Ray Bradbury – The October Country (Four Square, 1963, 1964, 1965)

The Dwarf
The watchful Poker Chip of H.Matisse
Skeleton
The Jar
The Traveller
The Emissary
Touched with Fire
The Scythe
Uncle Einar
The Wind
There was an Old Woman
Homecoming
The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone.

Blurb:
When Charlie brought home the Thing in the jar, he knew that its mystery would draw the neighbours to his lonely house — knew that it would arouse his wife’s jealousy. He was right, but he didn’t know what form his wife’s jealousy would take — nor what he would have to do to silence her for ever.
Ray Bradbury is a master of the macabre, and each of his stories is imbued with the sort of quiet horror which makes the skin clammy with apprehension. He writes about the dark corners of life — what exists on the other side of normality … the dwarf who took comfort from a distorting mirror . . . the man with the painted eye … the bone doctor with a taste for human marrow… strange … weird … flush with fantasy.

Louise Cooper (1952-2009)

Very sad to learn from the Louise Cooper message board, that the popular fantasy author who, very early in her career, authored two NEL gothic romances Blood Summer (1976) and its sequel of the In Memory Of Sarah Bailey (1977), died on Tuesday 20th October aged only 57.

Rest in Peace

Daniel P. Mannix – The Hell Fire Club (Four Square, 1961, reprinted 1962; originally Ballantine, 1959)

The rise and fall of a shocking secret society;
perversion and politics were its sole interests

Blurb:
It was the most infamous club the world has ever known.
Its meetings were held in ruined abbeys and elaborately obscene caves
Its member were high-placed politicians, landed gentry and famous men of the arts.

Its orgies and revels rocked the nation and caused the biggest riot in British history.
The story of the Hell-Fire Club. A story which has fascinated and repelled the world for two centuries.

See also the Daniel P. Maddix and Hell Fire Club threads on the Vault Of Evil forum

Lauran Paine – Witches In Fact And Fantasy (NEL, November 1976: First published in Great Britain by Robert Hale & Co. Ltd 1971)

Jacket design by Terry Griffiths

blurb:

From concepts of haggard old women astride broomsticks to innocent victims of brutal and terrifying witch hunts to harmless folk providing cures and foretelling the future. Lauran Paine has extracted the facts and produced a thoroughly authentic and fascinating account of witchcraft. Extensive research and use of much original material provides the basis for this study on the beliefs and fears, the charms and magic, and the different acts performed by and on witches throughout the ages, throughout the world. Witches in Fact and Fantasy pulls no punches. Often horrifying in its detail, it is always fascinating in its reality. To those who are sceptical about the existence of witches, this book may radically alter their views – and it will undoubtedly intrigue them.

Thanks to Steve Goodwin for alerting us to the existence of this one, and for providing the cover scan!

see also the Witches In Fact And Fantasy thread on the Vault forum

Lucinda Cowell

David Garner – This Fell Sergeant (NEL 1974)

Blurb:

Gordon Summers ran a very respectable security form – or so it seemed. In reality he was the toughest hood in London. Intelligent, capable and highly sexed he manipulated people as he pleased – his price for betrayal was death. And Summers liked to kill. But his organization had one weak link, his slow-witted brother Maurice. And because Maurice made one small, very stupid mistake, Summers was able to do all the killing he liked – only this time it was in order to save his own skin.

Ok, so This Fell Sergeant isn’t strictly horror fiction either, but it’s been the cause of much excitement since friend H. P. Saucecraft first introduced it to on the Vault forum, and that due in no small part to Lucinda Cowell’s striking (not to mention a little daring!) artwork. We like Lucinda’s stuff!

Thanks to H. P. Saucecraft for posting the cover and Franklin ‘Master of the Macabre’ Marsh for saving me the job of transcribing the blurb!

see also the This Fell Sergeant thread on the Vault Forum. Now includes Vault roving reporter Franklin Marsh’s exclusive interview with Lucinda Cowell!

‘Leslie McManus’ – Jackboot Girls (New English Library, March 1971)

Blurb:

Hitler’s edict of “breed for Germany” went unheeded by the Wolverines. They had more brutal plans for their lithe and smouldering bodies. They wanted total victory over men.

The Wolverines belonged to an all-female S.S. battalion which operated according to the sexual, obsessions of its leader, Helga Schwartz. They were notorious interro­gators whose authority to enforce their perversions went unchallenged by their cowering victims. With their women prisoners they were sadistically inventive. With each other they were uninhibited. With men they were vile, crazed, uncontrollable.

JACKBOOT GIRLS brings to light the dark depravity that was Nazi Germany

Grief! well, it’s certainly HORRIBLE. see also Vault Of Evil’s Jackboot Girls thread

Raoul Adony – French Party Games (NEL/ Four Square, Dec. 1967)

Blurb
Tired of Musical Chairs and Charades? Want to liven up your parties with a few of the games which put the 0-la-la! into French party giving? Then this is the book for you.
You can start with innocent games like ‘The Divorce’ or ‘The Perfumed Garden Game’. Then get warmed up with ‘Maids of Honour’ and ‘The Double Bed Game’.
As for the closed section – you’d better buy the book and find out about THAT for yourself!
We guarantee this will liven any party – even if you do lose your partner!

ok, i realise that this one is not, by any stretch of the imagination, horror fiction, but i’m short a number of books, need cheering up and this has a nice cover. I trouble yourself with the book, if i were you. If ‘Madame Xavier’s Deportment School’, ‘Draw Me A Shape’, and ‘Pop It In’ were really what people did for sexy games in the ’sixties, it’s a miracle any of us were born.

see also Vault’s French Party Games thread which is sure to take off one of these days ….

Stephen King – Salem’s Lot (New English Library, 1991)

Blurb:
Thousands of miles away from the small township of ‘Salem’s Lot, two terrified people still share the secrets of those clapboard houses and tree-lined streets.
One is an eleven-year-old boy. He never speaks but his eyes betray the indescribable horror he has witnessed.
The other is a man plagued by nightmares, a man who knows that soon he and the boy must return Jo ‘Salem’s Lot for a final confrontation with the unspeakable evil that lives on in the town where no one is human anymore …
`One of the few horror writers who can truly make the flesh creep’ – Sunday Express

Very dull, i know, but to keep this tub afloat while i await hundreds of new old  NEL’s to fall out of the sky at me, here’s a 17th impression of  Stephen King’s much loved vampire epic. And there’s a blurb!

Justin Marriott (ed.) – Paperback Fanatic #11 (August, 2009)

Contents

Editorial:
Fanatical Mail – Paperback fanatics from around the world have their say!
AGRO! – The Fanatic continues its look at Hell’s Angels pulps
Thirty Years Behind The Typewriter – Classic Steve Holland interview with versatile author Peter Leslie
I’ve Been Up So Long – Fanatic interviews publishing maverick Mark Howell. The NEL editor’s reminiscences of life with Laurence James, Jim Moffatt, Peter Haining, Bob Tanner & Co.
The Lives And Loves Of James Moffatt – Fanatic investigates the many pen-names of Richard ‘Skinhead’ Allen
Take A Journey to Dimension X – The Fanatic studies the ‘Jeffrey Lord’ sword and sorcery series Blade
A Green Dog Trumpeting – The Fanatic interviews Ian Miller one of the most idiosyncratic and distinctive of all paperback artists whose work includes The Sucking Pit, Errol LeCale’s Zombie, and the striking covers for the Panther reprints of Lovecraft’s At The Mountains Of Madness and The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward.

Edited by Justin Marriott : justinATjustincuitprint.free-online.co.uk
Designed by Glenn B Fleming : gbf15AThotmail.co.uk
Published August 2009: contact www.thepaperbackfanatic.com

James Moffatt – The Naked Light (New English Library, October, 1970)

Blurb:

A Satanic coven meets on the affluent slopes of Beverley Hills. The participants in the abominable rites are the biggest names in Hollywood.

An uninvited guest appears at the height of the drug-inspired orgy – a Mafia killer who really enjoys his work.

The police attempt to solve the enigma of the multiple murder – through a maze of black magic, torture and sudden death. An appalling exposure of the soft underside of Hollywood.

Thanks to Steve Goodwin for the cover scan and blurb.

See also The Naked Light thread on Vault of Evil.