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Eerie Tales of Terror & Dread
ee-rie (êr'i, e'ri), adj. (northern Eng. dial. & Scot.) inspiring fear; weird; uncanny.--SYN. see weird.
And these tales are all of that: They are weird and uncanny. They will inspire fear in you as you read about:
1/The magician's wife who truly disappears, never to be seen again by human eyes.
2/The young motorcyclist who witnesses a blood-thirsty battle fought on the same spot more than one hundred years before.
3/The beautiful and mysterious girl who turns into a hideous serpent, with glowing eyes and dripping fangs.
Plus seven additional tales to mystify and frighten you. By the author of GHOSTS, GHOULS & OTHER HORRORS; VAMPIRES, WEREWOLVES & OTHER DEMONS; and HAUNTED HOUSES.
And these tales are all of that: They are weird and uncanny. They will inspire fear in you as you read about:
1/The magician's wife who truly disappears, never to be seen again by human eyes.
2/The young motorcyclist who witnesses a blood-thirsty battle fought on the same spot more than one hundred years before.
3/The beautiful and mysterious girl who turns into a hideous serpent, with glowing eyes and dripping fangs.
Plus seven additional tales to mystify and frighten you. By the author of GHOSTS, GHOULS & OTHER HORRORS; VAMPIRES, WEREWOLVES & OTHER DEMONS; and HAUNTED HOUSES.
111 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1973
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
February 8, 2022
This slim collection contained the following stories~
1. The Magician;
2. The Mysterious Serpent;
3. Bye-Bye, Baby;
4. The Phantom Battle;
5. The Jonah;
6. The Fulfillment;
7. The Toad Thing;
8. The Bargain;
9. The Estate;
10. The Evil Eye.
Written in a very clean and bare-bones manner, the stories were not the least horrific. Neither were they terrible or dreadful in terms of quality. They were merely readable, quaint pieces that reminded me of fireside stories. For a book more than five decades old, I think that's enough.
What about you?
1. The Magician;
2. The Mysterious Serpent;
3. Bye-Bye, Baby;
4. The Phantom Battle;
5. The Jonah;
6. The Fulfillment;
7. The Toad Thing;
8. The Bargain;
9. The Estate;
10. The Evil Eye.
Written in a very clean and bare-bones manner, the stories were not the least horrific. Neither were they terrible or dreadful in terms of quality. They were merely readable, quaint pieces that reminded me of fireside stories. For a book more than five decades old, I think that's enough.
What about you?
June 17, 2018
***Actual Star Rating: 3.5 Stars***
First of all I want to strongly emphasize the fact to future readers to be a bit forgiving with this book. First of all this came from the 1970s when horror was definitely taking on a new look and so it won't be the same as what we are now used to. Furthermore this book was also directed towards a much more younger adult audience so when it comes to gore the best you will get is a squished rat, blood and suggestions of nudity while swearing doesn't really exist.
At the same time the stories are in a different array of "horror" so the reader will find stories of aliens, spells gone wrong, ghosts and demons just to name a few. And just as eclectic as the collection itself the reader will find some stories that make sense and are quite easily guessable but others take on an even weirder tone such as "The Fulfillment", which leaves you wondering as you read the whole thing all the way up to the end.
What I did like was on the back of the back of the book was a definition of eerie. Honestly I think that it should have been put at the front of the book before the stories got started so that way the reader could understand the different ways the actual stories could have been categorized as such.
Otherwise the stories were mostly quick reads and suggestive in the tellings. With so much access to modern horrors, adult readers will find some stories way too predicatable and the endings lackluster since the author tries to twist his reader's mind to come to their own conclusions about how the story should have ended or even how it may have ended even when you have gotten to the last word on the page.
All in all it was a decent read and one that my husband kindly stayed awake for, which is a miracle in and of itself.
First of all I want to strongly emphasize the fact to future readers to be a bit forgiving with this book. First of all this came from the 1970s when horror was definitely taking on a new look and so it won't be the same as what we are now used to. Furthermore this book was also directed towards a much more younger adult audience so when it comes to gore the best you will get is a squished rat, blood and suggestions of nudity while swearing doesn't really exist.
