Tales of Terror, Volume 2 (Paperback)

“The Goblins will get you if you don’t watch out!”

Terrifying poems of ghosts, monsters and cosmic terror from the 1890s to the present.

This annotated edition of 176 supernatural-themed poems is the second part of a modern sequel to Matthew Gregory Lewis’s famous 1801 poetry anthology, Tales of Wonder. As might be expected, several of the best-known horror writers who were also poets are here, including H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and Frank Belknap Long. But surprises abound as ghosts, goblins, fairies, monsters, and cosmic doom escape the pens of poets from the United States, Britain, Ireland, Australia, Switzerland, and Germany. Treasures to be found in this volume include the lore of The Flying Dutchman, arctic werewolves, an octopus-woman, a rampaging Sphinx, malevolent fairies, house ghosts, a painting fatal to look upon, Santa Claus’s evil cousin, the Phantom of the Opera, mad scientist Nikola Tesla, “women scorned” with revenge in mind — plus the inevitable sea serpents, Gorgons, vampires, and the hungry slime mold that ate Providence, Rhode Island. This volume samples the best supernatural-themed poems from the 1890s to about 1930, and then leaps forward to offer over a hundred pages of Gothic works by contemporary poets working in a variety of styles.

For the poetry lover, and for the fan of supernatural literature, this book is a year-round Halloween treat of entertaining and alarming poems to read aloud — bedtime stories for very bad children. For the scholar of the Gothic, it presents an intriguing array of poems that range from overtly entertaining Gothic narratives, to works that employ the devices of the Gothic for other ends, social, political, or personal. The book also includes a cumulative bibliography of source materials on the supernatural and Gothic in poetry.

Poets included in this anthology are:

THOMAS HARDY

EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN

WALTER CHALMERS SMITH

CLINTON SCOLLARD

JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

MADISON CAWEIN

THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES

STEPHEN VINCENT BENÉT

WALTER DE LA MARE

LIONEL PIGOT JOHNSON

JAMES ELROY FLECKER

HAROLD MONRO

JOHN DRINKWATER

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

KATHERINE TYNAN

JOSEH PLUNKETT

CATHAL O'BYRNE

PATRICK JOSEPH McCALL

ALICE FURLONG

OSCAR WILDE

FRANCIS LEDWIDGE

LEWIS SPENCE

CARL SPITTELER

CHARLES DAWSON SHANLY

WILLIAM WILFRED CAMPBELL

HENRY KENDALL

SAMUEL SLOPER

RICHARD WAGNER/li>

SIR JOHN COLLLINGS SQUIRE

ROBERT GRAVES

ROBERT CAMERON ROGERS

HOWARD PHILIPS LOVECRAFT

FRANK BELKNAP LONG

CLARK ASHTON SMITH

BARBARA A. HOLLAND

JOEL ALLEGRETTI

CLAUDIA DOBKINS-DIKINIS

SHIRLEY POWELL

BRETT RUTHERFORD

PIETER VANDERBECK

JACK VEASEY

SCOTT THOMAS

JACOB RABINOWITZ

Published May 2016. ISBN 0-922558-84-1. 6, 6 x 9 inches, paperback. 348 pages.