The Pan Book of Horror Stories

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The Tempest is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays and I’ve always wondered what happened to Miranda after. And I liked to imagine her older, like who is she now? That’s something I might write someday …I’ve [also] been really toying with a kind of post-apocalyptic Red Riding Hood. From around volume nine there was a stronger focus on fresh talent rather than established authors and provided some much needed exposure for new writing talent. This was in the nature of a coffin supported by six headless bearers goose-stepping towards a white headstone. Underneath … with grim irony, the legend ‘Ye Journey’s End’”. The thing that first attracted me to the books was the lurid cover design that would sometimes thrill, occasionally titillate but usually disgust and intrigue. Combine the strong, vivid cover designs together with stories from new authors as well as classic authors and you had a winning combination. With such a weight of contention, any attempt at a list of ‘best’ horror novels is doomed to disagreement. That’s fine. All lists are subjective. We have, however, tried to celebrate the breadth of horror—to highlight those books that establish something about the genre or push it forward into new realms. It’s worth noting that we have confined our choices to novels. Short horror fiction has a parallel ­­but distinct history that would require a survey all of its own.

Growing up in the 1970s and ’80s, a series of books featuring collections of short horror stories fed my hunger for interesting horror stories at an affordable price, that series of books was the ‘Pan Book of Horror Stories.’In tribute to this once ubiquitous set of books, here’s the cover art, accompanied in each case by a listing of the stories, and featuring also an index of the stories, listed by author. I was predisposed not to like Lost Boy: The True Story of Captain Hook, a Peter Pan prequel from the point-of-view of Captain Hook. Not only is Peter Pan one of my favorite stories of all time, but I worried that this book was simply jumping on the Villain Retelling Bandwagon.

Some of the stories included featured works from authors such as Peter Fleming, C S Forester, Ray Bradbury and Bram Stoker. Somewhat reluctantly, he decides to put up there for the night. At first, his main cause of concern is that the landlord is eyeless and reminds him of a slug, but there’s also a beautiful girl hanging around and at least she must be harmless … It’s not a YA book. It’s a book that’s written for adults. It goes in the adult section, so I hope that will mitigate some of the concerns, but I have spoken to a few parents who have come up to me at signings and said, ‘I have a 12-year-old who really loves Peter Pan. Would she like this?’ And I’m like, ‘Maybe you want to wait a couple of years.’ It’s a case-by-case basis. Usually I do say that my editor calls it Lord of the Flies meets Peter Pan. If your kids aren’t ready for Lord of the Flies, they’re probably not ready for my book, either.” Putting a spin on an existing story is nothing new. Where did the idea for Lost Boycome from?Henry has an 11-year-old son who was obsessed with the story of Peter Pan when he was five. They would watch the 1953 Disney animated film and read the story over and over again.Cook pays a visit to the houseboat. It’s a fair bet he won’t be eating any kebabs in the foreseeable future. The early editions of the Pan Book of Horror Stories were notable for their lurid cover art [2] and Van Thal's introduction of stories by new authors alongside classics of the genre. The first edition included works by Peter Fleming, Muriel Spark, Bram Stoker and C. S. Forester. Later volumes featured Ray Bradbury and Lord Dunsany among others. Basil Copper made his debut in fifth volume, with the story "The Spider". [3] The series also published work by Charles Birkin, R. Chetwynd-Hayes and Alex Hamilton. [4] After volume nine, Van Thal placed a heavier reliance on new authors. The series grew in popularity and was the stepping stone for much new talent. [1] In the 1970s, the increasingly violent content of the Pan Books provoked some controversy. [4] In the early 1980s a slow decline in standards was observed. Popularity rose again in the late decade, but a multitude of reprint stories from Stephen King and a severe slide in quality ended the iconic series in 1989. The last book is now a rare collectors item, owing to the small print run it received.

You will see some unexpected inclusions in this list, and some surprising absences. Certain big names are missing because their greatest contributions are in short form, or because their books tread ground better travelled by others. Equally, some of these choices may cause horror fans’ eyes to wrinkle in confusion. But perhaps, in the end, that’s the secret of horror: it’s personal. It’s about how it makes you feel. They wanted to make sure that people knew it would be a dark book. They didn’t want people looking for a light-hearted Peter Pan book to be surprised, so those concerns went to the cover design.” Peter Pan first appeared as a character in the Scottish writer’s 1902 adult novel The Little White Birdbefore getting his own 1904 stage play, dramatized in the 2004 Johnny Depp movie (and current musical) Finding Neverland.After that, Barrie wrote the 1911 novel Peter and Wendy.

One of the things that I do and one of the things that I think a lot of authors do when they’re retelling stories is they’re finding the empty space in the original story and filling it in for themselves. That was me, wanting to answer this question of ‘Why does Hook hate Peter Pan?’ I filled in the space. I don’t think I answered every question, and so there’s still imaginative space in there for the reader to fill in that space for themselves. A U.S edition of the first Pan book was released by Gold Medal, an imprint of Fawcett Publications, and books 3, 4 and 5 were released by Berkley Medallion. While the first book was complete in its contents, the other three books gave only a small selection of their UK counterparts. There is no evidence to support PBoH #2 ever having a US release. urn:oclc:record:1392314528 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier panbookofhorrors0000unse Identifier-ark ark:/13960/s2dgzjj7qhk Invoice 1652 Isbn 9781509860104 Ocr tesseract 5.0.0-1-g862e Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 0.9892 Ocr_module_version 0.0.15 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-WL-2000085 Openlibrary_edition