MASTERS OF HORROR, Vol. Three, Mary Elizabeth Counselman

Armchair Fiction features the best in classic horror and fantasy short story collections, complete with original illustrations. "Mary Elizabeth Counselman, Hostess of Horror and Fantasy” features the work of a master craftsman of fantastic fiction. Mary Counselman was a mainstay at Weird Tales for parts of three decades, delivering quality story after quality story. In describing her own literature, she once said, “The Halloween scariness of the bumbling but kindly Wizard of Oz has always appealed to me more than the gruesome, morbid fiction of H. P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, and those later authors who were influenced by their doom philosophies. My eerie shades bubble with an irrepressible sense of humor, ready to laugh with (never at) those earth-bound mortals whose fears they once shared.” And while some of her tales have that “lighter” touch, make no mistake about it, Mary Counselman could also write chilling tales of dread with the best of them. One can feel the goosebumps starting to rise with tales like “Night Court,” “The Smiling Face,” “Cordona’s Skull,” and numerous others. So whether you lean toward swirling fantasy or all-out tales of horror and dread, Mary Elizabeth Counselman has all that and more, waiting here within these pages…