House Of The Hatchet

Tandem Horror & Witchcraft paperbacks 1964-1975

Catherine Arley – Dead Man’s Bay

Posted by demonik on October 30, 2009

Catherine Arley – Dead Man’s Bay (Tandem, 1970: originally Collins, 1959. Translated from the French by Jehanne-Marie Marchesi )

catherinearleydeadmansbay

Blurb:
“Can be confidently recommended to those who enjoy this particular form of blood refrigeration” – Sunday Times
“As sharp as a broken bottle” – Daily Mail
“An agreeably horrible little tale” - Spectator

Two days alone in the cliff-top house, in the bleak isolation of the Breton coast. What could happen in only forty-eight hours to bring her to the brink of madness?
Small incidents; trivial – but so inexplicable.
Who had put the kettle to boil on the stove?
Why was the cuff-link on the floor?
How did the cat die so unaccountably, so grotesquely?
Was she responsible? Was she losing her memory, her reason?
Or was some human agency controlling this gradual crescendo of terror?

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Charles Birkin – The Kiss Of Death 1964

Posted by demonik on October 24, 2009

Charles Birkin – The Kiss Of Death (Tandem, 1964)

birkinkiss1

Dennis Wheatley – Introduction

The Kiss Of Death
The Hens
Les Belle Dames Sans Merci
“The New Ones”
The Mouse Hole
Fairy Dust
“Some New Pleasures Prove”
The Kennel
“Mon Ami, Pierrot”
The Mutation
Lighten Our Darkness
Fine Needlework
The Hitch
The Three Monkeys
Malleus Maleficarum

birkinkiss2

Thanks to my friend Mark Samuels who provided Vault with these scans of the original, 1964 edition of of Charles Birkin’s The Kiss Of Death. Scandalously, the 1967 reissue omits one story, Lighten Our Darkness !

birkinkiss3

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Peter Haining – The Anatomy Of Witchcraft

Posted by demonik on May 11, 2009

Peter Haining – The Anatomy Of Witchcraft (Tandem, 1974)

Anatomy Of Witchcraft

Satanism, White Magic, Voodoo: the ancient rituals are alive today.


Witchcraft in Britain
Appendix I: The Initiation of a Witch
Appendix II: Ritual Magic
The Growth of Black Magic
The Witches of America
Evil on the Coast
Appendix: The Satanic Ritual
The Ancient Craft in Europe
Witchcraft Behind the Iron Curtain
Voodoo – Black Witchcraft
Appendix: The Voodoo Blood Sacrifice
The Rest of the World
Bibliography

Thanks to Steve Goodwin for posting the details and coverscan on Vault of Evil

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Tony Blackburn – A Laugh In Every Pocket

Posted by demonik on May 11, 2009

Tony Blackburn – A Laugh In Every Pocket (Tandem, 1975)

Blurb:

Tony Blackburn breaks the fun barrier with a chart-topping album of putrid jokes and funtastic humour. A must for all three-legged pedestrians, essential to any self-respecting collector of glass eyes, compulsive reading for dachshund owners, and guarenteed to get your ears vibrating, your eyeballs rotating and your brain cells bubbling. Can you live without a copy?

“Tony Blackburn’s jokes are like prunes — they keep you laughing regularly. ” – Ed Stewart
“The finest thing of his kind since his Life of Grampworth, but lacks an Index. ” – Terry Wogan
“A sensation! Never to be repeated ” – Tony Blackburn’s Mother.
“Dear Tony, if you were going to steal gags why didn’t you steal any good ones?” – Kenny Everett

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David Forrest – The Undertaker’s Dozen

Posted by demonik on August 23, 2007

David Forrest – The Undertaker’s Dozen (Tandem, 1974)

David Forrest Undertaker's Dozen

Terror can have such simple beginnings—a child’s letter to Father Christmas…a lovely girl glimpsed in a London street…a spin down the Brighton Road…a night spent in an empty mansion for a bet.

