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The Hamlyn Book 0f Horror
157 pages, Hardcover
First published July 27, 1976
33 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 28, 2016
I can remember exactly where and when I was when I first picked up Daniel Farson’s ‘The Hamlyn Book of Horror’. It was Christmas Eve 1982 and I was seven years old. Myself, my mum and my little sister were in Martin’s Newsagent in my hometown and it was on a table of reduced books at the centre of the room. Clearly it wasn’t seen as a prospective Christmas present for anyone as it had been reduced to something like £1.00. But it spoke to me. I saw it, grabbed it up and flicked through it and I asked my mother if I could please, please, please have it and - probably because she knew it would shut me up - I got an early Christmas present.
As a child I treasured this book. I would read it/look at it/ study it again and again and again. The illustrations of werewolves contained in the pages have haunted and thrilled my dreams ever since; my interest in Jack the Ripper surely comes from the pages covering the case in this book; while if I was asked to think of images to sum up ‘Dracula’; ‘Frankenstein; ‘The Island of Doctor Moreau’ and a number of other classic works of scary fiction, my mind would leap instantly to the illustrations within these pages.
It would be fair to say that the man I am today owes a phenomenal amount to this book.
But one gets older and the books you get given as a seven year old fall apart (particularly books which enjoyed as much usage as this one) and eventually the book disappears in a clean out of childhood things. But affection remains and nostalgia grows and grows until one day you look on e-bay and there it is. Soon you have a fresh and clean copy in your hands and it’s every bit as wonderful as you remembered. You flick through the pages and stare again at the pictures and the photos, and marvel at the seven year old who used to devour this (and how resilient to ghosts and ghouls and things that go bump in the night kids actually are) and you feel your life is somehow complete again.
In short, this book has given me hundreds of hours of pleasure across the last thirty years and I have never given five stars to a book more fulsomely than I give to ‘The Hamlyn Book of Horror’.
As a child I treasured this book. I would read it/look at it/ study it again and again and again. The illustrations of werewolves contained in the pages have haunted and thrilled my dreams ever since; my interest in Jack the Ripper surely comes from the pages covering the case in this book; while if I was asked to think of images to sum up ‘Dracula’; ‘Frankenstein; ‘The Island of Doctor Moreau’ and a number of other classic works of scary fiction, my mind would leap instantly to the illustrations within these pages.
It would be fair to say that the man I am today owes a phenomenal amount to this book.
But one gets older and the books you get given as a seven year old fall apart (particularly books which enjoyed as much usage as this one) and eventually the book disappears in a clean out of childhood things. But affection remains and nostalgia grows and grows until one day you look on e-bay and there it is. Soon you have a fresh and clean copy in your hands and it’s every bit as wonderful as you remembered. You flick through the pages and stare again at the pictures and the photos, and marvel at the seven year old who used to devour this (and how resilient to ghosts and ghouls and things that go bump in the night kids actually are) and you feel your life is somehow complete again.
In short, this book has given me hundreds of hours of pleasure across the last thirty years and I have never given five stars to a book more fulsomely than I give to ‘The Hamlyn Book of Horror’.
October 1, 2023
Absolutely loved this when I read it as a 12 year old. I vividly remember the image of Goya's Saturn devouring his son. Farson created a fantastic mood and I certainly devoured his book
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews