Books of Blood: Volume Two

Barker, Clive

ISBN 10: 0297787624 / ISBN 13: 9780297787624

Published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1985

About this Item

First UK edition. Signed by Clive Barker on title page. Hardcover in jacket, price intact on jacket flap. Clean and unmarked. Some toning to pages as is common with these UK editions. Binding strong. Slight edge wear to boards. Nice copy in near fine condition. Jacket in Mylar. Additional photos available upon request. All of our books are carefully wrapped and shipped in a box.

Seller Inventory # 251113002

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Books of Blood: Volume Two
• Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
• Publication Date: 1985
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0297787624
• ISBN 13: 9780297787624
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First Edition.
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
• Weight: 28 ounces
• Signed: Signed by Author
• Seller catalogs:
  • Signed First Edition

About this title

Synopsis

Five stories of horror and intrigue include, "Dread," "Hell's Event," "Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament," "The Skins of the Fathers," and "New Murders in the Rue Morgue." Reprint.

Review

"Everybody is a book of blood; wherever we're opened, we're red." For those who only know Clive Barker through his long multigenre novels, this one-volume edition of the Books of Blood is a welcome chance to acquire the 16 remarkable horror short stories with which he kicked off his career. For those who already know these tales, the poignant introduction is a window on the creator's mind. Reflecting back after 14 years, Barker writes:

I look at these pieces and I don't think the man who wrote them is alive in me anymore.... We are all our own graveyards I believe; we squat amongst the tombs of the people we were. If we're healthy, every day is a celebration, a Day of the Dead, in which we give thanks for the lives that we lived; and if we are neurotic we brood and mourn and wish that the past was still present.

Reading these stories over, I feel a little of both. Some of the simple energies that made these words flow through my pen--that made the phrases felicitous and the ideas sing--have gone. I lost their maker a long time ago.

These enthusiastic tales are not ashamed of visceral horror, of blood splashing freely across the page: "The Midnight Meat Train," a grisly subway tale that surprises you with one twist after another; "The Yattering and Jack," about a hilarious demon who possesses a Christmas turkey; "In the Hills, the Cities," an unusual example of an original horror premise; "Dread," a harrowing non-supernatural tale about being forced to realize your worst nightmare; "Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament," about a woman who kills men with her mind. Some of the tales are more successful than others, but all are distinguished by strikingly beautiful images of evil and destruction. No horror library is complete without them. --Fiona Webster