Another striking volume from the doyen of horror editors, this collection, illustrated by none other than Clive Barker, imagines a Library of the Damned and the all-new stories from some of the best talents in the field follow its imaginary lexicon of words and situations to present a gamut of fear and somber wonders guaranteed to scare and make reading after dark the right shade of worrisome. Includes sterling tales from Barker himself, Michael Marshall Smith, Lisa Tuttle, Joanne Harris, Kim Newman, Muriel Gray, Pat Cadigan, Ramsey Campbell and many others, all demonstrating how horror writing can be both entertaining and challenging and miles away from the perceived notion of obligatory gore and blood and guts and how a dimension of sheer dread can be unveiled with subtlety and no need for a sledgehammer (or a saw...). ~ Maxim Jakubowski
In the Library of the Damned, hidden away amongst that vast depository of ancient wisdom, there exists a certain bookcase where the most decadent, the most blasphemous of tomes sit upon a dusty shelf. And amongst those titles - that should never be named - there is one volume that is the most terrible, the most hideous of them all.That book is the Lexicon of Fear. But, long ago, some of its pages were ripped from the binding and spirited away by a lowly student of the ancient science of Horrorology, who was determined the secrets contained therein would one day be shared with the world. And now that day has come. These are the words thatcomprise the very language of horror itself, and the tales they tell are notfor the fainthearted. But be warned: once you have read them, there is noturning back. Soon, you too will know the true meanings of fear ...Featuring stories from Clive Barker, Robert Shearman, Michael Marshall Smith, Pat Cadigan, Mark Samuels, Joanne Harris, Muriel Gray, Kim Newman, Ramsey Campbell, Reggie Oliver, Angela Slatter and Lisa Tuttle.
Stephen Jones is the winner of two World Fantasy Awards, three Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Awards and three International Horror Guild Awards, as well as being a Hugo Award nominee and thirteen-times recipient of the British Fantasy Award. One of Britain's most acclaimed anthologists of horror and dark fantasy, he has also written and edited more than 20 books on horror, famtasy and SF movies.
