Sleep is essential for a happy and healthy life.
But try telling that to Bill Bowers, who’s put together a collection of classic horror stories he calls Tales Of Horror: Terrifying Stories To Keep You Awake Past Midnight (paperback, Kindle).
Though as he explains in the following email interview, his objective with Tales was not to ruin your day…or your night.
With stories by Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, and H.P. Lovecraft, among others, it’s obvious that stories in Tales Of Horror: Terrifying Stories To Keep You Awake Past Midnight are classic scary stories and stories by iconic writers. But why did you decide to go this route as opposed, say, a collection of new stories or stories that aren’t classics but should be?
I decided to put them together because I’ve loved horror stories since I was very young. Some are truly famous, from the pens of renowned authors, and have appeared previously in other collections.
For example, I’ve included “The Monkey’s Paw” by Englishman W.W. Jacobs. It’s one of the most frequently anthologized horror stories of all time, appearing in countless collections of horror and ghost stories published over many decades. But its fame is justified because it’s just a great, creepy story of fate and grief, as well as a cautionary tale reminding us that we should be careful what we wish for.
Another, perhaps equally famous, is “The Cask Of Amontillado” by the celebrated American Edgar Allan Poe.
Others (I’ll leave it to readers to decide whether they should be called classics) are from authors who are famous, but (unlike Poe) typically not for their horror stories. This makes their inclusions here unusual.
One example is “The Story Of The Brazilian Cat” by Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle is best known for creating Sherlock Holmes, possibly the most famous fictional detective of all time. But Doyle was a prolific author and wrote many other stories that are much less well known.
Another is “The Wife Of The Kenite” by Agatha Christie. Christie is one of the best-selling authors of murder mysteries (her books have sold literally billions of copies), and created the fictional detectives Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. But she published this horror story when she was young and unknown.
So, what do you think makes Tales Of Horror different from other collections of horror stories? By which I mean other anthologies that aren’t based on geography, identity, timeframe, or being the best.
I like to think that what distinguishes Tales Of Horror from other collections is the sheer variety of the stories here. Some are what you might call “traditional” horror stories involving supernatural creatures such as monsters (see “The Damned Thing” by Ambrose Bierce) or vampires (“For The Blood Is The Life” by F. Marion Crawford). But others are more about man’s inhumanity to man.
Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Speaking of that variety, horror mixes well with other genres. What subgenres and combinations of genres are represented in Tales Of Horror?
Well, one of the stories here isn’t really a “story” at all, per se. “The Cremation Of Sam McGee” by Robert W. Service is a poem. You could say it’s a story in poetry form.
And you could say “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell is more a story of suspense and fear than a “horror” story as such.
Short story anthologies sometimes include little blurbs about the story and / or why it was included. Does Tales Of Horror have anything like that?
No, I decided against including blurbs with these stories. This is mainly because I wanted the stories to stand on their own merits.
But also I hope that readers might be pleasantly surprised by some of these stories, or elements of them, and so I didn’t want to risk giving away anything in a blurb. This applies especially to the stories that are not so well known, such as Agatha Christie’s “The Wife Of The Kenite.”
Also, my introduction includes information about many of the stories.
So, is there anything else you think people need to know about Tales Of Horror: Terrifying Stories To Keep You Awake Past Midnight?
I’ve tried to make this book as entertaining as possible, and with as much variety as possible. That’s why I’ve included two stories from French authors: “The Mummy’s Foot” by Théophile Gautier and “The Flayed Hand” by Guy de Maupassant. (My late wife Eileen, to whom Tales Of Horror is dedicated, referred to these jokingly as “the French body-parts stories.”) I personally translated both stories from the original French into English. I hope English-speaking readers enjoy them.
Finally, if someone enjoys Tales Of Horror, what similar kind of short story anthology, but for a different genre, would you suggest they check out?
I’d recommend Sea Stories: 28 Thrilling Tales Of The Deep, edited by Tom McCarthy. Like Tales Of Horror, that one is also published by Lyons Press. The stories are great.
