The Folio Book of Horror Stories

by Corey Brickley

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Fiction, Classics, Literary Horror, Anthologies

Hardcover

Published January 1, 2018

Reviews

[Carmine R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

About horror and weird travels into the darkness

"There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will. Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day. It is always the same shape, only very numerous. And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern."

"...When I looked from that highest of all gable windows, looked while the candles sputtered and the insane viol howled with the night-wind, I saw no city spread below, and no friendly lights gleaming from remembered streets, but only the blackness of space illimitable; unimagined space alive with motion and music, and having no semblance to anything on earth."

"Instead, a harsch voice simply began speaking. "This is nine! This is ten! We have killed your friends! Every friend is now dead! This is six!" Mike listened with growing horror, not at what the voice was saying but at its rasping empitness. It was not a machine-generated voice, but it wasn't human voice, either. It was the voice of the room. The presence pouring out of the walls and the floor..."

A collection, smart in dimension but thick in substance, of short stories written by great authors in the horror genre. Despite the presence of King, Lovecraft and Poe (all of them commercial and ridondant in collective imagination), ordinary readers like me will find underrated names such as Oliver - Flowers of the sea, an amazing piece about scary visions and acceptance of mental disease - and Machen with his The white people.
Ligotti, Jackson and Blackwood, best known for other works, in this book find their place with ambiguos and unresolved stories (Vastarien, The bus and Ancient lights, respectively).

The fall of the House of Usher 5★
The Yellow Wallpaper 4★
Count Magnus 4★
The white people 5★
Ancient Lights 4★
The music of Erich Zann 4★
Smoke Ghost 3.5★
Brenda 3★
The bus 5★
Again 4★
Vastarien 4.5★
Call home 4★
1408 4★
Flowers of the sea 5★
Hippocampus S.V. (too much difficult for my terrible english skills)

[Geertje · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collection overall:
I read this with my girlfriend, which was an interesting experience. A bit of a mixed bag, but that’s to be expected of an anthology. I do find some choices, especially for the more modern part of the book, puzzling. Overall I'd give it a 3.5 stars (my girlfriend gives it 4 stars, though).

‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ – Edgar Allan Poe
2/5 stars
It’s a classic, but that doesn’t mean I have to enjoy it. Why all the difficult words, Poe? Sounds like you swallowed a dictionary. ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ is one of those stories that sounds creepy when recounted, but never feels creepy when read.

‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ – Charlotte Perkins Gilman
5/5 stars
One of my favourites and one I’ve read before. Genuinely creepy whilst also having depth.

‘Count Magnus’ – M. R. James
3/5 stars
This one was just okay. I’d read it before, but only realised it after I’d finished reading it again, so no sticking power, I’m afraid.

‘The White People’ – Arthur Machen
3.5/5 stars
I loved the writing of this one.

‘Ancient Lights’ – Algernon Blackwood
3.5/5 stars
Not so much creepy as simply entertaining.

‘The Music of Erich Zann’ – H. P. Lovecraft
3/5 stars
I’m not a fan of Lovecraft, although this is a solid enough story.

‘Smoke Ghost’ – Fritz Leiber
4/5 stars
Another story my girlfriend found weird rather than creepy, but I think it is very well executed and has an amazing premise.

‘Brenda’ – Margaret St Clair
4.5/5 stars
My girlfriend’s favourite story of the bunch. Well-written, weird AND creepy; it ticks all the boxes.

‘The Bus’ – Shirley Jackson
4/5 stars
One I had read before, and still one of the better horror stories out there. One with an ending that packs a punch.

‘Again’ – Ramsey Campbell
3.5/5 stars
So this story made my girlfriend and me laugh out loud. That’s obviously not what the author set out to do, but it is what happened. We found it very entertaining, albeit not in the way the author intended.

‘Vastarien’ – Thomas Ligotti
DNF. We made it through the first portion of the tale, and we both found it snooze-inducing. What a lot of pseudo-intellectual babbling!

‘Call Home’ – Dennis Etchison
3.5/5 stars
Another one that made the girlfriend and me laugh. This one is not so much a horror story as a thriller, or perhaps even a comedy. Plot holes aside – why does this dude not call the police? Why doesn’t he inform his girlfriend and their guests immediately of what has happened? – it was genuinely enjoyable.

‘1408’ – Stephen King
5/5 stars
We watched the movie version just before reading the story, and both are creepy and well-executed in their own way. King builds up the suspense nicely indeed. My personal favourite from this collection.

