HAMMETT, Dashiell (ed.); H. P. Lovecraft, and others.

£8,500 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Creeps by Night: Chills and Thrills. First edition, in the rare dust jacket, preceding the British edition published by Gollancz as Modern Tales of Horror in 1932. Bleiler comments that "the circumstances of the following anthology are not known, but Hammett was a very well-read man, and it is entirely possible that he assembled it". Recent research reveals that Arkham House cofounder August Derleth played a major part in the selection (see Haefele p. 27), especially in the garnering of work by Lovecraft (an early appearance between hard covers), Donald Wandrei, and Frank Belknap Long. This is an important early anthology in the canon of weird fiction.Gathered here are 20 short stories with an introduction by Hammett, including, among others, works by William Faulkner ("A Rose for Emily"), André Maurois ("The House"), L. A. G. Strong ("Breakdown"), Conrad Aiken ("Mr. Arcularis"), H. P. Lovecraft ("The Music of Erich Zann"), Stephen Vincent Benét ("The King of the Cats"), Donald Wandrei ("The Red Brain") and Frank Belknap Long ("A Visitor from Egypt").

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