And the consequences can be so fearsome, as the unsleeping dead walk again, as strange emotions stir inanimate things to murderous life, as horrors beyond our imagining cross the threshold into everyday life; can anyone be sure that all is as it seems?

After you have read this book, can you?

The Cynic
The Ghostwriter
Shingle
Whoever You May Be …
Boys Will Be ….
The Pilgrimage
The Wrong Christmas Spirit
The Voyager
The Finger Man
Pillion Rider
The Blackamoor
The Undertaker’s Dozen
Spare Parts Inc.

Thanks to Mark Samuels for providing the blurb, cover scan and contents of this one. You can Mark’s plot-outlines on Vault’s Undertaker’s Dozen thread here.

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Find missing covers here

Posted by demonik on August 21, 2007

Curt Purcell’s Groovy Age Of Horror has Ralph Comer novel The Mirror Of Dionysos (1969) – “The elemental powers of white magic contend with a more terrifying form of evil” – and Arkon Daraul’s Witches And Sorcerers (1969).

Sexy Witch has Witches And Sorcerers (1965 and 1969 editions), Ronald Seth’s  Witches and their Craft (1970), Jules Michelet’s  Satanism and Witchcraft (1970) and Louise Huebner’s Witchcraft for All (1971).

Alwyn Turner’s Trash Fiction has the 1965 and 1969 editions of Daraul’s Secret Societies and examples of Tandem’s non-horror output.

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Tandem-specific links

Posted by demonik on August 19, 2007

There don’t seem to be many of these. Chetwynd-Hayes’ Tandem  paperbacks are discussed at Loughville and there’s a useful illustrated article on some of the Witchcraft titles at the entertaining  sexywitch blogspot

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Ronald Holmes – Witchcraft In British History

Posted by demonik on August 19, 2007

Ronald B. Holmes – Witchcraft In British History: The Manipulation Of Mankind’s Primitive Terrors And Superstitions (Tandem, 1976: Muller 1974)

Ronald Holmes History Of Witchcraft

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Jessie Douglas Kerruish – The Undying Monster

Posted by demonik on August 19, 2007

Jessie Douglas Kerruish – The Undying Monster (Tandem, 1975)

Kerruish The Undying Monster

“Devil or ghoul, the bane of Hammand would have it’s victim”

Isn’t that the most spine-chilling cover you’ve ever seen?

Dannow on the Suffolk Downs: For generations the Hammand family have laboured under a curse, apparently due to an evil ancestor who sold his soul to Satan. To make matters worse, they’re plagued by a werewolf who does for most of them, either rending their bodies or driving them to suicide. Now London-based Miss Luna Bartendale, a psychic detective, is called in by the present owners to see if she can prevent their doom at the fangs and claws of the monster.

First published by Heath & Cranton in 1922 and successfully filmed by 20th Century Fox two decades later, Tandem released this paperback version for no apparent reason I can fathom in 1975.

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Richard Davis – Tandem Horror 2

Posted by demonik on August 19, 2007

Richard Davis (ed) – Tandem Horror 2 (Tandem, 1968)

Richard Davis - Tandem Horror 2

Angus James – Working for Miss Arethusa
Robin Smyth – The Dooley Street Centre Forward
J. Ramsey Campbell – Reply Guaranteed
Rosemary Timperley – Ice in Their Laughter
Julia Birley – Dead on His Feet
Walter Harris – The Forgiver
Simon Pilkington – The Inheritance
Elizabeth Fancett – I’m Not Mad Yet
D. E. Piper – From Our Special Correspondent
J. Ramsey Campbell – The Stocking
Richard Davis – The Lady by the Stream
Rosemary Timperley – Voices in the Night
Michel Parry – The Last Bus

Thanks to Steve and Charles Black for providing the cover scan and details for this one.

And thanks to D. F. Lewis for giving me his copy!

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