Annual Macabre 2004: The Last 'Queer Stories from Truth'

Edited by Jack Adrian

Jacket art is by Rob Suggs

ISBN: 1-55310-077-8; xxxix + 141pp; Published December 31, 2004

Limited to 500 copies

Original Price: C$52.00 / US$43.00 / £25.00

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For most of its life, the weekly publication Truth—which was more generally concerned with politics, finance, and general muck-raking—ran, in each issue, a short fiction feature called 'Queer Story'. After publication of a number of stories, they were gathered and published as anthologies titled Queer Stories from 'Truth'. The short stories were odd, peculiar, strange, macabre, weird, and at times outright supernatural, and some illustrious names contributed weird tales to the forum, including H. R. Wakefield (whose 'Annyversry' is an early version of the tale later published as 'The Fire-Watcher's Story'), A. B. Cox, and Rosemary Timperley.

Jack Adrian has collected together thirty-one of these stories; short, sharp shocks which introduce the supernatural into the lives of everyday people. In his lengthy introduction for this last volume of 'Queer Stories from Truth', Adrian looks at the fascinating history of Truth, and those who published and wrote for it.

Contents:
  • Introduction by Jack Adrian
  • The Exchange by Anonymous
  • A Psychic Mystery' by Anonymous
  • The Damned Spot by Violet M. Methley
  • "Dusty Death" by Violet M. Methley
  • The Escape by George W. Nixon
  • The Dream Giver by Chris Sewell
  • Bitter Almonds by A. B. Cox
  • The Cab in Sloane Square by Mark Napier
  • Goolang by Anthony Armstrong
  • Michael Leinster's Picture by Anthony Armstrong
  • The End of the World by Helen Sutherland
  • The Spade in the Night by Myfanwy Price
  • Exeat by Aylmer Vallance
  • The Last Appointment by Douglas Pike
  • Exit by Mary Ann Abbs
  • Annyversry by H. Russell Wakefield
  • The Fisherman by Frank Batchelor
  • Open Sesame by Frank Batchelor
  • Strange Company by Michael Hervey
  • Little Old Lady by Jane C. Butler
  • The Bright Room by George A. Whiting
  • Traveller's Tale by Alan Raymond
  • Thin Air by Anne King
  • "Pobson" by Horace Newte
  • The Sisters by Magdalen King-Hall
  • The Parson Vanishes by Alfred Ridgway
  • The Man at the Door by Alfred Ridgway
  • Brambles by H. L. V. Fletcher
  • Hell, Twice Daily by Rosemary Timperley
  • Poltergeist by E. A. Williams
  • The Dagger by Lane Mitchell
  • Sources and Acknowledgments