At the same time the stories are in a different array of "horror" so the reader will find stories of aliens, spells gone wrong, ghosts and demons just to name a few. And just as eclectic as the collection itself the reader will find some stories that make sense and are quite easily guessable but others take on an even weirder tone such as "The Fulfillment", which leaves you wondering as you read the whole thing all the way up to the end.
What I did like was on the back of the back of the book was a definition of eerie. Honestly I think that it should have been put at the front of the book before the stories got started so that way the reader could understand the different ways the actual stories could have been categorized as such.
Otherwise the stories were mostly quick reads and suggestive in the tellings. With so much access to modern horrors, adult readers will find some stories way too predicatable and the endings lackluster since the author tries to twist his reader's mind to come to their own conclusions about how the story should have ended or even how it may have ended even when you have gotten to the last word on the page.
All in all it was a decent read and one that my husband kindly stayed awake for, which is a miracle in and of itself.
October 17, 2023
Read it twice, and now a third time. The stories themselves were not easily forgotten. The sea captain was cursed to wonder from ship to ship where the crews of each boat he treks in, dies. Guy who naps at a mountainside finds himself witnessing a bloody spectral battle. A stage magician’s wife disappears on stage unexpectedly and permanently. A strange Chinese girl living on an isle, had a strange reptile. Two boys deciding to stay at a wrecked mill for a night, unaware of a toad thing dwelling there. All the stories are suspected to have been written by someone like the last French tale translated to English probably by Hurwood himself. The Invisible Eye was written originally by Erckmann and Chatrian. Good amusing tale about how one guy set out to outsmart his next door neighbor, the witch. Not a bad batch of stories, mind you. Only wish Bernhardt Hurwood and Scholastics would give credit to where credit is due. Recommended to those in a mood for Halloween.
July 12, 2024
Surprisingly decent. The first five stories are short and forgettable, but the final five are pretty good. Never as creepy as I would have hoped based on the title and the cover illustration, but fine for what it is.
Note: despite ostensibly being for children, this collection deals with such topics as suicide, political corruption, the prospect of nuclear war, and extinction, themes which will likely fly over a child's head. Rather bizarre.
Note: despite ostensibly being for children, this collection deals with such topics as suicide, political corruption, the prospect of nuclear war, and extinction, themes which will likely fly over a child's head. Rather bizarre.
August 25, 2025
A lost and mostly forgotten gem of YA horror, written (or collected or plagiarized) in the seventies and then republished as a Point Horror novel in the nineties.
Overall this is a slightly literary take on the classic EC horror yarn genre, but with stylistic flourishes that are never pretentious but elevate it above pulp trash.
Overall this is a slightly literary take on the classic EC horror yarn genre, but with stylistic flourishes that are never pretentious but elevate it above pulp trash.
April 20, 2019
One of several collections of horror stories that Bernhardt Hurwood wrote for Scholastic Books. The stories rely on the classic "twist at the end" format, and they're all pretty entertaining. Written for kids, but with enough substance that I enjoyed them as an adult, too.
January 6, 2020
Not one of his best books in my opinion but still an enjoyable read filled with descriptive passages that leave strong imprints upon you.
October 26, 2014
Definitely written with the younger reader in mind, this collection of short spooky stories seemed rather unsatisfying. None of the stories seem to end definitively and just sort of leave the reader hanging.
December 22, 2015
Boring. A couple interesting ones but definitely a kids book.
April 4, 2017
I have a bit of a history with this book, and in some ways, I credit it as an inspiration when I talk about my own writing. But after re-reading it, I realize now that that inspiration comes more from the nostalgia the book evokes, rather than the stories contained within.
I began my fascination with horror books in the 7th grade. However, my parents wouldn't allow me to read anything "grown up"—Poe was okay, but Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Dean Koontz, et. al. were definitely verboten. So I had to feed my curiosity with what I could find in the school's monthly Scholastic book orders. Lots of short story collections, horror-themed Choose Your Adventure books, and R. L. Stine was starting to writing YA novels—all of these became the soil in which the seeds for my horror lit obsession would grow.
Eerie Tales of Terror and Dread was one of the books I bought, along with another Hurwood collection whose name escapes me at the moment. Frankly, I have no real memories of reading this book back then, even though I know I did. Re-reading it now, I can see that the stories would have...not gone over my head or anything, but definitely bored me. Hey, I was 12—I wasn't much for subtlety or ambiguous endings back then. The stories in this book aren't heavy on excitement, is what I'm saying.
The majority of the tales are pretty bland. Problem is, most of them start out intriguing, but then whimper off into trite, "years later, people still swore they heard noises coming from such and such" denouements—which, frankly, give the impression that the author didn't know how to carry through with his premises. I finished most of the stories feeling completely underwhelmed. And yes, I realize this book is intended for kids, but Hurwood's writing isn't what I would call "kid-friendly." The vocabulary he uses is for older readers—and while I certainly advocate teaching kids to use the dictionary and the thesaurus, I can only imagine that my younger self grew frustrated with it.
Anyway, it is what it is. Just because it didn't make much of an impact on my 12-year-old self, doesn't mean it would for others. So please don't think I'm not saying the book isn't worth giving to a younger person.
What I'm trying to get at is that I've had this book in my possession since the 7th grade, and as the years rolled on, I sort of forgot what was even inside it, and instead felt wistful every time I saw the cover, flashing back to those early days of my burgeoning horror-lit love.
So when I finally re-read it as an adult, it left me underwhelmed as a whole. There were two stories in it than I genuinely liked, that managed to elicit eeriness to my jaded imagination. One was "The Jonah" (although the ending was a bit weak), and the other was "The Evil Eye." The latter had a Poe quality to it that I enjoyed. "The Fulfillment" is easily the weirdest story in the bunch—I liked it, even though it's a bit corny in retrospect.
Overall, Hurwood is a decent writer, and at times he evokes a palpable atmosphere of dread and creepiness. These are, essentially, campfire stories, so analyzing them too much defeats the purpose. It's just a shame that so many of the stories sputter out and become quickly forgotten after the final sentences are read.
Sometimes it's best to let memories remain, even if they aren't quite what you remember them to be.
I began my fascination with horror books in the 7th grade. However, my parents wouldn't allow me to read anything "grown up"—Poe was okay, but Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Dean Koontz, et. al. were definitely verboten. So I had to feed my curiosity with what I could find in the school's monthly Scholastic book orders. Lots of short story collections, horror-themed Choose Your Adventure books, and R. L. Stine was starting to writing YA novels—all of these became the soil in which the seeds for my horror lit obsession would grow.
Eerie Tales of Terror and Dread was one of the books I bought, along with another Hurwood collection whose name escapes me at the moment. Frankly, I have no real memories of reading this book back then, even though I know I did. Re-reading it now, I can see that the stories would have...not gone over my head or anything, but definitely bored me. Hey, I was 12—I wasn't much for subtlety or ambiguous endings back then. The stories in this book aren't heavy on excitement, is what I'm saying.
The majority of the tales are pretty bland. Problem is, most of them start out intriguing, but then whimper off into trite, "years later, people still swore they heard noises coming from such and such" denouements—which, frankly, give the impression that the author didn't know how to carry through with his premises. I finished most of the stories feeling completely underwhelmed. And yes, I realize this book is intended for kids, but Hurwood's writing isn't what I would call "kid-friendly." The vocabulary he uses is for older readers—and while I certainly advocate teaching kids to use the dictionary and the thesaurus, I can only imagine that my younger self grew frustrated with it.
Anyway, it is what it is. Just because it didn't make much of an impact on my 12-year-old self, doesn't mean it would for others. So please don't think I'm not saying the book isn't worth giving to a younger person.
What I'm trying to get at is that I've had this book in my possession since the 7th grade, and as the years rolled on, I sort of forgot what was even inside it, and instead felt wistful every time I saw the cover, flashing back to those early days of my burgeoning horror-lit love.
So when I finally re-read it as an adult, it left me underwhelmed as a whole. There were two stories in it than I genuinely liked, that managed to elicit eeriness to my jaded imagination. One was "The Jonah" (although the ending was a bit weak), and the other was "The Evil Eye." The latter had a Poe quality to it that I enjoyed. "The Fulfillment" is easily the weirdest story in the bunch—I liked it, even though it's a bit corny in retrospect.
Overall, Hurwood is a decent writer, and at times he evokes a palpable atmosphere of dread and creepiness. These are, essentially, campfire stories, so analyzing them too much defeats the purpose. It's just a shame that so many of the stories sputter out and become quickly forgotten after the final sentences are read.
Sometimes it's best to let memories remain, even if they aren't quite what you remember them to be.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews