Pan Horror is coming back !

Back from the Dead

The return of

THE PAN BOOK OF

HORROR STORIES

Selected by

Herbert van Thal

Returning after fifty years (its first edition – as pictured here – published on 11^th December 1959) Pan are re-releasing this classic series of horror story books back onto bookshelves on 1^st October 2010 in time for perfect Halloween-time reading.

I didn’t know the history of these classic collections, so the introduction by Johnny Mains (Super fan and horror expert) was very welcome.

I was shocked at the fact that it may have well been a certain Stephen King that led to the demise of the series. A decision to reprint some of his short stories, including The Lawnmower Man, might have seemed a smart move, but it had a negative effect on sales as many readers already had his tales in his own published collections and so were actually ‘less’ likely to purchase the latter editions of the Pan collections.

If the taster copy I have read, which features just one story from the original first collection, is anything to go by, then I will be buying these with an almost vampiric hunger.

‘The House of Horror’ by Seabury Quinn was written for the original first book, but I found it a nastier read than a scene in many a current serial killer book you could pick up in a bookstore today. Its ascending level of horror as the central characters descend into the lower levels of the house in question and the steady reveal of the horrors within are handled and paced so well. The final result something akin to discovering the horrors of The Silence of the Lambs and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre all in the one basement.

Its theme of personal revenge being taken out on those not even responsible for what originally angered the aggressor are not new, by any means, but Quinn got here a long time ago – a long time before our current crop of horror writers.

A recommended blast from horror’s past and something I am looking forward to afresh later this year.

Keith B Walters