Nightmare By Daylight

Christine Campbell Thomson (ed.) – Nightmare By Daylight – (Selwyn & Blount, April, 1936)

Many thanks to Robert Weinberg for kindly granting me permission to use his cover scans.

Charles Cullum – Scarred Mirror
Barrett Willoughby – One Alaskan Night
David H. Keller – The Dead Woman
Oscar Cook – The Crimson Head-Dress
Gordon Chesson – Little Red Shoes
Zayu Konstanz – The Yellow Paw
Dion Fortune – The Flute Of Seven Stops
Hester Holland – The Scream
Nicholas Stafford – Mirabel Houston
Walter Rose – The Horror Of the Cavern
Jessie D. Kerruish – The Gold Of Hermodike
E.M.P. Inglefield – The Cossacks
R. Dawson – Grannie
Flavia Richardson – Empty Stockings
Oswell Blakeston – The Crack

Hester Holland – The Scream: A terrible cry emanates from one of the upstairs rooms at ‘The Elms’, the new retirement home of Colonel George Dawson and his wife, Ellen, on the outskirts of Guildmore. they learn that the house has “been sold and let and sold again on account of the scream” and yet there’s no dark deed in The Elms’ brief history to account for it. The curmudgeonly Colonel doesn’t believe in the supernatural and grows steadily more insane as he attempts to penetrate the mystery.
Filmed for the TV series Douglas Fairbanks jnr. Presents … in 1953 with the host and Constance Cummings taking the lead roles.

Oswell Blakestone – The Crack: The narrator has hideous dreams involving a weird antique dealer and his horrific statuettes of animals writhing in torment. It transpires that, at an unspecified date, such events did take place when Chiffonier, the proprietor of ‘Ye Olde Yew Tree Antique Shoppe’, was “detected in a particularly repellent crime” and absconded, leaving a pig, mutilated and masked to resemble himself (!) to be hung in his place.

Three years pass before the narrator encounters the reincarnation of Chiffonier, a stage illusionist. During his performance, the magician suffers a brain seizure, runs one female assistant through with swords and sets about sawing a second in half.

David H. Keller – The Dead Woman: Mild mannered book-keeper Mr. Thompson’s wife, Lizzie, is dead. The problem is, nobody – not her mother, sundry doctors, or even the undertaker he calls to the house – will believe him. When the flies and worms get busy he decides that drastic measures are called for.

Gordon Chesson – Little Red Shoes: Earl Nunthank’s second wife, Gioia, quickly grows disillusioned with life at the Manor house. Frustrated at her indifference to him and all-too obvious unhappiness at her situation, the Earl refuses to let her indulge her one pleasure – playing the organ – and beats her if she so much as touches the keyboard. Something has to give and eventually it is the bannisters, sawn through by Gioia, which put paid to Nunthank. But the fiery Italian isn’t done with him yet ….

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That’s as far as I can get with Nightmare By Daylight just now due to lack of book!

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