Name: Haunted Castles
Rating: 4 (1 reviews)
ISBN: 9780143124016

Guillermo del Toro

Ray Russell

This complete collection of Gothic tales from the well-known horror author and screenwriter include "Sardonicus," "Sanguinarius," and "Sagittarius” and is one of six titles in a series of classic horror tales hand-picked by award-winning director Guillermo del Toro.

The Complete Gothic Stories

Haunted Castles

Presents a collection of Gothic tales from the well-known horror author and screenwriter, including the novella trio of "Sardonicus," "Sanguinarius," and "Sagittarius."

Tim Pendry

Poe meets the sensibility of De Sade in this collection of all Ray Russell's Gothic tales, mostly written in the 1960s when Russell was still closely associated with Playboy (he had been its Editor in the previous decade) and was writing screenplays for William Castle and Roger Corman. The most famous are those making up the trilogy Sardonicus, Sagittarius (my personal favourite of the three) and Sanguinarius but there are four others which fit into a corpus with recurring narrators and similar styles that keep strictly to the Gothic. The stories are much like the horror films where we would expect to see Vincent Price as the star but there is more of an edge here. One suspects that Russell saw some signs of 'evil' in the world that was created under Hefner and that he extended it into his faithful replays of the Gothic. The stories always look backward into the past (like most of Corman's films). Russell is skilled at weaving his tales into the 'real world' of the past - for example, 'Comet Wine' is set in the St. Petersburg of the 'Five' and he is at pains to be accurate in presenting the Hungary of Bathory. The stories do not make Russell the equal of Poe, Lovecraft or Ligotti by any means but they are well crafted and 'authentic' as late expressons of the Gothic sensibility albeit with a very twentieth century sympathy for monsters who are sometimes only monsters by circumstance.

Andrew Sztehlo

Ray Russell reads very well; the delight of these gothic stories is their visceral violence, psychological maiming of their characters, and the exquisite twists that doom all therein. If there is one criticism, it is that one can feel the weight of Russell’s inspirations too strongly; connections, reflections, and references to the classic gothic of writers such as Edgar Allan Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, and the darker sides of European history overshadow Russell’s delicious stories in a few instances. But it’s no matter; the reason to read Russell is not his originality but the way in which he unravels the threads of his stories. These are little gems sparkling in the dark. Much to be enjoyed in this small tome. One is left with the wish that he had written more gothic tales than contained here!

Haunted Castles The Complete Gothic Stories

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