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Part 2 (due to length)
“The Rats in the Walls”
By H. P. Lovecraft
Rating: 9/10
Quote: “When I speak of poor Norrys they accuse me of a hideous thing, but they must know I did not do it.”
Comments: I’ve read “The Rats in the Walls” before and it’s a very good story. Steven King’s short story “Jerusalem’s Lot” has some similarities to it, in addition to also seeming a lot like a Poe story.
“Schalken the Painter”
By J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Rating: 9/10
Quote: “The living and the dead cannot be one: God has forbidden it.”
Comments: Who, or more aptly WHAT, did Rose Velderkaust marry?
“The Yellow Wallpaper”
By Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Rating: 6/10
Quote: “I’ve got out at last in spite of you and Jane.”
Comments: This lady’s nuts. I wasn’t very impressed with this particular story, though the editor seems to love it.
“A Rose for Emily”
By William Faulkner
Rating: 8/10
Quote: “I want arsenic.”
Comments: Emily was always prevented from finding true love by her father. After he died, she found it…and kept it.
“How Love Came to Professor Guildea”
By Robert Hichens
Rating: 10/10
Quote: “I am also convinced that this visitor has not left the house and is at this moment in it.”
Comments: Professor Guildea finds love all right…but he doesn’t want it!
“Born of Man and Woman”
By Richard Matheson
Rating: 4/10
Quote: “If they try to beat me again I’ll hurt them. I will.”
Comments: I’m not sure how human the kid is, but this story is definitely not one of Matheson’s better ones. I didn’t like this one at all.
“My Dear Emily”
By Joanna Russ
Rating: 7/10
Quote: “You’re safe, my Emily!”
Comments: This one reminded me a lot of Dracula. Poor deluded Will. He just doesn’t get it.
“You Can Go Now”
By Dennis Etchison
Rating: 7/10
Quote: “YOU CAN GO NOW.”
Comments: This was an interesting little foray into the mind of man.
“The Rocking-horse Winner”
By D. H. Lawrence
Rating: 10/10
Quote: “There must be more money!”
Comments: Paul’s mother wishes desperately for luck. Paul provides that luck, but at a fearful cost.
“Three Days”
By Tanith Lee
Rating: 10/10
Quote: “I shall be grateful for that, to Honorine, until the day of my death.”
Comments: This is quite possibly the best short story I’ve ever read. The narrator reveals the good that can come out of a horrible event.
“Good Country People”
By Flannery O’Connor
Rating: 8/10
Quote: “Give me my leg!”
Comments: This one made me laugh. Appearances can be deceiving. Just because you have a Ph.D. doesn’t mean you’re better than me. A lot of you so-called “doctors” out there ought to keep that in mind!
“Mackintosh Willy”
By Ramsey Campbell
Rating: 9/10
Quote: “It’s only three feet deep. He’ll never drown in there.”
Comments: This is a nice little tale of revenge served cold…as a corpse, that is! (Insert Cryptkeeper’s laugh here.)
“The Jolly Corner”
By Henry James
Rating: 7/10
Quote: “I could have liked him.”
Comments: A man yearns to see what he could have been…but the results are not what he expected. I was not as enthralled by this one as the editors seem to be.
“Smoke Ghost”
By Fritz Leiber
Rating: 9/10
Quote: “Have you ever seen a ghost, Miss Millick?”
Comments: Catesby Wran has, just not what you’d ordinarily think of when you think of a ghost.
“Seven American Nights”
By Gene Wolfe
Rating: 7/10
Quote: “Here I am at last!”
Comments: This story, about a decrepit, foul, abnormal, fallen America of the future, contains a lot of allusions to places in Washington, D.C. I’m afraid I may not have caught all of them, and I’m not entirely sure what I just read. Still, it was an interesting, solid story.
“The Signal-Man”
By Charles Dickens
Rating: 9/10
Quote: “Halloa! Below there! Look out! Look Out!”
Comments: I found Dickens’ tale of a railroad signal man seeing a ghostly apparition to be a very good short story. I was unaware that the author did any other ghostly tales aside from “A Christmas Carol”, but apparently he did many.