‘Flowers of the Sea’ – Reggie Oliver
4/5 stars
My girlfriend did not care for this one, saying it was “just sad and weird, not creepy”, but I enjoyed the weirdness. I also liked the writing style.

‘Hippocampus’ – Adam Nevill
2.5/5 stars
This reads more like the opening scene of a horror movie than an actual story. It’s just a description of a spooky ship, no more.

[Charles Edwards-Freshwater · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nicely curated selection of horror stories ranging from 1839 to 2015.

As ever with short story collections, some of these worked a lot better for me than others. There are the expected classics (The Fall of the House of Usher, The Yellow Wallpaper, Count Magnus) - all of which are deservedly in their place.

There's also some great stuff I'd never heard of before - Smoke Ghost by Fritz Leiber, Again by Ramsey Campbell, Flowers of the Sea by Reggie Oliver.

Unfrortunately, for every great story there was one that didn't quite hit the mark for me. The White People by Arthir Machen was a real slog (great idea, but god I found reading it a chore) and Vastarien by Thomas Ligotti were my two least favourite. I also thought some of the other offerings such as The Bus by Shirley Jackson were a bit middle of the road (Jackson has much better stories in my opinion).

So, a mixed bag. Some great, some dull, but certainly an amusing enough way to spend the dark October evenings.

[Δημήτριος Καραγιάννης · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully illustrated edition, filled with exquisite artistic paintings which depict several key moments of the stories that are included in it.
I enjoyed all of the stories and consider them all solid -and at the same time- bold picks.
Three, however, were the ones that amazed me and earned my full appreciation:
1. The White People by Arthur Machen. It fuses two aspects that i enjoy a lot in horror narratives; several scholars and initiated-wannabes exchange philosophical and cosmic views about the world, while the narrative is also expanded by the spontaneously and boundlessly written first-person tale of a possibly mentally deranged young child who has what could amount as a constant contact with supernatural and unknown entities.
2. Brenda, by Margaret St. Clair. A heart-gripping horror story that touches on racism, superstition and fear of the other.
3. Smoke Ghost, by Fritz Leiber. Powerful and invasive, this is a narrative of the urban monster of smoke, steel and manufacture, incredibly telling of its writer's age and living condition.

[Paul Kerr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cracking new collection of horror stories in - of course - a deliciously well presented Folio edition. Count Magnus by M.R. James is the standout for sheer horror manifested, but 1408 by King is equally unsettling, as is some lesser known works by key authors , particular Ancient Lights by Blackwood

[Hope · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great collection of horror stories in a beautiful, handmade book. Highly recommended. The illustrations are also wonderful.

[Sheena Forsberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

A thoroughly well put together anthology which starts with a clever introduction by horror heavyweight editor Ramsey Campbell. The stories span from the very early days of horror right up until 2015, with authors from both sides of the pond all writing within the genre (although with very different M.O’s). Not a single bad story in this lot, and I remain grateful to Campbell for having chosen content that also included classics I’ve been meaning to read (but hadn’t gotten around to until now).
-I’ve marked my favorites with an “*” and short descriptions below.

Side note: The artwork by Corey Brickley is so lovely I ended up getting a few prints of theirs, as well as buying 2 books mainly due to their work.

NB: Spoilers
————————-

-The Fall of the House of Usher (Edgar Allan Poe):
The main character is called on to visit his ailing friend Roderick Usher. His friend’s house is cracking, as is the physical and (more importantly) psychological conditions of both inhabitants (both Roderick and his sister Madeline are suffering from unknown illnesses). Told alongside the MC’s parallel telling of a knight’s tale, things come to a harrowing conclusion.
Mysterious illnesses (madness), live entombment & generally elegant writing. This is a classic for good reason.

-The Yellow Wallpaper (Charlotte Perkins Gilman):*
The main character is a woman who’s recently had a baby and finds herself in an old mansion her husband had rented for them. The husband is a physician and thinks he is treating his wife’s nervous disorder (reads like a modern day account of postpartum depression which evolves to psychosis) by keeping her from working, writing or even socializing. As the woman’s condition becomes increasingly worse; so does her obsession with the wallpaper in the room he’s placed her in. The descriptions of the wallpaper (and what/who she sees in the pattern) and the destruction of it at the hands of the MC becomes a powerful symbol of her own mental state. It is hard to imagine this story was published in 1892; the apt descriptions of PPD/PPP feel timeless and I could easily imagine her in a modern setting. Although the treatment has come a long way, it is still a condition too often mishandled and misunderstood. It is quite obvious that Gilman wrote what she knew, and it is probably the story that hit the hardest for me.

