Favorite book 'series' ?
- Thread starter Charon
- Start date
Thank you so much for this topic. I'll answer it in two ways.
Favorite series
Southern Reach Series by Jeff Vandermeer
The reissued History of Middle Earth hardbacks that just got released this past year
Favorite series by specific publisher
Definitely second the Masters of the Weird Tale by Centipede
Would also put Tartarus's Robert Aickman series and Arthur Machen seres. Not only are both the most comprehensive series for that author, they are also beautiful and imminently readable. They have no peer.
I love Night Shade Press's Clark Ashton Smith, Manly Wade Wellman and W.H. Hodgson series. Brilliant.
I'll stop with this one: PS Publishing's Black Wings series. Perfect Lovecraftian anthology.
Favorite series
Southern Reach Series by Jeff Vandermeer
The reissued History of Middle Earth hardbacks that just got released this past year
Favorite series by specific publisher
Definitely second the Masters of the Weird Tale by Centipede
Would also put Tartarus's Robert Aickman series and Arthur Machen seres. Not only are both the most comprehensive series for that author, they are also beautiful and imminently readable. They have no peer.
I love Night Shade Press's Clark Ashton Smith, Manly Wade Wellman and W.H. Hodgson series. Brilliant.
I'll stop with this one: PS Publishing's Black Wings series. Perfect Lovecraftian anthology.
Charon
Mystic
Thank you very much for your response Michael!
I totally forgot about the Collected Works series by Nightshade - i do own the William Hope Hodgson Hodgson and the Clark Ashton Smith hardbacks , and they are great!
Black Wings is also a great series, it contains some of the best Cthulhu tales of the past years.
I should add the works of Reggie Oliver to your Aickman and Machen suggestions by Tartarus Press.
I totally forgot about the Collected Works series by Nightshade - i do own the William Hope Hodgson Hodgson and the Clark Ashton Smith hardbacks , and they are great!
Black Wings is also a great series, it contains some of the best Cthulhu tales of the past years.
I should add the works of Reggie Oliver to your Aickman and Machen suggestions by Tartarus Press.
Acutely decayed
Grimscribe
I quite like Ellen Datlow's work, though it can be sporadic, the best is certainly yet to come
cannibal cop
Grimscribe
The Night Visions series of illustrated hardcovers from Dark Harvest. I only had a couple of its volumes, but I value the first one so highly it almost doesn’t matter what was in the rest of the books. Some of them were eventually reissued as mass-market paperbacks under different titles and sans the striking cover designs and interior illustrations.
So many great past horror series were at one time available in attractive and attractively priced mass-market editions. On any day of the week you could pick up a copy of a great horror anthology at a bookstall or a newsstand with the change in your pocket and still have enough left to cover your bus fare and a coffee.
The Shadows books from Berkley are still probably my favorite overall, but there’s a lot of competition for that title.
The Whispers reprint anthologies from Jove (I think). DAW’s Years Best Horror Stories. The Night Cry series (an offshoot of Twilight Zone Magazine).
The Ghost Books, Not at Night series, and Pan Books of Horror Stories from the UK. Not to mention the Fontana Great Ghost/Horror Stories lines.
Richard Matheson’s Shock series. Clive Barker’s first three Books of Blood in their hilariously lurid Berkley editions. The understatedly stylish two-book set of Robert Aickman’s stories from Mandarin. Ramsey Campbell’s New Terrors 1 & 2. The brilliant Books of the Dead 1 & 2…
And maybe even God Itself doesn’t know what else…
So many great past horror series were at one time available in attractive and attractively priced mass-market editions. On any day of the week you could pick up a copy of a great horror anthology at a bookstall or a newsstand with the change in your pocket and still have enough left to cover your bus fare and a coffee.
The Shadows books from Berkley are still probably my favorite overall, but there’s a lot of competition for that title.
The Whispers reprint anthologies from Jove (I think). DAW’s Years Best Horror Stories. The Night Cry series (an offshoot of Twilight Zone Magazine).
The Ghost Books, Not at Night series, and Pan Books of Horror Stories from the UK. Not to mention the Fontana Great Ghost/Horror Stories lines.
Richard Matheson’s Shock series. Clive Barker’s first three Books of Blood in their hilariously lurid Berkley editions. The understatedly stylish two-book set of Robert Aickman’s stories from Mandarin. Ramsey Campbell’s New Terrors 1 & 2. The brilliant Books of the Dead 1 & 2…
And maybe even God Itself doesn’t know what else…
cannibal cop
Grimscribe
That looks like a very good deal. I’ve read the first three, and while I rate the first as an underappreciated horror classic, the third is also very good and boasts the first appearance of Barker’s Hellraiser novella. The illustrations in 1 & 3 are top-notch as well.
Others in the series feature pretty popular writers, I think Stephen King, Richard Laymon, Dan Simmons, Robert McCammon, Georg RR Martin all show up in there somewhere…
Charon
Mystic
Indeed!
''The Valancourt Book of Victorian Christmas Ghost Stories'', ''The Valancourt Book Of Horror Stories'' and ''Paperbacks From Hell'', collect some of the finest fiction...
bendk
Grimscribe
The origin of the Ghosts and Scholars series started with the fanzine. There they collected the best stories and published them in this book. I have many of the fanzines.
In Ghosts & Scholars issue #24 (1997) there was a four-page article on Ligotti, including a book review of The Nightmare Factory, called "Dreams of the Good Doctor" by Rob Grano.
https://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?t=10363&highlight=grano
cannibal cop
Grimscribe
The Great Horror Stories books are worthy of attention, too. Their format was a little different from the Ghost Stories from what I can tell, a combination of semi-obscure classics and reprints of interest published alongside original material. Much of the content of those books (and others such as the original Frighteners anthologies) was later collected in a number of budget hardcover omnibus volumes such as 65 Great Spinechillers that made it possible to build a solid library of horror stories old and new-ish at an almost unreasonably low price.
Around the early ‘90s Underwood-Miller planned to reissue the contents of the DAW Year’s Best Horror Stories books in a series of hardcover omnibus collections. Only three volumes of HorrorStory ended up being printed. I lucked into two of them being sold off at half price and they remain two of my most valued literary possessions.
