The Grisly Horror

"If you still love Constance Brand, for God's sake forget your hate and come to Ballville Manor as quickly as the devil can drive you. RICHARD BALLVILLE." That was all. It reached him by telegraph in that Far Western city where McGrath had resided since his return from Africa. He would have ignored it, but for the mention of Constance Brand... It was the name of one he thought dead for three years; the name of the only woman Bristol McGrath had ever loved. The Grisly Horror is the name of a pulp fiction novel by the author Robert E. Howard. Howard is famed for creating the character, 'Conan the Barbarian."

Robert Ervin Howard (1906-1936) was an American pulp writer of fantasy, horror, historical adventure, boxing, western, and detective fiction. He is well known for having created the character Conan the Cimmerian, a literary icon whose pop-culture imprint can be compared to such icons as Tarzan of the Apes, Sherlock Holmes, and James Bond. Voracious reading, along with a natural talent for prose writing and the encouragement of teachers, conspired to create in Howard an interest in becoming a professional writer. One by one he discovered the authors that would influence his later work: Jack London and Rudyard Kipling.

Horror comics were among the first comic books published--ghastly tales that soon developed an avid young readership, along with a bad reputation. Parent groups, psychologists, even the United States government joined in a crusade to wipe out the horror comics industry--and they almost succeeded. Yet the genre survived and flourished, from the 1950s to today. This history covers the tribulations endured by horror comics creators and the broader impact on the comics industry. The genre's ultimate success helped launch the careers of many of the biggest names in comics. Their stories and the stories of other key players are included, along with a few surprises.

"Bloodcurdling shrieks, fiendish schemes, deeds of darkness, mayhem and mutilation—we all have a rough idea of what Grand Guignol stands for. But until now it has been hard to find out much more about it than that. According to the American theater historian Mel Gordon, no major history of the theater so much as mentions it, although it is a form of entertainment that held its own on the Paris stage for more than half a century. But Mr. Gordon has made a thorough job of filling the gap."—John Gross, The New York Times Here is the expanded edition of classic outré book, The Grand Guignol, first published in 1988 and now long out of print. Like the original anthology, it includes an illustrated introduction to the theater of Paris and abroad, a breakdown of its stage tricks, a summary of one hundred plots, extensive photo documentation, André de Lord's essay, "Fear in Literature," and two originally produced Grand Guignol scripts. The expanded edition also contains additional graphic and textual material including a color insert of Grand Guignol posters; the 1938 autobiographical account of Maxa, the company's leading female performer entitled "I Am the Maddest Woman in the World"; and the controversial playscript Orgy in the Lighthouse.

Good Press presents to you this unique collection, designed and formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. Content: Edgar Allan Poe: The Masque of the Red Death The Murders in the Rue Morgue... H. P. Lovecraft: The Call of Cthulhu The Dunwich Horror... Henry James: The Turn of the Screw... Mary Shelley: Frankenstein... Arthur Conan Doyle: The Hound of the Baskervilles... Bram Stoker: Dracula The Jewel of Seven Stars... Gaston Leroux: The Phantom of the Opera Washington Irving: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow... Robert Louis Stevenson: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde... James Malcolm Rymer: Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street H. G. Wells: The Island of Doctor Moreau Richard Marsh: The Beetle Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: Carmilla Uncle Silas... Nikolai Gogol: Dead Souls... Rudyard Kipling: The Phantom Rickshaw... Hugh Walpole: Portrait of a Man with Red Hair All Souls' Night Robert E. Howard: The 'John Kirowan' Saga The 'De Montour' Saga Cthulhu Mythos M. R. James: Ghost Stories of an Antiquary A Thin Ghost and Others Wilkie Collins: The Haunted Hotel The Dead Secret... The Woman in White Guy de Maupassant: The Horla... E. F. Benson: The Room in the Tower The Man Who Went Too Far... Nathaniel Hawthorne: The House of the Seven Gables Rappaccini's Daughter The Birth Mark... Ambrose Bierce: Can Such Things Be? The Ways of Ghosts Some Haunted Houses Arthur Machen: The Great God Pan... William Hope Hodgson: The Ghost Pirates Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder... M. P. Shiel: Shapes in the Fire... Ralph Adams Cram: Black Spirits and White Grant Allen: The Reverend John Creedy... Horace Walpole: The Castle of Otranto William Thomas Beckford: Vathek Matthew Gregory Lewis: The Monk Ann Radcliffe: The Mysteries of Udolpho Jane Austen: Northanger Abbey Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights Charles Dickens: The Mystery of Edwin Drood Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray Marie Belloc Lowndes: From Out the Vast Deep

"Black Canaan" is a short story by American writer Robert E. Howard, originally published in the June 1936 issue of Weird Tales magazine. It is a regional horror story in the Southern Gothic mode, one of several such tales by Howard set in the piney woods of the Ark Latex region of the Southern United States. Kirby Buckner receives a startling warning from an old Creole woman about trouble in his hometown and sets off on a journey to the land of his birth. But he soon encounters a young woman on his way. Who turns out to be a witch...

This is a collection of horror stories by the master scary writer, Robert E. Howard. Those who love his work will not be disappointed by such treasures as Red Nails while those new to it will need to bear in mind that current ideas of acceptability of language and description do not necessarily match those of the 1930s.