Results
GHOST STORIES AND OTHER QUEER TALES.
London: C. Arthur Pearson Ltd., n.d., [1931]. Octavo, pp. [1-6] 7-256, original black cloth, front and spine panels stamped in orange. First collected edition. An omnibus volume combining UNCANNY STORIES (1916) and MORE UNCANNY STORIES (1918), which in turn were selected from PEARSON'S NOVEL MAGAZINE. Includes two early stories by noted mystery writer Roy Vickers; also a death premonition story by Theo. Douglas (Mrs. H. D. Everett). Routine commercial work of World War I-era. On the plus side, it should be noted that these are stories seldom encountered elsewhere. "Mostly crude horror." - Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 690. Bleiler (1978), p. 7. Reginald 05932.
SOMETIME, NEVER: THREE TALES OF IMAGINATION by William Golding, John Wyndham [and] Mervyn Peake.
New York: Ballantine Books, [1957]. Small octavo, pictorial wrappers. First U.S. edition. Ballantine Books 215. Original anthology collecting three novellas: "Envoy Extraordinary" by William Golding (science fiction set in the ancient world), "Consider Her Ways" by John Wyndham (feminist science fiction set in a dystopian future), and "Boy in Darkness" by Mervyn Peake (a fantastic tale set in the world of Titus Groan). Golding's story was adapted later as a play and published as THE BRASS BUTTERFLY (1958). According the Berger (Science Fiction and the New Dark Age, pp. 196-8), Wyndham's "haunting" novella in which "the preventable is not prevented," is "the quintessence of dystopian fiction." Anatomy of Wonder (1995) 3-78. Reginald 13447.
NOT LONG FOR THIS WORLD ...
New York: The Telegraph Press, [1936]. Octavo, pp. [1-9] 10-224 [note: first leaf is a blank], original gray cloth, front and spine panels stamped in gold. First U. S. edition. Published earlier in Britain as MY GRIMMEST NIGHTMARE (1935). Original anthology with twenty-two stories by Cynthia Asquith, Algernon Blackwood, Marjorie Bowen, H. de Vere Stacpoole, Noel Langley, Theodora Benson, and others. The stories in this collection were originally broadcast in 1934 on the BBC program "Nightmares" produced by Cecil Madden. The compilation of the volume is sometimes mistakenly attributed to Cynthia Asquith. Barron (ed), Horror Literature 3-1. Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 59. Bleiler (1978), p. 12. Reginald 10548.
THE BOOK OF A THOUSAND THRILLS: ALL-STAR STORIES OF MYSTERY, CRIME AND ROMANCE.
London: Allied Newspapers Ltd., n.d., [193-]. Octavo, original pictorial blue cloth, front and spine panels stamped in black. First edition. 1023-page anthology with fifty stories by Ruby M. Ayres, Cameron Blake, Victor Bridges. John Buchan, Reginald Campbell, Leslie Charteris, J. S. Fletcher, R. Austin Freeman, and others. Contento and Greenberg, Index to Crime and Mystery Anthologies, pp. 547-48.
MY BEST MYSTERY STORY: A COLLECTION OF STORIES CHOSEN BY THEIR OWN AUTHORS.
London: Faber and Faber Ltd, [1939]. Octavo, original red cloth, spine stamped in gold. First edition. 550-page anthology with nineteen stories by Peter Cheyney, Agatha Christie, Freeman Will Crofts, Philip MacDonald, Ellery Queen, John Rhode, E. C. Vivian, and others. Follow up volume to MY BEST DETECTIVE STORY.
SPACE ODYSSEY.
[London];: Octopus Books Limited, [1983]. Octavo, cloth. First edition. 349-page "instant remainder" anthology reprinting twenty-five stories, some of them classics, by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Roger Zelazny, John W. Campbell, Fritz Leiber, H. G. Wells, J. G. Ballard and many others. Reginald 16614.