Avon, $1.25, ISBN 0-380-00506-9
Horror, 1969
A Walk with the Beast is an anthology where monsters lurk, prose flows like molasses, and half the stories can be summed up as: “And then I heard a terrible tale from a man in a tavern.”
Prince Alberic and the Snake Lady by Vernon Lee
Good lord. This one could be summed up in two sentences: “Simple but good-natured prince gets his lifelong fetish for hot monster girls awakened by a tapestry. His psychotic, control-freak father disapproves… with fatal consequences.”
That’s it. That’s the plot. You could write it on a cocktail napkin and still have space for your drink order.
However, Vernon Lee is firmly from the ‘prose is its own reward’ school of fiction, so strap in for a relentless parade of paragraphs detailing the precise shimmer of ancient armor, the social calendar of irrelevant courtiers, and the tragic biography of a rusted iron chandelier. Meanwhile, actual character development for Alberic or the snake lady? Pfft, optional.
To its credit, there’s a decent moral about who the real monster is — turns out it’s the absolute worst dad this side of fairy tale royalty, while the snake lady is basically your gothic cottagecore girlfriend goals.
Perfect for people who love florid descriptions of inanimate objects and vaguely menacing atmosphere. Everyone else should save time and just watch The Shape of Water.
The White Wolf of the Hartz Mountains by Frederick Marryat
Mr Marryat delivers a textbook example of 19th-century horror storytelling conventions: a bunch of guys on a ship, someone decides to launch into his life story, and boom — two-hour tangent incoming.
In this one, Dad gets seduced by a beautiful woman (red flag #1), marries her immediately (red flag #2), and watches in mild confusion as his kids are sequentially mauled by a wolf (at this point it’s just a crimson bedsheet of warning signs). The wife, meanwhile, is about as concerned as a Victorian parlor fern.
Spoiler: it’s her. She’s the werewolf. The story doesn’t even pretend to hide it.
Honestly, if there’s a subtler werewolf story out there, this is its unsubtle drunk cousin yelling “IT’S ME! I’M THE WOLF!” by the halfway mark.
Compared to Vernon Lee’s novella-length curtain descriptions, this is positively concise, although still sprinkled with the obligatory Victorian habit of describing landscapes like a wistful watercolor painting.
Unfortunately, there’s no mystery, no suspense, just the slow, inevitable slide toward “Hey wait a second… is my wife a wolf?”
While it’s readable, it is also entirely predictable and about as suspenseful as watching someone assemble IKEA furniture with the wrong instructions. Fine if you have ten minutes to kill and enjoy mildly sinister lupine ladies.
One of the Dead by William Hood
This story follows the classic horror trope of a couple moving into a creepy old house. The twist here is that the protagonist’s ex, Sonya — known around town as the local get-around party girl — is revealed to be a vampire.
As strange and dangerous events begin to occur, the protagonist somehow manages to show that when one mentions his little head, it’s actually the one resting on his neck.
Rather than reacting to the escalating supernatural occurrences with any sense of alarm or urgency, he spends most of the story obsessing about how attractive his undead ex still is.
Weird happenings? No big deal.
His wife’s growing fear? Barely worth a mention.
His own declining health? Probably just a minor cold.
Sonya’s obvious vampire vibes? “Damn, she’s fine though.”
Although this was the most recent story in the anthology, published in the 1960s, the protagonist’s utter lack of common sense makes him one of the dimmest bulbs you’ll ever meet in Victorian horror.
By the end, the only character with any clear motivation or sense of purpose is Sonya herself, which ironically makes the vampire ex the most compelling figure in the story.
To top it all off, the story ends abruptly and vaguely, without any dramatic showdown, staking, or holy water rituals. Instead, it just quietly fades out with a resigned “Welp. That’s probably bad!” leaving readers to wonder what just happened — and why they stuck around.
