David A. Riley's first professionally published story was in the 11th Pan Book of Horror in 1970. Since then he has been published in numerous anthologies from ROC Books, DAW Books, Robinson Books, Corgi Books, Doubleday, Playboy Paperbacks, and Sphere. Two recent notable anthologies in which he has appeared are The Century's Best Horror Fiction from Cemetery Dance, and Otto Pensler's Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! from Vintage Books. In 1995, David and his wife Linden edited and published Beyond, a fantasy/SF magazine. His stories have been published in magazines such as Aboriginal Science Fiction, Dark Discoveries, Fear, Fantasy Tales and World of Horror. His Own Mad Demons contains his stories "Lock-In," "The Worst of All Possible Places," "The Fragile Mask on His Face," "Their Own Mad Demons," and "The True Spirit."

The latest volume of Britain's premier horror anthology series contains 15 new tales of terror. Contents: SIX OF THE BEST - John Llewellyn Probert, TRAFFIC STREAM - Simon Kurt Unsworth, IMAGINARY FRIENDS - Steve Lockley, AN UNCONVENTIONAL EXORCISM - R. B. Russell, THE DOOM - Paul Finch, KEEPING IT IN THE FAMILY - Gary Fry, SPANISH SUITE - Craig Herbertson, MR PIGSNY - Reggie Oliver, THE RED STONE - Alex Langley, ROOM ABOVE THE SHOP - Stephen Bacon, THEIR CRAMPED DARK WORLD - David A. Riley, GNOMES - Mick Lewis, BAGPUSS - Anna Taborska, THE SWITCH - David Williamson, KEEPING YOUR MOUTH SHUT - Mark Samuels. ..".a series which is rapidly becoming an essential read for Horror fans." - Tales From the Black Abyss.

ENTER DARKNESS IN THIS BRAM STOKER AWARD®-NOMINATED VOLUME OF HORROR. Just beyond the veil of perception is a darkened plane where ultimate evil resides. Dark Visions: A Collection of Modern Horror - Volume One is thirteen critically acclaimed tales of terror written by some of the most visionary authors writing genre fiction today. -- A boy comes face-to-face with evil in 'the most haunted town in America'... -- A series of gruesome murders are linked to religious fanaticism... -- Boyhood friends on an English estate battling malevolent forces of the occult... -- A down-on-his-luck author faces the most terrifying decision of his life... -- A mysterious tapestry in a historic hotel may be the doorway into darkness... -- A man with a deadly disease resorts to unthinkable options... -- And so much more. FEATURING: -- Mister Pockets: A Pine Deep Story by Jonathan Maberry -- Collage by Jay Caselberg -- The Weight of Paradise by Jeff Hemenway -- Three Minutes by Sarah L. Johnson -- Second Opinion by Ray Garton -- The Last Ice Cream Kiss by Jason S. Ridler -- Scrap by David A. Riley -- What Do You Need? by Milo James Fowler -- The Troll by Jonathan Balog -- Delicate Spaces by Brian Fatah Steele -- Raining Stones by Sean Logan -- Show Me by John F.D. Taff -- Thanatos Park by Charles Austin Muir Proudly presented by Grey Matter Press, the multiple Bram Stoker Award-nominated independent publisher. Grey Matter Press: Where Dark Thoughts Thrive

Their Cramped Dark World and Other Tales is David A. Riley's third collection of short fiction, spanning 40 years of publication, from appearances in New Writings in Horror & the Supernatural #1 in 1971, to the Ninth Black Book of Horror in 2012. He has had numerous stories published by Doubleday, DAW, Corgi, Sphere, Roc, Playboy Paperbacks, Robinsons, etc., and in magazines such as Aboriginal Science Fiction, Dark Discoveries, Fear, and Fantasy Tales. His stories have been translated into Italian, German, Spanish and Russian. His Lovecraftian crime noir horror novel, The Return, was published by Blood Bound Books in 2013. His fantasy novel, Goblin Mire, was published by Parallel Universe Publications in 2015. Table of Contents Hoody (first published in When Graveyards Yawn, Crowswing Books, 2006) A Bottle of Spirits (first published in New Writings in Horror & the Supernatural 2, 1972) No Sense in Being Hungry, She Thought (first published in Peeping Tom #20, 1996) Now and Forever More (first published in The Second Black Book of Horror, 2008) Romero's Children (first published in The Seventh Black Book of Horror, 2010) Swan Song (first published in the Ninth Black Book of Horror, 2012) The Farmhouse (first published in New Writings in Horror & the Supernatural 1, 1971) The Last Coach Trip (first published in The Eighth Black Book of Horror, 2011) The Satyr's Head (first published in The Satyr's Head & Other Tales of Terror, 1975) Their Cramped Dark World (first published in The Sixth Black Book of Horror, 2010)

Nine stories by David A. Riley, ranging from the 1970s to the present day, each of them illustrated by award winning fantasy artist Jim Pitts. The stories were first published in The Year's Best Horror, Fantasy Tales, World of Horror, Gruesome Grotesques, Dark Discoveries, The Lovecraft eZine, The Spectrum Book of Horror Stories, and Death, published by Playboy Paperbacks.The stories are: Three Eyed Jack; The Fragile Mask on his Face; Terror on the Moors, The Shade of Apollyon' Writer's Cr& Fish Eye; Boat Trip; Prickly; and After Nightfall.

