A Compilation of Textual and Graphical Information About
Author Robert Bloch & His Written Works.*
Robert Albert Bloch (April 5, 1917 – September 23, 1994) was a prolific American writer, primarily of crime, horror, fantasy and science fiction. He is best known as the writer of Psycho, the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock. He wrote that "Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk," (a quote borrowed by Stephen King and often incorrectly attributed to him). His fondness for a pun is evident in the titles of his story collections such as Tales in a Jugular Vein, Such Stuff as Screams Are Made Of and Out of the Mouths of Graves.
Bloch
wrote hundreds of short stories and over 30 novels. He was one of the
youngest members of the Lovecraft Circle. H. P. Lovecraft was Bloch's
mentor and one of the first to seriously encourage his talent. However,
while Bloch started his career by emulating Lovecraft and his brand of
cosmic horror, he later specialized in crime and horror stories dealing
with the inner workings of the human mind.
Bloch
was a contributor to pulp magazines such as Weird Tales in his early
career, and was also a prolific screenwriter and a major contributor to
science fiction fanzines and fandom in general.
He
won the Hugo Award (for his story "That Hell-Bound Train"), the Bram
Stoker Award, and the World Fantasy Award. He served a term as president
of the Mystery Writers of America (1970) and was a member of that
organization and of Science Fiction Writers of America, the Writers'
Guild, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Count
Dracula Society. In 2008, The Library of America selected Bloch's essay
"The Shambles of Ed Gein" for inclusion in its two-century retrospective
of American true crime.
His
favorites among his own novels were The Kidnapper, The Star Stalker,
Psycho, Night-World and Strange Eons. His work has been extensively
filmed for movies and television.
Background
Bloch
was born in Chicago, the son of Raphael "Ray" Bloch (1884–1952), a bank
cashier, and his wife Stella Loeb (1880–1944), a social worker, both of
German Jewish descent. Bloch's family moved to Maywood, a Chicago
suburb, when he was five. He attended the Methodist Church there,
despite his parents' Jewish heritage.[citation needed] At eight or nine
years of age, living in Maywood, he attended a screening of Lon Chaney,
Sr.'s Phantom of the Opera late at night on his own. The scene of Chaney
removing his mask terrified the young Bloch and sparked his interest in
horror.
In
1929 Ray Bloch lost his bank job, and the family moved to Milwaukee,
where Stella worked at the Milwaukee Jewish Settlement house.
Robert attended Washington, then Lincoln High School, where he met
lifelong friend Harold Gauer. Gauer was editor of The Quill, Lincoln's
literary magazine, and accepted Bloch's first published short story, a
horror story titled "The Thing" (the "thing" of the title was Death).
Both Bloch and Gauer graduated from Lincoln in 1932 during the height of
the Great Depression. Bloch was involved in the drama department at
Lincoln and wrote and performed in school vaudeville skits.
Influence of H.P. Lovecraft on early writing career
During
the 1930s, Bloch was an avid reader of the pulp magazine Weird Tales.
H. P. Lovecraft, a frequent contributor to that magazine, became one of
his favorite writers. As a teenager, Bloch wrote fan letter to Lovecraft
(1933), who gave him advice on his own fiction-writing efforts.[4]
Bloch's first publication was with the short story "Lilies" in the
semi-professional magazine Marvel Tales (Winter 1934). Bloch began
correspondence with August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith and others of the
'Lovecraft Circle'. Bloch's first professional sales, at the age of 17
(July 1934), were to Weird Tales with the short stories "The Feast in
the Abbey" and "The Secret in the Tomb". "Feast..." appeared first, in
the January 1935 issues which actually went on sale November 1, 1934.
Bloch's
early stories were strongly influenced by Lovecraft. Indeed, a number
of his stories were set in, and extended, the world of Lovecraft's
Cthulhu Mythos. These include "The Dark Demon", in which the character
Gordon is a figuration of Lovecraft, and which features Nyarlathotep;
"The Faceless God" (features Nyarlathotep); "The grinning Ghoul"
(written after the manner of Lovecraft) and "The Unspeakable Betrothal"
(vaguely attached to the Cthulhu Mythos). It was Bloch who invented, for
example, the oft-cited Mythos texts De Vermis Mysteriis and Cultes des
Goules. Many other stories influenced by Lovecraft were later collected
in Bloch's volume Mysteries of the Worm.
