Mike Ashley’s entertaining and informative introductions to these 31 stories are worth the price of admission! The genre of Occult Detectives dates back to 1869 with Le Fanu’s “Green Tea.” Ashley arranges the stories in chronological order so readers can see how the genre developed. Many of the stories Ashley includes in Fighters of Fear feature obscure stories by forgotten writers, but Ashley’s introductions both put the writer in context and includes suggestions where more of the writer’s work can be found.
My favorite stories in Fighters of Fear are Sax Rohmer’s “The Ivory Statue” (Moris Klaw), Seabury Quinn’s “The Jest of Warburg Tantavul” (Jules de Grandin), Manly Wade Wellman’s “The Shonokins” (John Thunstone), and Joseph Payne Brennan’s “The Dead of Winter Apparition” (Lucius Leffing). If you have any interest in Occult Detectives, Fighters of Fear is a must-buy. Weighing in at 615 pages, this book is a bargain! GRADE: B+
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction, Mike Ashley v
“Green Tea,” Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu 1
“The Shining Pyramid,” Arthur Machen 34
“The Haunted Child,” Arabella Kenealy 58
“The Mystery of the Felwyn Tunnel,” L. T. Meade & Robert Eustace 70
‘The Story of Yand Manor House,” E. & H. Heron 90
“The Tapping on the Wainscott,” Allan Upward 104
“Samaris,” Robert W. Chambers 117
“The Whistling Room,” William Hope Hodgson 147
“The Woman with the Crooked Nose,” Victor Rousseau 165
“The Sorcerer of Arjuzanx,” Max Rittenberg 178
“The Ivory Statue,” Sax Rohmer 193
“The Stranger,” Claude & Alice Askew 211
“The Swaying Vision,” Jessie Douglas Kerruish 227
“The Sanatorium,” F. Tennyson Jesse 243
“The Villa on the Borderive Road,” Rose Champion de Crespigny 263
“The Room of Fear,” Ella Scrymsour 281
“The Seven Fires,” Philippa Forest 296
“The Subletting of the Mansion,” Dion Fortune 311
“The Jest of Warburg Tantavul,” Seabury Quinn 332
“The Soldier,” A. M. Burrage 361
“The Horror of the Height,” Sydney Horler 373
“The Mystery of Iniquity,” L. Adams Beck 387
“The Thought-Monster,” Amelia Reynold Long 427
“The Shut Room,” Henry S. Whitehead 439
“Dr. Muncing, Exorcist,” Gordon MacCreagh 464
“The Case of the Haunted Cathedral,” Margery Lawrence 489
“The Shonokins,” Manly Wade Wellman 520
“The Dead of Winter Apparition,” Joseph Payne Brennan 534
“The Garden of Paris,” Eric Williams 557
“St. Michael and All Angels,” Mark Valentine 576
“Jeremiah,” Jessica Amanda Salmonson 595
Copyright Acknowledgements and Story Sources 611
About the Editor 612
Scooby-Doo does it in every episode!
Bob, you’re right about Scooby-Doo using this Occult Detective template.
What a fantastic lineup! All that’s missing. perhaps, is Algernon Blackwood’s John Silence and Edward D. Hoch’s Simon Ark .
Jerry, you’re so right! I need to read some of Blackwood’s John Silence stories. And, I need to dig out Hoch’s Simon Ark collection for rereading!
I wonder if he skipped over people like Hoch and Kim Newman was because with a few exceptions he tried to stay with writers whose copyrights had expired.
Steve, I suspect you’re correct about Ashley’s choices. Most of the stories in FIGHTERS OF FEAR are in the Public Domain. Costs may have been a consideration.
Interesting collection of authors. I’ve read stories by some of them – Le Fanu , Machen, Chambers, Hodgson, Rohmer, Jesse, Quinn, Askew, Horler, Wellman, Brennan.
Jeff, Mike Ashley’s introductions add a lot to many of the obscure stories.
Mike Ashley’s anthologies are usually very good indeed. I have a couple of his “Mammoth Book of” ones, and his comments are great. This might be of interest to me, in spite of it being near the edge of horror, which I don’t generally read.
By coincidence, I’ve just read “Bullion!” by William Hope Hodgson, which features a whistling room. Could it be the same story? Does it happen on a ship?
Rick, “The Whistling Room” is a different story from “Bullion!” and does not take place on a ship. There’s not much horror in FIGHTERS OF FEAR. Just spooky goings-on.