Terror ! A history of horror illustrations from the pulp magazines Edited by Peter Haining

Terror ! A history of horror illustrations from the pulp magazines

Edited by Peter Haining

 

I've carried a worn copy of this trade paperback around for nearly 50 years now.....I can't remember where and exactly when I got it. But it was one of a number of books on horror and the supernatural published by the indefatigable Peter Haining during the 1970s, in the US and the UK. In those long-ago days, well before the advent of the internet and amazon, books like this one were treasured by genre fans.

 

Issued by publisher A and W Visual Library, in its 176 pages 'Terror !' does a good job of presenting a potpourri of cover artworks, and interior images, from pulp magazines and other periodicals printed from the early 19th century, to the postwar era of the 20th century. 

Accompanying these black-and-white illustrations, in tiny font text editor Haining provides captions, along with some observations on the literary and sociocultural contexts of horror media as it was in those long-ago days. 

 

 

 

I had to take care in scanning pages of 'Terror !' as the binding of my copy is in a fragile condition, but I believe what I was able to scan provides a good sense of the variety and reproductive qualities of the profiled illustrations. The resolution of the images in 'Terror !' isn't superlative, but it is workmanlike, which is about all one can expect from a lower-budget trade paperback issued fifty years ago.........

 

 

'Terror !' has a smattering of pages rendered in full color, these serving as a reminder of the eye-catching qualities of the covers of the pulp magazines in their heyday.

Who will want a copy of 'Terror' ? Well, since its publication it has been supplanted by Stephen Jones's two volumes for Applause Books: 'The Art of Horror: An Illustrated History' (2015) and 'The Art of Pulp Horror' (2020). But I'd like to think that 'Terror' yet retains value in terms of being a source book for information about vintage stories of horror and the supernatural that remain off the radar for genre aficionados. With copies in 'acceptable' and 'good' condition still available for under $20, it might be worth picking up.

 

For what it's worth, in 1985 a UK edition of 'Terror !', retitled 'A Pictorial History of Horror Stories,' was issued by Sphere Books. A pdf of this edition is available at the Internet Archive and thus requires no financial outlay.