Read and Appreciated in 2003
A Year’s Best List
Books (Reissues)
1. The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, Robert E. Howard
Del Rey releases in trade paperback the first of the definitive Wandering Star editions of Robert E. Howard’s classic pulp stories. Forget Jordan and De Camp and Carter and all the other pasticheurs—unavailable since Karl Wagner’s 1977 editions, this is the original sword and sorcery deal. The reissue of the year.
2. The Boats of the “Glen Carrig”, William Hope Hodgson
The first of Night Shade’s projected multivolume edition of the collected works of this weird fiction pioneer who happens to be one of my favorite writers. A beautiful edition.
3. Prince Zaleski, M. P. Shiel
Tartarus Press reissues Shiel’s stories featuring this most darkly decadent of detectives, with an introduction by Brian Stableford and featuring the additional stories completed by John Gawsworth. Hopefully we can jumpstart a Shiel renaissance—Hippocampus is planning a “best of” anthology in 2004.
4. Tales of the Grotesque, L. A. Lewis
Durtro’s Ghost Story Press reissues one of their most sought after volumes, this collection of weird stories by British writer L.A. Lewis. Includes the chilling, visionary tale “The Tower of Moab” which is making a bid for inclusion in my top weird fiction stories of all time.
5. Schalken the Painter, J. Sheridan Le Fanu
The first volume in the series of collected Le Fanu ghost stories Jim Rockhill is editing for Ash-Tree Press. Seminal macabre fiction that deserves reading. And re-reading.
6. The Garden at #19, Edgar Jepson
This eminently satisfying, spooky tale of modern paganism in the English suburbs was apparently a favorite of Aleister Crowley’s. Very tasty. From John Pelan’s Midnight House.
