Mind At Bay: Stories Of Horror From The Skull’s Unmapped Depths – ed. Dr. Christopher Evans (Panther, 1969)
This collection is an exceedingly personal one which may be dipped into at random or, preferably, read in the sequence I have chosen, for this has a deliberate logic which should give the interested and contemplative reader some insights into my own thought processes … Perhaps they will be of even greater interest to some (fellow) psychologist of the far distant future, when the phantoms that inhabit our minds may be taking quite a different form again
Editor’s Introduction – Christopher Evans
H. Russell Wakefield – The Frontier Guards (Fear Of The Supernatural)
M. R. James – The Ash Tree (Fear Of The Power Of Magic)
John Connell – Back To The Beginning (Fear Of Hell)
Jane Rice – The Idol Of The Flies (Fear of The Power Of Evil)
E. F. Benson – Caterpillars (Fear Of Cancer)
Conrad Aiken – Silent Snow, Secret Snow (Fear Of Going Mad)
John Sladek – The Master Plan (Fear Of Death)
J. G. Ballard – The Watch-Towers (Paranoia)
Alex Hamilton – Breakaway (Fear Of Isolation And Of Fate)
Perry A. Chapdelaine – We Fused Ones (Fear Of The Possibilities Of The Future)
George MacBeth – Crab Apple Crisis (Fear Of The Escalation Of War)
An anthology of horror/SF stories with mental illness as their theme. In Alex Hamilton’s “Breakaway”, the narrator is cast adrift on an iceberg which is slowly melting as it enters a warmer climate. “Silent Snow, Secret Snow” charts a boys decline into autism. In Benson’s unforgettable story, a man’s cancer manifests itself in the form of squirming yellow caterpillars. “Crab Apple Crisis” sees a petty squabble between two neighbours quickly degenerate into all out war between their families.
I’ve not been able to trace any more horror collections by Evans, but this is certainly among the more interesting of its day.
