Johnny Mains – författare

'Something was coming down the tide. It came down as quiet as a sleeping bairn, straight for him as he sat with his horse breasting the waters, and as it came the moon crept out of a cloud and he saw a glint of yellow hair.'From misty moors, crags and clifftops comes a hoard of eighteen strange tales gathered by Johnny Mains, award-winning anthologist and editor of the British Library anthology Celtic Weird. Sourced from Scotland's storied literary heritage and bustling with witches, ghosts, devils and merfolk, this selection celebrates the works of treasured Scottish writers such as John Buchan, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dorothy K. Haynes and Neil M. Gunn alongside rare pieces by lesser-known authors - including two tales translated from Scots Gaelic. Brooding in the borderlands where strange folklore, bizarre mythology and twentieth-century hauntings meet, this volume promises chills and shivers as keen and fresh as the wind-whipped wilds of Scotland.

John Travers has been hanged for the murder of his mother-in-law Helga, but to those who knew him something is amiss. Driven by justice and a sense of uncanny forces at work, John's friend Doctor Toogood recounts a haunting tale of love and jealousy under the fell influence of a shadowy and implacable evil. First published in 1927, this novel by husband-and-wife writing duo Rosalie and Edward Synton (real surname Corse-Scott) has been lost for nearly a century and returns now from the Library collections to deliver its occult thrills anew.

It had taken, at most, three seconds for the elevator to pass downwards from the sixteenth to the twelfth ... Mr Meldrum had ceased to be, and something hideously different took his place.A man convinced that he has developed a phantom beak edges towards a terrible metamorphosis. Interlopers dismissing the superstitions of hare-women in the countryside pay for their scepticism with blood. The cruel jokes of a girl at the village festival of the Green Man lead her to a crueller transfiguring in the woods.Tracing the quintessential horror concept of the strange transformation from the Victorian era through to the modern day, horror writer, expert and enthusiast Mark Morris presents a thrilling selection of metamorphic tales. Including stories of bestial shapeshifters such as the tiger-men, fox spirits and werewolves of world folklore, this collection also presents some of the weirder shifts of the horror genre, where a flatworm masquerades as a boy, a girl becomes one with a bridge, and a babe-in-arms and her beekeeper father come to reflect the creatures of the hives.

From the shorelines, hills and towns of ancient lands, tales of twisted creatures, sins against nature and pagan revenants have been passed down from generation to generation. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, folklore from Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Cornwall, Brittany and the Isle of Man inspired a new strain of strange short stories, penned by writers of the weird and fantastic including masters of the form such as Arthur Machen, Edith Wharton and Robert Aickman.In this volume, Johnny Mains dives into the archives to unearth a hoard of twenty-one enthralling tales imbued with elements of Celtic folklore, ranging from the 1820s to the 1980s and including three weird lost gems translated from Gaelic. Together they conjure uncanny visions of eternal forces, beings and traditions, resonating with the beguiling essence of this unique branch of strange fiction.

In the flickering candlelight of pitchy Autumn nights, malevolent spirits crowd the gloom and weird, terrible things come to pass. Ever since the days of the druidic Samhain, storytellers have observed the tradition of spinning tall, twisted tales of dark magic, spectral stalkings and unearthly creatures to mark this festival's uniquely frightening aura. Collecting up a haunting haul of tales and a handful of weird seasonal poetry from across the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this new volume celebrates the riotous weird of the Halloween season through the works of legendary ghost story writers such as Edith Wharton alongside rare literary treats, rediscovered by Johnny Mains and returning to print for the first time since their original publication.

May Day Eve, Walpurgis Night and Midsummer Eve or the Summer Solstice. Tales of these fated days and nights, and their riotous rituals and feasts, have rung down the centuries, and yet in today's world those that observe their ancient ways are few.Setting out on a mission to re-weird this lost stretch of the ritual year, Johnny Mains returns with a collection of tales of the bizarre, the beastly and the brutal to welcome the summer and raise the cry: Wyrd is Icumen in!

As clanging bells pierce the Winter calm, a bustling throng of spectral visitants is making its approach. The eminent anthologist and seeker of forgotten tales, Johnny Mains, has been scouring the archives of newspapers and periodicals once more to bring you the gift of 'new' supernatural fiction from the Victorian and Edwardian era - the heyday of the classic ghost tale. Packed with ethereal messengers, chain-clanking ghouls, the odd cheery phantom and bundles of suspense, this collection is a welcome offering for any reader of the ghostly and Gothic.

A terrifying and chilling anthology of over 20 stories exploring cursed and haunted books from award winning authors including Eric LaRocca, A. G. Slatter, and Alison Moore.You find it hidden in the dark corner of the bookstore; tucked away in a box in the attic, desperate to be read; lurking on your bookshelf, never seen before. Crack the spine, feel the ancient pages. Read it aloud, if you dare.This anthology brings together horror’s best and brightest to delve into the pages of cursed books, Eldtritch tomes and haunted bookstores.A Terrifying Anthology of Stories About the Darker Side of BooksCharlie HigsonA.K. BenedictAlison MooreEric LaRoccaNadia BulkinPriya SharmaIsy SuttieKim NewmanZin E. RocklynA.G. SlatterAmanda DeBordJohnny MainsJeremy DysonRamsey CampbellRobert ShearmanGuy AdamsElizabeth HandAdam CesareLucie McKnight Hardy

A terrifying and chilling anthology of over 20 stories exploring cursed and haunted books from award winning authors including Eric LaRocca, A. G. Slatter, and Alison Moore.You find it hidden in the dark corner of the bookstore; tucked away in a box in the attic, desperate to be read; lurking on your bookshelf, never seen before. Crack the spine, feel the ancient pages. Read it aloud, if you dare.This anthology brings together horror’s best and brightest to delve into the pages of cursed books, Eldtritch tomes and haunted bookstores.A Terrifying Anthology of Stories About the Darker Side of BooksCharlie HigsonA.K. BenedictAlison MooreEric LaRoccaNadia BulkinPriya SharmaIsy SuttieKim NewmanZin E. RocklynA.G. SlatterAmanda DeBordJohnny MainsJeremy DysonRamsey CampbellRobert ShearmanGuy AdamsElizabeth HandAdam CesareLucie McKnight Hardy