The Pan Books of Horror

I've still got some of these! I think the 3rd was the first one I came across, and that was it...fan forever.

'Mrs Fletcher's Plum Tree' sticks out in my mind. And 'Unburied Bane'.

I like the Fontana Ghost series as well. One of them, the 20th, is selling on amazon for over $500 for a used, and something ridiculous for a new - I think 10 grand, though I must be imagining it.

The infuriating thing is, I did have the 20th, but can't find it now.

Yes! Horrible story! (Says she, catching up, months later). I remember feeling heart-broken for the child, and the awful description of his corpse rotting amongst the fish. It was the first time I'd read a story where something horrible and irredeemable happens to a child, and I was a child myself, so it really affected me.

I used to read these books when I was little, they were so much more interesting than reading boring Janet and John books at school.

Two stories I'll always remember from them:

Experiment with H2O... Two old ladies caught a burglar in their house and put him into a big glass tank. They set bunson burners alight underneath the tank and watched him slowly disintegrate as the water boiled; kind of reminds me of me making home-made chicken noodle soup

The man whose nose was too big... Some guy went to an exotic country for a vacation. Afterwards, he kept getting pains in his eye and in his head. He eventually died, was autopsied, and a load of baby spiders came crawling out of his eye and nose. Apparently a spider had crawled up his nose when he was asleep and had given birth to babies; the baby spiders were using the inside of his head as dinner... yum!



Elodie

Sounds like a really nice bloke... not!

Another one I remember, but not what it was called... A young man is caught robbing an old lady's house. So that she didn't call the police on him, she made him shag her. He was puking whilst he done the deed, it made me want to puke at the time too, but now I'm the grand old age of nearly 47, I'd still want to be shagged when I'm an old lady. Hopefully hubby will still be around and we'll invest in some lolly sticks and sellotape hehehe

Which bit, the being sick or the actual shagging of her? you're going to be old some day too lol

seun said:

That's just dirty.

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I have never heard of these and now I desperately want to read them!

The Third was one of the best, I think. 'A Rose for Emily', 'Unburied Bane' - God, the chills that gave me when I were a nipper! - 'The Two Bottles of Relish'...That one haunted me for months. I still remember the last line...
" 'Mainly', he said, 'in order to work up an appetite'." That line, for me, is right up there with, 'None of us chaps goes to Manor after sundown' for shudder-value in short horror fiction. (A HUGE prize for anyone who can name the story the latter comes from )

zahra said:

" 'Mainly', he said, 'in order to work up an appetite'." That line, for me, is right up there with, 'None of us chaps goes to Manor after sundown' for shudder-value in short horror fiction. (A HUGE prize for anyone who can name the story the latter comes from )

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It's from an H. Russell Wakefield story. I can't name the story.

ETA: Yes, I can. But I had to cheat with Google. Found it. "Blind Man's Bluff."

Soccer Mom said:

It's from an H. Russell Wakefield story. I can't name the story.

ETA: Yes, I can. But I had to cheat with Google. Found it. "Blind Man's Bluff."

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Yes, that's right, but as you cheated - and you a mom, too, tsk,tsk - I shall have to withhold the world cruise prize that I was undoubtedly going to give you. Have a rep point instead, and reflect on the merits of honesty, missy.

If I were asked to assemble an anthology of already-published horror stories, that one would definitely make it. And Jackson's 'The Lottery', Timperley's 'No Living Man so Tall', 'Mansize in Marble', 'The Old Nurse's Tale'...

Has anyone read Elizabeth Jane Howard's 'Three Miles Up'? I just don't get that story. It's so bogged down in the animosity between the two men that the scary element gets lost, and I haven't a clue what the author is trying to present to us as far as chills go. The girl must be a ghost, of course, but I don't get the clues she's presenting, I don't get the ghost's background. I may be thick as two bricks, but I've read this story fifty times and - nada.

BIG prize to anyone who can explain it to me (you know how I keep my promises...)

Ooh, and 'Smee' - that would definitely be in my anthology. I think it's AM Burrage, about a hiding-game in a country house where there is an uninvited guest....BBBRRRRHHHH!