The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. Fifth Annual Collection

Scarlet Letters: Tales of Adultery from Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine edited by Eleanor Sullivan (Carroll & Graf)—including stories by Ruth Rendell, Andrew Klavan and Lawrence Block; Fifty Years of the Best from Ellery Queen edited by Eleanor Sullivan (Carroll & Graf); The Best ofPulphouse: The Hardback Magazine edited by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (St. Martin’s); The Mammoth Book of Ghost Stories 2 edited by Richard Dalby with a preface by Christopher Lee (Carroll & Graf)—including stories by Dickens, Stoker, Wharton, Mary Wilkins, Kingsley Amis and many other, less familiar names; Arabian Nights adapted from Richard F. Burton’s unexpurgated translation by Jack Zipes (Signet); Echoes of Valor III edited by Karl Edward Wagner (Tor); Masters of Darkness III edited by Dennis Etchison (Tor); Classic Tales of Horror and the Supernatural edited by Bill Pro-nzini, Barry Malzberg and Martin H. Greenberg (Morrow/Quill); Crime Classics: The Mystery Story from Poe to the Present edited by Rex Burns and Mary Rose Sullivan (Viking)—including stories by Chesterton, Hammett, Sayers, Woolrich, Faulkner, Borges and McBain; Back from the Dead edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh (DAW); Best New Horror 2 edited by Stephen Jones and Ramsey Campbell (Carroll & Graf); Alpha Gallery: Selections from the Fantastic Small Press (write Michael A. Arnzen, Director, SPWAO Publications Dispersal, 1700 Constitution #D-24, Pueblo, CO 81001); Dark Crimes: Great Noir Fiction from the 40 s to the 90 s edited by Ed Gorman, includes two originals (Carroll & Graf)—and stories by Edward Bryant, Evan Hunter, Lawrence Block, Karl Edward Wagner and Andrew Vachss; New Stories from the Twilight Zone edited by Martin H. Greenberg (Avon)—includes the classics “Nightcrawlers,” “Shatterday,” “Dead Run,” and “The Last Defender of Camelot”; The Literary Ghost: Great Contemporary Ghost Stories edited by Larry Dark (Atlantic Monthly)—a terrific lineup including stories by A. S. Byatt, Patrick McGrath, Anne Sexton, Fay Weldon and Paul Bowles; The Literary Dog: Great American Dog Stories edited by Jeanne Schinto {Atlantic Monthly 1990, but missed last year)—includes stories by Donald Barthelme, Ann Beattie, Michael Bishop, T. Coraghessan Boyle and Doris Lessing; The Years Best Horror Stories XIX edited by Karl Edward Wagner (DAW); Spells of Enchantment: The Wondrous Fairy Tales of Western Culture edited by Jack Zipes (Viking)—a gorgeous package of over 800 pages, including literary fairy tales for adults by everyone from Hans Christian Andersen and Hermann Hesse to Jane Yolen and Stanislaw Lem. Wonderful illustrations; Victorian Ghost Stories: An Oxford Anthology selected by Michael Cox and R. A. Gilbert (Oxford University Press); Die Monster Die!: The World’s Worst Horror Fiction edited by Micki Villa—24 stories from horror comics of the ’40s and ’50s (Malibu Graphics); Haunting Christmas Tales no editor, YA, which include stories by Garry Kilworth and Joan Aiken (Scholastic-UK); Crime for Christmas edited by Richard Dalby (O’Mara-UK); Tales of Witchcraft edited by Richard Da by (O’Mara-UK); The Virago Book of Ghost Stories: The Twentieth Century Vol. 2 edited by Richard Dalby (Virago-UK); The Man in Black: Macabre Stories from Fear on Four anonymous (BBC Books-UK); A Book of Dreams edited by Trevor Jones and George P. Townsend—stories from Dream and New Moon magazines (Weller-UK); Spooky Sea Stories edited by Charles G. Waugh Martin H. Greenberg and Frank D. McSherry (Yankee Books); The Virago Book of Fairy Tales edited by Angela Carter (Virago-UK); Short Sharp Shocks edited by Julian Lloyd Webber (Weidenfeld & Nicolson-UK); The Walker Book of Ghost Stories edited by Susan Hill (Walker-UK)—YA stories, some original, and illos. by Hill; Gaslit Nightmares 2 edited by Hugh Lamb—ghost/horror stories from the Victorian and Edwardian periods (Futura-UK); Strange Tales from the Strand edited by Jack Adrian—29 ghost/supernatural stories from the past 100 years of Strand Magazine (Oxford-UK).