-Count Magnus (M.R. James):*
Mr. Wraxall writes travel books and comes across the legend of evil Count Magnus while in Sweden. The Count had participated in something referred to as The Black Pilgrimage and brought something back. Delving deeper, he is told the story of two men who went poaching in the Count’s lands, and where one was found catatonic and the other dead and with his face sucked off. A scary encounter at the Count’s tomb leaves Wraxall shaken and convinced he is being followed by two beings not unlike those depicted on the sarcophagus. He is found dead the day after he arrives in England, and the narrator has the house he died in torn down.

-The White People (Arthur Machen):
A discussion about the nature of evil leads to a mysterious green book being handed over to one of the discussants. The book is a young girl’s diary and tells of her experiences being introduced to secret knowledge, magic and worlds by her nursemaid. Her writing tells of legends of witchcraft, ominous stones, pagan ceremonies, a white world hidden from most and ‘white people’/mystical beings. The girl is revealed to have been found dead in front of a pagan statue. There’s aspects of this story that inspired Lovecraft.

-Ancient Lights (Algernon Blackwood):
A surveyor’s clerk is tasked with seeing to that a copse of trees is removed. He tries to take a shortcut through the woods, only to find that he keeps being turned around and thwarted by something/someone who doesn’t agree. A very short tale, and the most humorous of the lot. Also: Fairies!

-The Music of Erich Zann (H.P. Lovecraft):
A young man is searching for his old lodgings; the scene of a terrifying and unknowable experience. Through flashbacks we learn that the narrator felt himself inexplicably pulled towards the music of an elderly viol player. His music could be said to be otherworldly in more than the usual meaning of the word.

-Smoke Ghost (Fritz Leiber):*
“I don’t mean that traditional kind of ghost. I mean a ghost from the world today, with the soot of the factories in its face and the pounding of machinery in its soul”.
-A man is talking to a secretary about ghosts, specifically the idea of being haunted by a ghost of the world today. He soon finds himself seeing someone (something) dark creeping around and what looks like marks of spot on his letters.
Teeming with the uncanny and with layers of (appropriate of the times the story was written) psychoanalysis, a short and wholly engrossing read. The idea of being haunted/ overtaken by a zeitgeist being you might have created yourself is an interesting one. The fact that other people (the son, the psychoanalyst) are able to see it even more so. Reads surprisingly violent considering there’s actually no violence as such and I can’t help but wonder how much of this story is a manifestation of the wartime during which it was written; you near feel the industrialism and fascism of the sooted being.

-Brenda (Margaret St. Clair):
Brenda is a young girl vacationing with her parents when she finds herself chased by a blobby rotten-smelling man. She manages to fool him into a quarry he can’t get out off, but inexplicably feels some kind of kinship with him and lets him out.
Brenda is the kind of child who the other kids don’t really like & has grown up in a dysfunctional household. Maybe that’s why she feels the pull toward this ‘man’. At the end of the story one’s left feeling like Brenda is far more disturbing than him.

-The Bus (Shirley Jackson):*
A endearingly sourly old lady is dropped off at the wrong bus stop. She’s driven to an inn resembling her childhood home by 2 younger men and told to wait out the night (and rain). Once there, she finds herself haunted by her past. Malevolent toys and hints of a repeating loop.

-Again (Ramsey Campbell):*
Bryant is finding himself weary of the natural trail he’s on when he sees an old woman by a bungalow. She has seemingly locked herself out, and he has to crawl in via a tight fit to help her unlock the door. He’ll soon learn that there are far worse things than being out for a walk you’ve tired of.
S&M gone overboard, the dead and insane -a highly claustrophobic read (I liked it).

-Vastarien (Thomas Ligotti):
Victor Keirion is in a city dreamscape and taking it all in when he notices two disconcerting figures under a street lamp who seem to be scheming. The dream does not leave him, and Victor starts looking into it by searching for a book “that is not about something, but actually is that something”, as stated by a mysterious man who reminds Victor of a crow.
-A book with secret knowledge, a dream eater, and madness. A complex, lyrical and atmospheric read.

-Call Home (Dennis Etchison):*
No good deed goes unpunished in this short. A man receives the wrong call from a girl who thinks she’s reached her father. Frightened, alone and worried about a strange man, she leaves enough information for him to get her to safety. This is definitely a call he should have ignored.
-A really tense read which taps into what I can only imagine is common fears lurking in the back of men’s minds.

