Haffner Press has just published The Vampire Stories of Robert Bloch. I first read ROBERT BLOCH back in the 1960s when Pyramid Books published several paperback short story collections featuring some of Bloch’s best stories.
Of course, Robert Bloch is best known for Psycho but the 28 stories in The Vampire Stories of Robert Bloch show the range of his work. Bloch wrote several stories in H.P. Lovecraft mode. This collection includes the classic “The Shambler from the Stars.” Just great!
I’ve reread several of the stories in this collection: “The Opener of the Way” is a story that really stays with me! And, who can forget “The Skull of the Marquis de Sade” or “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper”!
“Tooth or Consequences” was a new Bloch story for me…and extremely silly. A great contrast to the other, darker stories in this wonderful volume!
If you’re a Robert Bloch fan, The Vampire Stories of Robert Bloch is a must-buy! GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
“Foreword” by Paul Winters
“Introduction” by Robert Eighteen-Bisang
“The Shambler from the Stars”
“The Opener of the Way”
“The Mannikin”
“A Question of Identity”
“The Cloak”
“Unheavenly Twin”
“Nursemaid to Nightmares”
“The Fear Planet”
“Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper”
“Black Barter”
“Death Is a Vampire”
“The Bat Is My Brother”
“The Skull of the Marquis de Sade”
“The Bogey Man Will Get You”
“The Girl from Mars”
“Tooth or Consequences”
“The Hungry House”
“The Man Who Collected Poe”
“The Light-House”
“I Kiss Your Shadow—”
“Dig That Crazy Grave”
“Sleeping Beauty”
“Hungarian Rhapsody”
“Underground”
“The Undead”
“The Yougoslaves”
“The Bedposts of Life”
“The Scent of Vinegar”
“Afterword” by Gahan Wilson
George the Tempter strikes again! I’ve read a couple of Bloch’s collections, but this sounds like a must buy. When I discovered Lovecraft in the early ’70s, I read Bloch’s classic “The Opener of the Way.” And “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper,” is one of the classics of the field.
Jeff, THE VAMPIRE STORIES OF ROBERT BLOCH is a gold mine of great stories! And you’ll love the Gahan Wilson illustrations!
At last…a collection with some bite!
Bloch — and to a lesser degree, Ray Bradbury — was my gateway drug to the world of the fantastic back in the days of my halcyon youth — as he was also to a number of my friends.
As a person, he was a man of warmth, charm, humor, and grace; he had an overwhelming talent on the page that was matched by his modest humanity. I never met him in person but he was kind enough to sign and return a book that had traveled three thousand miles for his signature. When he announced with typical humility and nonchalance in an article in OMNI that he was dying from cancer, I actually cried for the first time in years.
Haffner has produced many fine and important collections over the years; this may well be the best of them.
Jerry, we saw him at a Bouchercon – maybe Milwaukee ’81? – and he was very entertaining.
Jerry, from the first Pyramid paperback Bloch collection I read, I was hooked on Bloch’s works. “That Hell-Bound Train” is one of my favorite all-time stories!
I usually start stocking up on my fall reading about this time of the year and this one will be my first purchase. Last time I checked there weren’t any Bloch collections in print and used copies were going for an obscene amount online. Always nice to see a Gahan Wilson piece of artwork as well. Thanks for the tip.
Byron, you will marvel at the variety of these 28 stories. Robert Bloch had a long and successful career and THE VAMPIRE STORIES OF ROBERT BLOCH shows why…
Happily for me, I’ve read all but perhaps three of these (and might just be letting the memory slip)…Bloch was one of the first horror writers I read whose work really stood out for me, at about age seven or eight, when other favorites included Saki and John Collier and Joan Aiken and Shirley Jackson. And that Poe guy. Wit counted, as well as horripilation (WordPress doesn’t like that word, but it doesn’t like WordPress, either…I see further evidence for your complaints, George).
A single favorite Bloch story? Wow. “The Man Who Collected Poe” was my first, and it’s a contender, but such stories as “That Hell-Bound Train” and “The Movie People” (which he also saw included in THE BEST OF RB volume) have at least as much good feeling for me, but his companion Also Best Of, SUCH STUFF AS SCREAMS ARE MADE OF (devoted to horror and suspense stories almost exclusively) offers “The Final Performance” and “The Weird Tailor” and “The Pin”…and PSYCHO and NIGHT-WORLD and THE KIDNAPPER.
Bloch sent me a lovely postcard, not too long before his death, thanking me for sending along a copy of a four other persons’ and my ‘zine _(in*sit)_’s third issue, which included my glowing but not gushing review of his third best-of, the SELECTED STORIES.
Todd, Bloch’s response to you kindness shows what a wonderful guy he was.
Todd, that litany of great stories in your comment shows why Bloch is so great!