Avon Fantasy Reader No. 16

Avon Fantasy Reader No. 16 This 1951 anthology collects twelve stories of science fiction, fantasy, and weird fiction. Featured is Robert Bloch's "The Black Kiss," a novelette about a young artist inheriting a house near San Pedro, California, plagued by dreams of green underwater realms and approaching shadows. The tale draws on legends of his ancestor Morelia Godolfo, a Spanish woman said to have made dark pacts with Moorish sorcerers and transformed into a mermaid-like creature. Also included are "The Man Who Lived Backward" by Gelett Burgess, about a man growing mysteriously younger; "Something from Above" by Donald Wandrei, depicting flying discs and blood raining from the sky; "The Forest of Lost Men" by Beatrice Grimshaw; and "The Wax Doll" by Greye La Spina. Additional contributors include M.P. Shiel, J.B. Priestley, Frank Belknap Long, John Kendrick Bangs, and others. The collection emphasizes supernatural and cosmic horror themes.