-1408 (Stephen King):*
An author writing about haunted locations decides to spend the night in a hotel room with a long string of deaths; both by suicide and seemingly more natural causes. He’s never actually encountered anything supernatural previously, but this stay will change everything. The only question is if he’ll live to tell about it.
Some nice nods to previous King works; a guest named Dearborn (A policeman in From a Buick 8 was named Dearborn; and dealt with another occurrence of people being “swallowed” by a car, not unlike this room swallows guests) & Stanley Corporation (The Shining/ The Stanley Hotel) as well as to some classics like S. Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and C.P. Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper.

-Flowers of the Sea (Reggie Oliver):
A strange blackout happens on a married telepathic couple’s drive. The wife (Helen) develops a progressive dementia-like condition soon after, something that’s reflected in her paintings which become increasingly disturbing. Things deteriorate further after they find a Victorian anthology of flowers. Never knew the concept flowers to be this disconcerting.

-Hippocampus (Adam Nevill):*
A boat adrift in a hurricane & told in a cinematic matter: A tense and slow burn as we are shown around and offered tidbits; some creaking noises as the ship battles the waves, a drop of blood here, a scalp.. there and some ancient pagan artifacts removed from their boxes.. It is not until the last couple of pages before we’re confronted with a clear view of what happened to the crew. Masterfully done.

[Corinna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Initially I was going to give this collection of stories 4 stars, but after further consideration, my final ranking is 3.5 stars. I read this along with my girlfriend, which was extremely enjoyable but I must say that I expected more from this collection. I might have gone in with different expectations; when I bought this book for her, I thought chilling tales of suspense, gore, and the like would be waiting for us. Some stories did do the job, such as "Brenda" and "1408." We were also met with stories that were unconventional in the best of ways, such as "The Yellow Wallpaper," "The Bus," and "Smoke Ghost." I'm glad I was exposed to other stories I wouldn't have read on my own but I am curious as to how some of these stories were chosen. Overall, it was enjoyable but some stories missed the mark.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was impressed by the consistent quality of the older half of this anthology. It was interesting to see the evolution of techniques and the changing anxieties of the past 200 years. I would have liked to see some more diversity of authors, especially in the more recent stories, which were quite hit or miss.

The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe - ★★★★★
An effectively tense story of mortality and decay. The sentences meander and overflow with macabre adjectives. There is a rhythm to the prose that keeps the narration engaging even when slightly convoluted.

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman - ★★★★★
A surprisingly ahead of its time condemnation of the treatment of mental illness in the 19th century, especially for women. The diary entry format conveys the confinement and ennui common to the 'rest cure' of the time, which consists of locking the protagonist away.

Count Magnus by M.R. James - ★★★
I didn't think much of this story on first read but it does linger in the mind due to a lack of closure and answers.

The White People by Arthur Manchen - ★★★★
The stream of consciousness structure of the main narrative was hard to parse, and I somehow missed the main narrator's gender in the prologue. I took the main part of this story be about a boy getting lured into a strange dimension and the dread of discovering their latent sexuality. Apparently, it's actually about a girl being inducted into witchcraft, but I liked it alright for what I thought it was.

Ancient Lights by Algernon Blackwood - ★★★
Fairly short and fairly light-hearted, I was glad to have a palate-cleanser of sorts after the darker stories. A mischievous forest decides to voice its objections when a surveyor comes to assess the possibility of cutting it down.

The Music of Erich Zann by H.P. Lovecraft - ★★★★
Good at building anticipation and teasing answers. But the crescendo pays off in spectacle rather than understanding.

Smoke Ghost by Fritz Lieber - ★★★★★
The mid-century urban anxieties of an archetypal businessman are brilliantly reinforced in every paragraph. Industrialisation, the war machine, greed, pollution - all of these manifest in the form of a 'Smoke Ghost' that he thinks he is imagining, but whose effects are very real and insidious.

Brenda by Margaret St Clair - ★★★
A monster tale about a young girl's feelings of ostracisation during puberty and her shared experiences with a rancid creature. I didn't get much out of this one personally, it was alright.

The Bus by Shirley Jackson - ★★★★
I felt sorry for the protagonist of this one, a vulnerable older lady that struggles to deal with the world changing around her. Old age is scary…

Again by Ramsey Campbell - ★★
…But old people are not scary. More of a gross-out story but it didn't work that well for me.

Vastarien by Thomas Ligotti - ★★★★
Not that scary but has a good twist at the end. More aesthetically than thematically focused. Interesting to read a progenitor of the cerebral horror aesthetics that have remained relevant in modern pop-culture, e.g. Bloodborne.

