Rare Haunted House Horror: Farnsworth Wright’s “The Closing Hand”
“Haunted houses are nothing but superstition. They exist only in the imagination.”
—Farnsworth Wright (The Closing Hand)
Tag: books
Horrific Lamia Tale: Clark Ashton Smith’s “The Death of Ilalotha”
Black Lord of bale and fear, master of all confusion!
By thee, thy prophet saith,
New power is given to wizards after death,
And witches in corruption draw forbidden breath
And weave such wild enchantment and illusion
As none but lamiae may use;
And through thy grace the charneled corpses lose
Their horror, and nefandous loves are lighted
In noisome vaults long nighted;
And vampires make their sacrifice to thee —
Disgorging blood as if great urns had poured
Their bright vermilion hoard
About the washed and weltering sarcophagi.
— Ludar’s Litany to Thasaidon.
Halloween Celebration–The Most Haunted Scottish Poem “Tam O’ Shanter”
“Ah! little ken’d thy reverend grannie,
That sark she coft for her wee Nannie,
Wi’ twa pund Scots (’twas a’ her riches),
Wad ever grac’d a dance of witches!”
— Robert Burns (Tam O’ Shanter)
Best Halloween Horror–Episode 31: August Derleth, Mary Shelley, & Algernon Blackwood
“Into a patch of moonlight passed the figure of a young girl, looked at them as though about to stop yet thinking better of it, smiled softly, and moved on out of sight into the surrounding darkness. The moon just caught her eyes and teeth, so that they shone; the rest of her body stood in shadow; the effect was striking — almost as though head and shoulders hung alone in mid air, watching them with this shining smile, then fading away.”—Algernon Blackwood (The Singular Death of Morton)
Best Halloween Horror–Episode 29: “Haunted Houses” (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
“All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.”
–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Haunted Houses)
Best Halloween Horror–Episode 28: “Stragella”, “Ice in the Veins”, & “Ligeia”
And human heads, many of them, scattered about like an assembly of mocking, dead-alive faces, leering at him, watching him with hellish anticipation. The place was a morgue—a charnel house!”–Hugh B. Cave (Stragella)
Best Halloween Horror–Episode 27: “Restless Waters” & “Unda; or, The Bride of the Sea”
“Black loom the crags of the uplands behind me;
Dark are the sands of the far-stretching shore.
Dim are the pathways and rocks that remind me
Sadly of years in the lost nevermore.
Soft laps the ocean on wave-polish’d boulder;
Sweet is the sound and familiar to me.
Here, with her head gently bent to my shoulder,
Walk’d I with Unda, the Bride of the Sea.”— H.P. Lovecraft (Unda, or The Bride of the Sea)
Best Halloween Horror–Episode 25: Thomas Swafford’s “A Night in the Pumpkin Patch”
“They were rotted human eyes—the stare of a corpse, looking back at him.”
— Thomas Swafford (The Pumpkin Patch)
Best Halloween Horror–Episode 22: “The Mischief of Forest Creatures”
“I don’t think you were wise to do that,” he said reflectively. “I’ve heard it said that the Wood Gods are rather horrible to those who molest them.”
“Horrible perhaps to those that believe in them, but you see I don’t,” retorted Sylvia.
— Saki (The Music on the Hill)
Best Halloween Horror–Episode 21: “Cry of the Werewolf” & “The Master of Rampling Gate”
“Rip and claw flesh and hair,
Gnaw the bones, lap the blood without care,
Moonlight in the cold dark gloom,
Illuminates the black stones of tombs,
Down in the hollow, night winds howl,
Stalk bestial in darkness with the owl,—Jeffrey LeBlanc (Cry of the Werewolf)
Best Halloween Horror–Episode 20: “The Real Werewolves By Night”
“I stooped, raised the dagger, then paused, looked up. The moon hovered close to her zenith. If I slew the thing as a man its frightful spirit would haunt me forever.” — Robert E. Howard (In the Forest of Villefere) #halloween #weirdtales #werewolf #robertehoward #hplovecraft #cmeddyjr #ralphallanlang #thesilverknife #pirateghost#werewolfbook #werewolfbynight #wolfman #wolf #hauntedhouse #rattleofbones #wolfman […]
Best Halloween Horror–Episode 19: SOLOMON KANE “Rattle of Bones”
s he turned, with his back to the Frenchman, he felt the touch of cold steel against his neck and knew that a pistol muzzle was pressed close beneath the base of his brain.”
— Robert E. Howard (Rattle of Bones)
Best Halloween Horror–Episode 18: “Solomon Kane’s Halloween”
“He spake in wonder, not in fear:
“How walks a man who died?
“Friend of old times, what do ye here,
“Long fallen at my side?”
“Rise up, rise up,” Sir Richard said,
“The hounds of doom are free;
“The slayers come to take your head
“To hang on the ju-ju tree.”— Robert E. Howard (The Return of Sir Richard Grenville)
Best Halloween Horror–Episode 17: H.P. Lovecraft & Ambrose Bierce Haunted Houses
“For many years there lived near the town of Gallipolis, Ohio, an old man named Herman Deluse. Very little was known of his history, for he would neither speak of it himself nor suffer others. It was a common belief among his neighbors that he had been a pirate— if upon any better evidence than his collection of boarding pikes, cutlasses, and ancient flintlock pistols, no one knew.”— Ambrose Bierce (The Isle of Pines)
Best Halloween Horror–Episode 16: Robert Bloch’s “The Hungry House”
Then she began to experience what she often
thought of as her “married feeling”—the peculiar
awareness which usually denoted her husband’s unseen
entrance into a room she occupied.”— Robert Bloch (The Hungry House)
Jeffrey LeBlanc 