
All the Fear of the Fair
Uncanny Tales of Circus and Sideshow
Edward Parnell(Editor)
British Library Publishing
Published on 16. October 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
288 pages
978-0-7123-5509-4 (ISBN)
Description
Step right up to see the enchanted Ferris wheel whose magical gifts are to die for! Marvel at the man-eating menagerie and dreadful secrets of 'Satan's Circus'! Behold the nightmare waxworks of Mrs. Groby's Chamber of Horrors!
Carnivals and sideshows are settings closely entwined with the history of horror cinema, but in the realms of literature, there is a strain of uncanny fairground fiction with even deeper roots. Home to a sinister troupe of conjurers, puppeteers, beast tamers and crowds baying for blood beneath the Big Top, the performance spaces of these classic weird tales are borderlands where the unearthly meets the darker cravings of the human heart.
Presenting sixteen sensational short stories, hailing from Edgar Allan Poe's 1840s through to Robert Aickman's 1960s, Edward Parnell invites you to enjoy a cavalcade of uneasy thrills courtesy of Gerald Kersh, Ray Bradbury, Margery Lawrence and many more.
Carnivals and sideshows are settings closely entwined with the history of horror cinema, but in the realms of literature, there is a strain of uncanny fairground fiction with even deeper roots. Home to a sinister troupe of conjurers, puppeteers, beast tamers and crowds baying for blood beneath the Big Top, the performance spaces of these classic weird tales are borderlands where the unearthly meets the darker cravings of the human heart.
Presenting sixteen sensational short stories, hailing from Edgar Allan Poe's 1840s through to Robert Aickman's 1960s, Edward Parnell invites you to enjoy a cavalcade of uneasy thrills courtesy of Gerald Kersh, Ray Bradbury, Margery Lawrence and many more.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Illustrations
Illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 184 mm
Width: 125 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
248 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-7123-5509-4 (9780712355094)
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
Edward Parnell is the author of the award-winning Ghostland: In Search of a Haunted Country (2019), which was shortlisted for the PEN Ackerley Prize 2020 for memoir and autobiography, as well as the Norfolk-set novel The Listeners (2014). His Tales of the Weird anthology Eerie East Anglia was one of the series' best sellers in 2024.