Call Home by Dennis Etchison - ★
Reads more like a farce than a horror story, and a very contrived one at that. This collection would be stronger without it.

1408 by Stephen King - ★★★★★
My first experience of Stephen King and the reason I own the anthology. A masterclass (literally, as it was first conceived as an educational tool in King's 'On Writing') in tension and disgusting imagery, and loaded with some really colourful characterisation. After rereading in order with the other stories, it's interesting to see previous authors' influence on King.

Flowers of the Sea by Reggie Oliver - ★★★★★
Tale about the dreadful decays of identity, memory and consciousness that come with dementia. Really bleak and disturbing.

Hippocampus by Adam Nevill - ★★★
A creepy vignette describing only the lifeless aftermath of a grisly event. Very descriptive but the details were so intricate that it was difficult to visualise and I found myself skimming.

[Samantha van Buuren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection started out a little crappy. I wasn't excited to see what else was included because the first few stories not only weren't scary but were hard to get through. Or boring, if I'm more blunt about it. But others included definitely made up for the beginning.

I took a few notes after each so here they are for you.

The Fall of the House of Usher- not bad, over written but very gothic, though not scary.

The Yellow Wallpaper - I really enjoyed this one, there is much open for interpretation and it has a creepy vibe.

Count Magnus- I enjoyed this one too. Again, a little over written but the story was interested with a couple of creepy moments.

The White People- Awful. A load of rambling bollocks. No wonder I hated The Twisted People.

Ancient Lights- I really enjoyed this one. So trippy and fun.

The Music of Erich Zann - nope. Well written but boring.

Smoke Ghost- It was OK, the closest to a ghost story and has an important message about the environment.

Brenda- Loved it. Dark, weird and creepy. Could easily be made into a full novel.

The Bus- Boring. I love Shirley Jackson but this is not good. We'll written of course, but I didn't enjoy it.

Again- Loved it. Dark, weird, gross and creepy.

Vastarien- nope. Difficult to follow and not interesting.

Call Home- Well written, easy to read and strange. Left me asking 'what the fuck?'

1408- oh my god King can waffle 🙈 but I really loved it in the end. A decent amount of creepy.

Flowers of the Sea- So incredibly heart breaking. Weird and creepy too.

Hippocampus- reads more like a plan for a story than an actual story. Boring details of a ship mixed with a few gruesome details. Intriguing but it definitely needs more.

All in all, a mostly great collection, worth a read in my opinion.

[Lucy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m really not having much luck with books at the moment lol. I decided to do a #buddyread with my dear friend @vanbuurenlibrary as we both own this beautiful book. I couldn’t read it. I really struggled through a lot of the stories so this review will be short.
.
I read four and a half of the stories…
.
The Fall of the House of Usher
The Yellow Wallpaper
Count Magnus
The White People (stopped halfway through)
1408
.
I didn’t find any of the stories particularly scary, apart from 1408, I wanted to read this one because I love the movie. It was pleasantly creepy so I’m glad I took the time to read that one but the others, I was either bored or terribly confused lol.

[Harry · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nowhere near as good as I expected. 15 short horror stories by some of the giants of the genre and by some authors that you’ve never heard of but are lauded in the Introduction. Several of these stories meander along, going nowhere and some make very little sense at all. All in all a lost opportunity as some of the Folio Society’s anthologies are absolute crackers. Even the Stephen King book isn’t all that scary and that’s what you want from a horror story.

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic looking book with fantastic stories told by different authors throughout the years, it spans from Shirley Jackson to Stephen King all the way up to Adam Nevill.

I don't have the book in front of me right now so can reel off the authors and titles but there were a few gems in there and I'll definitely be looking into some of the authors I've not heard before.

[Siobhan Kelly]

Please, someone somewhere must have a copy they’re willing to sell. All my usual used Folio Society haunts are turning up empty. Not even too expensive — absolutely non-existent. Pass the word, in case someone is looking for a buyer.

[Shan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars.

[M.P. Conn · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a ride!!!!!

[Connie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good story collection with a wide range of different horror stories. There were only a few that I did not finish.

I really enjoyed the collection and the art!

[Anj_1 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well worth a read, good for winter days.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disliked the selection. Very boring to read in my opinion. Not scary at all.

[Eligos Vespillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ramsey Campbell selects a powerful array of horror stories that perfectly encompass the most important terrors of the long history of the craft. Good luck finding a more well-rounded compilation.