Readers who only know the work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle through a certain cocaine-injecting detective need to have their horizons broadened with the collection THE BEST HORROR STORIES OF ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE. Edited by Frank D. McSherry, Martin H. Greenberg and Charles G. Waugh, this 13-tale collection is now back in print after originally being published in 1989.

Most of the horrors within are supernatural ones – no surprise, given Doyle’s real-life interest/belief in the spiritual and fairy worlds. Some of the more notable stories include “The Horror of the Heights,” in which pilots attempting record altitudes fall victim to purple snake creatures in the sky, through beheadings, failed hearts or other fatal methods; “The Lift,” with a man and his girlfriend at the mercy of a madman several stories above ground level on a steel-girder structure; “The Leather Funnel,” which gives haunted dreams of torture to anyone who sleeps nearby it; and “J. Habakuk Jephson’s Statement,” a narrative attempting to explain the mysterious disapperance of passengers on a ghost ship. Others involve mesmerism, cursed weaponry and disturbed seafarers.

Perhaps the most famous story among them is also the most anthologized: “Lot 249,” a tale of two Oxford University students and one reawakened mummy. If you think you know the whole thing after viewing its adaptation in TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE: THE MOVIE (a guilty pleasure of mine, I’ll admit), you’ll be surprised at its expert mix of high terror and absurdist humor. But it’s not the finest here. For my money, that goes to “The New Catacomb,” a deceptively simple story of two students interested in the ruins of ancient Rome and the underground maze that one of them unearths. Its last-minute twist predates the TWILIGHT ZONE style of switcheroos by half a century, and its appeal is timeless.

This volume includes some entries I haven’t seen collected in other similar anthologies, so it’s worth picking up. Granted, these stories are not as instantly accessible as the Sherlock Holmes canon, nor quite as pleasurable. But they are quite good indeed, both for fans of Doyle and classic horror in general. Doyle’s range was wider than he often receives credit for, and this collection proves he was adept at more than one genre. –Rod Lott

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