Count Szolnok’s Robots by D. Scott-Moncrieff
Oh, Count Szolnok’s Robots — now there’s a breath of fresh air after the previous tales! Author D Scott-Moncrieff leans into an early science-fiction vibe, blending eerie, uncanny monsters with a mechanical menace that actually delivers.
Like many in this anthology, the story unfolds through a framing device — this time a journal discovered by the protagonist, Imre Nagy, a weary writer seeking peace in the remote city of Manaoes, far from the chaos of war.
Imre hears the local legend of Count Szolnok, a brilliant but reclusive engineer who created an army of robots to serve him and his disfigured wife — a woman so traumatized by her own appearance that she cannot face another human. Eventually, the count and his wife vanished without a trace.
Naturally, Imre investigates the infamous house, discovering the count’s journal detailing the chilling events leading up to their disappearance. The story’s clear narrative and steadily building tension deliver that satisfying mix of mystery and menace.
The robots themselves are genuinely unsettling — cold, relentless, disturbingly unnatural — a stark and effective contrast to the more organic monsters of previous stories. Meanwhile, the count’s uneasy relationship with his creations adds a subtle layer of tragic hubris, taking the tale deep into classic Gothic sci-fi territory — and it works.
Overall, this story is refreshingly focused, avoiding the florid, meandering prose and awkward romantic detours of earlier entries. It’s a perfect palate cleanser between the Victorian monster romances and the 1960s vampire soap operas you’ve just endured.
The Man and the Snake by Ambrose Bierce
This story feels like a Darwin Awards nominee before those awards even existed.
Meet Harker Brayton: scholar, man of learning, and seemingly allergic to common sense and basic survival instincts.
When he spots two glowing eyes lurking under his bed, his reaction is a masterclass in denial and poor decision-making, swinging wildly from indifferent shrug to morbid curiosity to sheer, gut-wrenching terror.
Honestly, this story could’ve had a perfectly happy ending if he’d just called for help with a broomstick to shoo the thing out from under there. Instead, Brayton insists on turning the whole mess into an existential crisis, overthinking his predicament like it’s some sort of philosophical puzzle rather than a clear sign to run screaming.
However, here’s the kicker: Ambrose Bierce knows exactly what he’s doing. He transforms this absurdly dumb scenario into a darkly comic gem, making the story less horror and more a twisted farce. It’s the kind of morbidly amusing tale where you can’t help but laugh at the sheer ridiculousness while feeling a little sorry for the guy… until you realize he brought it all on himself.
The Headless Miller of Kobold’s Keep by Irvin Ashkenazy
Originally published under the pseudonym G Garnet, this one’s a return to the comforting embrace of well-worn Gothic clichés.
The tale is presented in the form of a resignation letter, penned by one Robert Darnley, an insufferably smug art collector whose personality makes you wish the Headless Miller would show up a bit sooner and do us all a favor.
Like clockwork, the story kicks off with Darnley deciding to visit the notoriously creepy Kobold’s Keep, ignoring the locals’ ominous yet maddeningly vague warnings. Why the villagers even bother warning people in these stories is a mystery in itself, since nobody listens and they never elaborate beyond ominous mutterings.
Of course, the horror doesn’t actually happen to Darnley in the moment. No, most of the chills are served secondhand via a creepy denizen of the Keep who recounts the local legend to Darnley. One wonders if these writers had a personal vendetta against direct narrative tension. It’s always someone else telling the spooky bits over a pint or a dusty letter.
The pièce de résistance comes when Darnley, having apparently been sufficiently spooked, sits down to compose a polite, formal resignation letter instead of, say, running for his life or setting the place on fire like any sensible Gothic character would. It’s a choice, certainly.
Altogether, this is a paint-by-numbers Gothic yarn, stuffed with overfamiliar tropes and clearly dashed off in hopes of securing a spot in a periodical for a few coins. Not terrible, but unmistakably the literary equivalent of filling space.
The Cat Lady by David H Keller
Warning: the title is practically a spoiler. But you know what? Too late now!
