who stays in a haunted palace.

The Throwing Suit - Darrell Schweitzer and Jason Van Hollander
A weird tale of an otherworld, involving art. A difficult story to describe, but very well done.

Unsigned Original - Parke Godwin
I thiiiink this was the one about the serial killer. Very short, but I would have loved to read more.

The Empty Zoo - Edward D. Hoch
A disturbed boy who is obsessed with a zoo that closes down returns one day with a woman he's interested in. Things don't go well for him.

An Illusion in Red and White - Stephen Crane
The tale of three children who witness their father murder their mother, but then...was that really their father they saw?

Sagittarius - Ray Russell
This is a well-written tale about a man who may or may not be Bluebeard. In the hands of a less-talented writer it probably would have been awful.

The Dreams in the Witch-House - H. P. Lovecraft
I've read this one before, but it had been a long time, and Lovecraft excels at building a sense of terror. In this story, a man who stays in an old house once occupied by a witch finds himself haunted by her and her man-faced rat.

The Poems - Ray Bradbury
Why is Ray Bradbury so good? In this story, a man discovers he has the ability to write entire things out of existence just by capturing them in poetry. Things escalate quickly.

The One Thousand Dozen - Jack London
Of course, being a Jack London story, this is a tale of the frozen north. A man seeking his fortune ventures out into the Arctic to collect precious eggs.

The Necklace - Guy de Maupassant
This is a well-known old story and I've read it somewhere before. In this one, a woman borrows a fancy necklace from her neighbor for a party, loses it, and takes out a huge loan to replace it, which she spends the next few decades of her life working to pay back. Only to find out...well. I guess I won't spoil it for those who don't know. It felt a little out of place in this collection.

Midnight - Jack Snow
A man summons a demon at midnight and hopes to ride alongside him as he commits his horrific deeds. That's not how things go.

Ms. Lipshutz and the Goblin - Marvin Kaye
I was cackling as I read this. It's about a lady who works at a bank, and one day she meets a goblin. That's it, that's the story.

Simpson's Lesser Sphynx - Esther M. Friesner
What happens when an elite social club adopts an actual sphinx? Not good things for them, that's for sure. Eat the rich, indeed.

Green Magic - Jack Vance
This is a haunting and beautiful story. A man steps into another world, learns magic, and is changed forever.

[E. G. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Introduction: Gather Ye Nosegays, by Marvin Kaye

Ghosts and Miscellaneous Nightmares
--The Others, Joyce Carol Oates
--Tap Dancing, John Gregory Betancourt
--The Hungry Stones, Rabindranath Tagore
--The Southwest Chamber, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
--The Lost Room, Fitz-James O'Brien
--The Ghost to His Ladye Love, W. S. Gilbert
--The Happy Children, Arthur Machen
--Darby O'Gill and the Good People, Herminie T. Kavanagh
--Keeping His Promise, Algernon Blackwood
--A Day in the Life of Comrade Lenin, Carole Buggé
--The Throwing Suit, Darrell Schweitzer and Jason Van Hollander
--The Man Who Wanted to Be in the Movies, John Jakes

The Beast Within
--Fidel Bassin, W. J. Stamper
--Unsigned Original, Parke Godwin
--The Clemency of the Court, Willa Cather
--The Empty Zoo, Edward D. Hoch
--Beyond Sleep, Barry N. Malzberg
--Finnegan's Wake, Traditional
--Bianca's Hands, Theodore Sturgeon
--The Iron Man, Frederick Laing
--Sagittarius, Ray Russell
--Wolf, Michael Moorcock
--An Illusion in Red and White, Stephen Crane

Acts of God and Other Horrors
--Man Overboard, Winston Churchill
--The People of the Pit, A. Merritt
--In the Avu Observatory, H. G. Wells
--In the Valley of the Shades, C. H. Sherman
--The Thing in the Hall, E. F. Benson
--The Inchcape Rock, Robert Southey
--Mr. Wilde's Second Chance, Joanna Russ
--The Dreams in the Witch-House, H. P. Lovecraft
--The Little Man on the Subway, Isaac Asimov and Frederik Pohl
--The Poems, Ray Bradbury
--Vision Quest, Patrick LoBrutto

Contes Cruelles
--The Man in the Bottle, Gustav Meyrink
--A Diagnosis of Death, Ambrose Bierce
--Remember Me, Joan Vander Putten
--The Pardon, Emilia Pardo-Bazan
--The One Thousand Dozen, Jack London
--Carmanda, Jessica Amanda Salmonson
--The Spirit of Hospitality, Saralee Terry
--The Cripple, Maurice Level
--The Squaw, Bram Stoker
--Pictures, Irving Werner
--The Necklace, Guy de Maupassant
--The Necklace: A Sequel, Jack Moffitt

Fiends and Creatures
--Midnight, Jack Snow
--Ms. Lipshutz and the Goblin, Marvin Kaye
--Amina, Edward Lucas White
--Simpson's Lesser Sphynx, Esther M. Friesner
--Dress of White Silk, Richard Matheson
--The Palace of the Mountain Ogre, Toby Sanders
--Snow White Waking, Adèle Slaughter
--The Little Witch of Elm Street, Mildred Clingerman
--The Brown Man's Servant, W. W. Jacobs
--Poppa Bear, Alvin Vogel
--In Letters of Fire, Gaston Leroux
--Green Magic, Jack Vance

Acknowledgments

[Ebenmaessiger · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Tap Dancing," by John Gregory Betancourt (1991): 4.25
- A nothing story full of nothing turns and nothing ends; who is the audience for something like this, something I can only assume was written in the 1980s? That being: an aged, washed-up dancer regains her desire for the stage following a magical encounter with the newly deceased lead singer of a heavy metal band, who is apparently in purgatory and tasked with mending a few fences before moving on. Coming after that Collier "Evening Primrose" piece, this only further reiterates my assumption that I just have no idea what is actually considered the substantive innards of a “horror” story. Is it simply just the depiction of the supernatural, outside of any more thorough engagement with the thing itself?

[[on hiatus, probably forever] The rockabilly werewolf from Mars · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit uneven, with perhaps too many non-supernatural stories (not my favourite style), but with several very interesting pieces. My top five are The Thing In The Hall (no surprise there), The Others, The Southwest Chamber, In Letters Of Fire, and The Poems; with The Dreams In The Witch House, The Lost Room, The Avu Observatory, and The Hungry Stones as honorable mentions. Unfortunately, some of the stories were somewhat moralistic (I have no patience for moralizing, better not to have a message than to force it onto the reader. In fact, not having a message is probably the best way of writing), while others were downright silly.

[Lucas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another wonderful collection of stories, such as Ray Russell's 'Sagittarius', a deep thought piece of immortal evil through the ages.

[David Nadolny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bunch of short stories. A couple 2s, many 3s, several 4s and a couple 5s. So I averaged to 4. I really wish the rating system was out of 10 instead of 5.

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really well put together collection of spooky tales. Highly recommended, though it took me an age to read.