I’ve wished for a long time that someone would publish some electronic collections by Robert Bloch. Or print collections that don’t just reprint the same handful of stories that are in most of the available collections.

My prayers have been answered. Sort of. The two stories I’m going to look at today come from a recently published collection entitled The Best of Robert Bloch, Vol. 3. There’s a volume 1, but as far as I’ve been able to find, there isn’t a volume 2.  This is a different book than the single volume of the same title that was published by Del Rey back in the 1970s.

(I’m not sure just how legitimate this book is. It and the first volume were published in October of this year, volume 3 just over a month ago as I write this. I’m not sure if Bloch’s estate authorized these books or receive any proceeds from the sale. The photo on Robert Bloch’s Amazon author page is someone else.)

The first story, “The Black Kiss”, was coauthored with Henry Kuttner. That isn’t noted that I saw in this book. It was first published in the June 1937 issue of Weird Tales. It was the cover story when reprinted in the 16th issue of Avon Fantasy Reader in 1951. Again without crediting Kuttner.

Graham Dean is an artist who has just inherited a run down house on the California coast. He thinks it will be the perfect location for the types of seascapes he likes to paint.

Soon the strange dreams start. He’s in the water and sees dark shapes swimming around him. He also has visions of a woman’s eyes and lips. He isn’t rested when he wakes up.

It turns out the house has a dark past. One of Graham’s ancestors built it, then returned from Spain with a wife. She was reputed to be a witch who would swim in the ocean with strange creatures. That was hundreds of years ago, but the stories persist. The family has tried to rent the place, but no tenants stay long.

Then Graham gets a telegram from his uncle, a noted occult detective, warning him to get out of the house. But it might already be too late.

According to the ISFDB, this is the second and final story Kuttner wrote about the uncle, Michael Leigh. The first was “The Salem Horror.”

I quite enjoyed the way Kuttner and Bloch wove elements of Greek mythology into the story. The ending was clever in how it was both a happy ending and a tragic one.

The second Bloch story was his alone, although it drew heavily on the works of H. P. Lovecraft. “Fane of the Black Pharaoh” was first published in the December 1937 Issue of Weird Tales.

Here a retired officer of the British military is searching for the tomb of Nephren-Ka, the Black Pharaoh, so called because he tried to convert Egypt to the black arts and the worship of Nyarlathotep. The story opens when an Arab tells the officer he can take him to this tomb.

Anyone with a lick of sense will know that it’s a trap.

The ending is predictable. What made the story enjoyable for me was the way Bloch drew on various Mythos elements. The backstory was in some ways more interesting than the actions of the officer and the Arab.

So, since Black Friday is more than just Friday these days, here’s a couple of stories to remind you that not all horrors of the season are at the mall.