David A. Riley began writing horror stories while still at school and had his first professional sale to Pan Books in 1969, which was The Lurkers in the Abyss, published in The Eleventh Pan Book of Horror Stories. This story was chosen for inclusion in The Century's Best Horror Fiction in 2012. Over the years he has had numerous stories published in Britain and the United States plus translations into German, Spanish, Italian and Russian. His fiction has appeared in World of Horror, Fear, Whispers, Fantasy Tales, Aboriginal Science Fiction, Dark Discoveries and Lovecraft e-Zine. His first collection, His Own Mad Demons was published by Hazardous Press in 2012. The Return, a Lovecraftian horror novel was published by Blood Bound Books in 2013. This second collection brings together under one cover seventeen of the author's best blood-curdling stories.

Elm Tree House had a sinister history but few realised the true demonic power that lurked within its forbidding depths till it was taken over by a cult determined to make use of its horrendous secret.

During his lifetime Irvin S. Cobb was one of the most celebrated writers in American literature, though nowadays he is almost forgotten, apart perhaps from his Lovecraft connection. Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb was born in Paducah, Kentucky on the 23rd June, 1876. His father, unable to cope with the death of his own father, succumbed to alcoholism when Cobb was only sixteen. As a result, Cobb's education came to an end and he started work, first on the Paducah Daily News, then the Louisville Evening Post. By 1904 Cobb's career in journalism was doing so well that he moved to New York, where he would go on to spend the rest of his life, starting work at the Evening Sun, though it wasn't long before an assignment to cover the Russian-Japanese peace conference in Portsmouth, New Hampshire so impressed Joseph Pulitzer that he offered Cobb a job at the New York World, where he became the highest-paid staff reporter in the United States. In 1911 Cobb moved to the Saturday Evening Post. Three years later he was asked to cover the Great War. Amongst the many stories he wrote while there were the exploits of the Harlem Hellfighters, a unit of black American soldiers who had gone on to earn distinction for their courage and discipline, which Cobb celebrated in his book The Glory of the Coming. Besides his prolific work as a journalist, Cobb's fame largely came from his humorous stories, which were published in the leading magazines of his day, and collected in numerous books during his lifetime. But, though he was best known as a humourist, he did have a darker side, exemplified by the tales collected in this volume. Two of the most famous succeeded in catching the attention of H. P. Lovecraft. It is claimed that Fishhead influenced Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth. And there is certainly no doubt that Lovecraft was favourably impressed with this tale. In his groundbreaking essay, Supernatural Horror in Literature, Lovecraft wrote: "Fishhead, an early achievement, is banefully effective in its portrayal of unnatural affinities between a hybrid idiot and the strange fish of an isolated lake..." The Unbroken Chain gave Lovecraft the key idea behind The Rats in the Walls, though in all other respects the two tales are totally different. Besides writing and journalism, Cobb's career extended to Hollywood, where legendary director, John Ford, made two films based on his books: Judge Priest (1934) and The Sun Shines Bright (1953). Other films included Peck's Bad Boy (1921), starring Jackie Coogan, and The Woman Accused (1933), with a young Cary Grant. Cobb also did a stint at acting himself, appearing in ten movies altogether, including Pepper, Everybody's Old Man (1936), Steamboat Round the Bend (1935) and Hawaii Calls (1938). It's a sign of the prominence he had achieved that in 1935 he was invited to host the 7th Academy Awards. Other than the tales that inspired Lovecraft, Cobb also wrote some brilliantly dark stories that culminate in a kind of sadistic irony. They are some of the finest conte cruel ever written. Amongst the best of these is the final story in this collection: Faith, Hope, and Charity, whose protagonists, as is often the case in Cobb's stories, struggle against fates that are not only pre-ordained but are horrendously appropriate! It must be added his hapless victims are far from blameless. What fates await them under Cobb's pen have most definitely been brought upon them by themselves! Through most of the tales there is a wry sense of humour, so wry, in fact, that it never detracts from the impact at the end; indeed, it often adds to and embellishes it! I hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as I did and share with me the conviction that it is high time they were revived.

Many years have passed since Elves defeated and killed the last Goblin king. Now the Goblins are growing stronger in their mire, and Mickle Gorestab, one of the few remaining veterans of that war, is determined they will fight once more, this time aided by a renegade Elf who has delved into forbidden sorcery and hates his kind even more than his Goblin allies. Murder, treachery and the darkest of all magics follow in a maelstrom of blood, violence and unexpected alliances. Facing up to the cold cruelty of the Elves, Mickle Gorestab stands out as the epitome of grim, barbaric heroism, determined to see the wrongs of his race avenged and a restoration of the Goblin King.

Houses on the borderland of madness and horror! Houses are where we live, eat, sleep, love, dream. Houses are our private worlds, the places we find shelter from a cruel universe. But houses are also the venues of horrors and nightmares. A seaside home, a school, a fantasy castle, a lighthouse, a wooden hut, a run-down tower block - all are tainted by an abnormal atmosphere. Be wary of what's beyond the entranceway. For we have six dwellings eager to molest the human spirit at its lowest ebb, its most vulnerable time. Welcome... please step across the threshold... Six terrifying novellas by top horror authors Allen Ashley, Simon Bestwick, Paul Finch, Gary Fry, Samantha Lee, David A. Riley.