“Crouch End”
By Stephen King
Rating: 10/10
Quote: “You think Crouch End’s a very quiet place, don’t you?”
Comments: This King tale is a tribute to Lovecraft, with a lot of Lovecraftian name dropping thrown in. Crouch End is an area where the fabric thins dangerously, and sometimes people go in…or things come out.
“Night-Side”
By Joyce Carol Oates
Rating: 9/10
Quote: “Heretics he called us. Looking straight at me.”
Comments: Dr. Perry Moore is a non-believer in séances and spiritualists. That, however, all changes dramatically one night.
“Seaton’s Aunt”
By Walter de la Mare
Rating: 8/10
Quote: “She’s sure to be quite decent to you, Withers.”
Comments: As the editor notes, de la Mare only hints at the horrors contained within the Seaton House, and personified in the form of Arthur Seaton’s Aunt.
“Clara Militch”
By Ivan Turgenev
Rating: 10/10
Quote: “Unhappy Clara! poor frantic Clara!”
Comments: A shy, reserved man learns too late (or so it seems at the time) that he loves a woman passionately.
“The Repairer of Reputations”
By Robert W. Chambers
Rating: 6/10
Quote: “You must renounce the crown to me, do you hear, to me.”
Comments: I have heard some call this one of the five best horror stories ever written, but I personally was not all that fond of it. Is the narrator insane, or does Hastur exist? I found it most interesting for its Lovecraft connection, but maybe expected too much going in.
“The Beckoning Fair One”
By Oliver Onions
Rating: 7/10
Quote: “De-ar me! But that will be a very o-ald tune, Mr. Oleron. I will not have heard it this for-ty years!”
Comments: Author Paul Oleron doesn’t heed the warnings of his friend Elsie Bengough until it is too late.
“What Was It?”
By Fitz-James O’Brien
Rating: 9/10
Quote: “Harry, you have been smoking too much opium.”
Comments: A group of boarding house tenants discovers…something. But, as the title asks, “what was it?”
“The Beautiful Stranger”
By Shirley Jackson
Rating: 6/10
Quote: “Where is Daddy?”
Comments: Margaret suspects that the man she meets at the train station is not her husband. Is this all in Margaret’s mind, or is something sinister happening here?
“The Damned Thing”
By Ambrose Bierce
Rating: 10/10
Quote: “What is it? What the devil is it?...That Damned Thing!”
Comments: This one has a very Lovecraftian feel to it. Or, to be fair, since Bierce came first, maybe some of Lovecraft's stories have a Biercian feel. The two authors are polar opposites as far as word usage goes. Bierce was short and to the point in style, while Lovecraft was about as verbose an author as I've ever read. Despite that difference, I was especially reminded of Lovecraft's short stories "The Colour Out of Space" and "The Dunwich Horror", two favorites of mine.
“Afterward”
By Edith Wharton
Rating: 8/10
Quote: “You won’t know till afterward.”
Comments: Just as her friend had promised, Mary Boyne discovered too late the horrible truth.
“The Willows”
By Algernon Blackwood
Rating: 9/10
Quote: “Rather! If they’ll let us.”
Comments: Two men canoeing down the Danube River land in a decidedly unfriendly spot, one where the boundary between our existence and THEIRS has thinned.
“The Asian Shore”
By Thomas M. Disch
Rating: 4/10
Quote: “Yavuz! Yavuz!”
Comments: This was probably the worst story I’ve read in this anthology. I obviously didn’t get it, and I don’t care to.
“The Hospice”
By Robert Aickman
Rating: 6/10
Quote: “Most of us here are lost.”
Comments: I’m afraid I don’t really get Aickman’s work, though this story was better than the others of his that I’ve read in this anthology. A man is forced by circumstances to stay in a hospice filled with rather strange events and people.
“A Little Something For Us Tempunauts”
By Philip K. Dick
Rating: 6/10
Quote: “Dead is dead.”
Comments: This is more a sci-fi than a horror story, something you’d be likely to see on an episode of The Outer Limits.
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