This one leans hard into classic horror setup territory: a man buys a house at a suspiciously low price and is shocked — shocked, I tell you! — to discover it comes with a grisly history. All the past male owners have mysteriously vanished, and it turns out they’re still around… trapped, blinded, and imprisoned in a hidden room.
Enter the titular cat lady, a character whose idea of a good time is showing up to sing for her captive audience and force them to applaud. No, really. That’s it. She doesn’t seduce them, drain their blood, or turn them into eldritch abominations. She just wants a standing ovation and has apparently never heard of community theater or Eurovision.
The premise is patently absurd, but to its credit, the story does manage to deliver a bit of tension and a properly eerie atmosphere. Even better, our protagonist breaks the anthology curse by actually having common sense and survival instinct, proactively working to save himself and the other prisoners.
All in all, a ridiculous concept executed with enough straight-faced commitment and pulp-horror atmosphere to make it an entertaining little read… and mercifully free of purple prose and idiot protagonists. A small victory, but I’ll take it.
Curious Adventure of Mr. Bond by Nugent Barker
A delightful surprise in this anthology, Curious Adventure of Mr. Bond is a clever, darkly humorous tale that reads like a macabre folk story with a twinkle in its eye.
The weary, portly Mr Bond stumbles upon a charming inn called The Rest of the Traveller, where he’s treated to a fine broth and the hospitality of the innkeeper and his alluring wife. They soon direct him down the road to the next inn, The Headless Man, run by the innkeeper’s brother, and from there, on to The Traveller’s Head.
It doesn’t take a master detective to spot where this is, ahem, heading. Nugent Barker drops very broad hints, especially in the names of the inns themselves, and through several bits of loaded dialogue and setting descriptions.
The real fun is in the journey, though, as Mr Barker builds a gently sinister atmosphere balanced with a sense of grim comedy. Mr Bond’s good-natured cluelessness makes him an endearing figure, even as readers piece together the fate awaiting him well before he does.
If the story has a flaw, it’s that the author feels the need to spell everything out quite plainly by the end, as though worried the audience might have missed his foreshadowing. Still, it hardly diminishes the charm of this well-paced, moodily atmospheric story — easily one of the highlights of the collection so far.
The Elephant Man by Sir Frederick Treves
The anthology’s finale departs from the usual parade of gothic monsters and bizarre beasts, offering instead a sober memoir excerpt from the surgeon who cared for Joseph Merrick, forever and unfairly dubbed the Elephant Man.
No vampires, no creepy headless landlords — just the real horror: society’s merciless cruelty toward those who look different. Treves’ clinical yet compassionate account of Merrick’s tragic life as a sideshow curiosity and his eventual refuge at London Hospital is strikingly human.
In a collection packed with absurd monsters and dramatic supernatural showdowns, this piece’s quiet dignity and empathy hit differently. It’s less about scaring the reader and more about forcing us to confront our own monstrous behavior.
Some Victorian-era medical descriptions and attitudes do feel a bit outdated now, but the core humanity in Treves’ writing remains compelling, making this a fitting, thoughtful close to a rather wild anthology.
The elephant (no pun intended) in the room: why is this essay included in an anthology called A Walk with the Beast? The essay touches on the kindness shown to Merrick, so the only unfortunate conclusion is that the editor is implying Merrick himself is the “beast”. Rude!
Final Thoughts
This anthology starts off as a mixed bag of creaky clichés, bafflingly obtuse protagonists, and delightfully absurd setups — a fitting snapshot of its era’s pulp horror preoccupations.
Thankfully, things pick up toward the end with a couple of clever, atmospheric gems that showcase how the genre was slowly evolving beyond headless millers and vengeful cat ladies.
The final inclusion of The Elephant Man, though a compelling and deeply humane piece in its own right, feels like a tasteless lapse of editorial judgment in context. Still, if this odd placement encourages readers to seek out more of Sir Treves’s memoirs and to reflect on the real horrors of prejudice and ignorance, perhaps it’s a misstep with an unexpectedly worthwhile outcome.
