James Herbert - The Authorised True Story 1943-2013


Book Description

James Herbert reigned supreme as Britain's undisputed master of horror before his death in March 2013. But his legacy lives on in this fully authorised work, Craig Cabell examines the story behind horror writing's most darkly brilliant mind.For almost 40 years, Herbert was Britain's most popular horror author. With sales of over 50 million copies, he carved a niche in quality bestselling fiction all of his own. Famous for his Rats trilogy and The Fog, he broke away from the cut-and-thrust populist horror novels of the 1970s and 80s to more though-provoking works, featuring the scientific reasoning behind the manifestations of the ghosts and spirits in which he truly believed. Books such as Others, Once...and The Secret of Crickley Hall bear testament to his growth as a writer and his continuing desire to chill his readers.Craig Cabell's exploration into the dark, sinister world of James Herbert is given incredible depth thanks to a series of over a dozen exclusive candid interviews. Drawing striking parallels between Herbert's career and the events of his life, this work sheds light on the personal demons which drove the boy from London's East End to become the pre-eminent horror writer of his generation.Cabell, a friend and confidant of Herbert's until the very end, shares personal correspondence and reminiscences - including one of Herbert's previously unpublished pieces entitles To Ye All - to complete a portrait of one of the most iconic authors of the 20th Century.Prepare to be gripped by the utterly absorbing last chapter in the life of the Master of Chills.




120 Days of Sodom


Book Description

The 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis de Sade relates the story of four wealthy men who enslave 24 mostly teenaged victims and sexually torture them while listening to stories told by old prostitutes. The book was written while Sade was imprisoned in the Bastille and the manuscript was lost during the storming of the Bastille. Sade wrote that he "wept tears of blood" over the manuscript's loss. Many consider this to be Sade crowing acheivement.




Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, Vol 1


Book Description

Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature, A Checklist, 1700-1974, Volume one of Two, contains an Author Index, Title Index, Series Index, Awards Index, and the Ace and Belmont Doubles Index.




Psychomania


Book Description

When journalist Robert Stanhope arrives at the Crowsmoor asylum for the criminally insane to interview the institutes enigmatic director, Dr. Lionel Parrish, little does he realize that an apparently simple series of tests will lead him into a terrifying world of murder and insanity… In this chilling new anthology, compiled by multiple award-winning editor Stephen Jones, some of the biggest and brightest names in horror and crime fiction come together to bring you twisted tales of psychos, schizoids, and serial killers with occasional supernatural twists. Reggie Oliver revives Edgar Allan Poe’s wily French detective C. Auguste Dupin, and there is a new story from the popular British mystery series, “Bryant & May” by Christopher Fowler. Internationally best-selling author Michael Marshall also contributes to this collection with the return of The Straw Men conspiracy. An original wraparound sequence in the style of John Llewellyn Probert sets the tone for this dark collection of stories, as well as a hitherto unpublished introduction by Robert Bloch, author of Psycho and the inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock’s famous film. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.




The Modern Weird Tale


Book Description

This is a critical study of many of the leading writers of horror and supernatural fiction since World War II. The primary purpose is to establish a canon of weird literature, and to distinguish the genuinely meritorious writers of the past fifty years from those who have obtained merely transient popular renown. Accordingly, the author regards the complex, subtle work of Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Robert Aickman, T.E.D. Klein, and Thomas Ligotti as considerably superior to the best-sellers of Stephen King, Clive Barker, Peter Straub, and Anne Rice. Other writers such as William Peter Blatty, Thomas Tryon, Robert Bloch, and Thomas Harris are also discussed. Taken as a whole, the volume represents a pioneering attempt to chart the development of weird fiction over the past half-century.







Marquis de Sade


Book Description

A detailed, analytical study of the life and times of this brilliant but bizarre personality (and the sexually erotic times he lived in), containing the essence of all his writings, based on research by Bloch in private archives of the French Government, and Bloch's discovery of de Sade's unpublished manuscript of 120 Days of Sodom in Marseilles. The work contains a precis of the 120 Days of Sodom, the first attempt systematically to catalog and describe abnormal sexual behavior -- 100 years before Krafft-Ebing. A serious academic study of France during de Sade's time, its sexual morality, de Sade's works, and the role of sadism in literature, etc., this biography precedes de Beauvoir's Faut-il Brule de Sade? and began the resuscitation and modern study of De Sade. The author Iwan Bloch, a German physician, won a distinguished name in the world of science in the fields, of medical history and anthropology.




Through the Pale Door


Book Description

Through the Pale Door is a bibliographical guide to the primary sources and central texts of American Gothic literature. It surveys and defines the Gothic achievements of approximately 200 American writers who were working in and were influenced by various modes of Gothicism from 1798 to 1982. The book collects, selects, identifies, and classifies all specimens of American Gothic literary activity from its initial expression at the end of the 18th century in the novels of Charles Brockden Brown, to the writings of the modern masters such as H.P. Lovecraft, Shirley Jackson, Joyce Carol Oates, and Stephen King. The historical introduction explains and emphasizes those special characteristics, tendencies, and directions taken by the shapers of an American Gothic tradition which made it different from the British model form. The core bibliography brings together 509 entries selected to suggest the development and variety of American Gothic endeavor in both its popular and more serious manifestations. Each item in the bibliography is analytic and critical as well as synoptic in its substance with each item assigned a single number for instantaneous referencing and cross-referencing. An appendix citing the important secondary studies of American Gothicism and three indexes, an author-and-title index and an index of critics and subjects, are provided to enhance the researcher's task and to give immediate access to all of the materials of Through the Pale Door. This book is suitable for any library and can be read in its entirety by general students as a bibliographical chronicle of the American Gothic movement.