The
young Bloch appears, thinly disguised, as the character "Robert Blake"
in Lovecraft's story "The Haunter of the Dark" (1936), which is
dedicated to Bloch. Bloch was the only individual to whom Lovecraft ever
dedicated a story.[citation needed] In this story, Lovecraft kills off
the Bloch character, repaying a courtesy Bloch earlier paid Lovecraft
with his 1935 tale "The Shambler from the Stars", in which the
Lovecraft-inspired figure dies; the story goes so far as to use Bloch's
then-current street address in Milwaukee. (Bloch even had a signed
certificate from Lovecraft [and some of his creations] giving Bloch
permission to kill Lovecraft off in a story.) Bloch later wrote a third
tale, "The Shadow From the Steeple", picking up where "The Haunter of
the Dark" finished (Weird Tales Sept 1950). After Lovecraft's death in
1937, Bloch continued writing for Weird Tales, where he became one of
its most popular authors. He also began contributing to other pulps,
such as the science fiction magazine Amazing Stories.
Bloch's late novel Strange Eons is a full-length tribute to the style and subject matter of Lovecraft.
After Lovecraft's
death in 1937, which affected Bloch deeply, Bloch broadened the scope
of his fiction. His horror themes included voodoo ("Mother of
Serpents"), the conte cruel ("The Mandarin's Canaries'), demonic
possession ("Fiddler's Fee"), and black magic ("Return to the Sabbat").
Bloch visited Henry Kuttner in California in 1937. Bloch's first science
fiction story, "The Secret of the Observatory", was published in
Amazing Stories (August 1938).
Milwaukee Fictioneers and Depression period
In 1935 Bloch joined a writers' group, The Milwaukee Fictioneers, members of which included Stanley Weinbaum, Ralph Milne Farley and Raymond A. Palmer. Another member of the group was Gustav Marx, who offered Bloch a job writing copy in his advertising firm, also allowing Bloch to write stories in his spare time in the office. Bloch was close friends with C.L. Moore and her husband Henry Kuttner, who visited him in Milwaukee.
During
the years of the Depression, Bloch appeared regularly in dramatic
productions, writing and performing in his own sketches. Around 1936 he
sold some gags to radio comedians Stoopnagle and Budd, and to Roy
Atwell.
Campaign manager for Carl Zeidler
In
1939, Bloch was contacted by James Doolittle, who was managing the
campaign for a little-known assistant city attorney in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin named Carl Zeidler. He was asked to work on his speechwriting,
advertising, and photo ops, in collaboration with Harold Gauer. They
created elaborate campaign shows; in Bloch's 1993 autobiography, Once
Around the Bloch, he gives an inside account of the campaign, and the
innovations he and Gauer came up with — for instance, the original
releasing-balloons-from-the-ceiling shtick. He comments bitterly on how,
after Zeidler's victory, they were ignored and not even paid their
promised salaries. He ends the story with a wryly philosophical point:
“If
Carl Zeidler had not asked Jim Doolittle to manage his campaign,
Doolittle would never have contacted me about it. And the only reason
Doolittle knew me to begin with was because he read my yarn ("The
Cloak") in Unknown. Rattling this chain of circumstances, one may
stretch it a bit further. If I had not written a little vampire story
called "The Cloak", Carl Zeidler might never have become mayor of
Milwaukee.”
The 1940s and 1950s
In
the 1940s, Bloch created the humorous series character Lefty Feep in a
story for Fantastic Adventures. He also worked for a time in local
vaudeville and tried to break into writing for nationally known
performers.
In
1944 he was asked to write 39 15-minute episodes of a radio horror show
called Stay Tuned for Terror. Many of the programs were adaptations of
his own pulp stories. None of the episodes, which were all broadcast,
are extant.
A year later August Derleth's Arkham House, Lovecraft's publisher, published Bloch's first collection of short stories, The Opener of the Way.
Bloch
gradually evolved away from Lovecraftian imitations towards a unique
style of his own. One of the first distinctly "Blochian" stories was
"Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper", which was published in Weird Tales in
1943. The story was Bloch's take on the Jack the Ripper legend, and was
filled out with more genuine factual details of the case than many other
fictional treatments. It cast the Ripper as an eternal being who must
make human sacrifices to extend his immortality. It was adapted for both
radio (in Stay Tuned for Terror) and television (as an episode of
Thriller in 1961 adapted by Barré Lyndon). Bloch followed up this story
with a number of others in a similar vein dealing with half-historic,
half-legendary figures such as the Man in the Iron Mask ("Iron Mask",
1944), the Marquis de Sade ("The Skull of the Marquis de Sade", 1945)
and Lizzie Borden ("Lizzie Borden Took an Axe...", 1946).
Bloch's first novel was the thriller The Scarf (1947). (He later issued a revised edition in 1966). It tells the story of a writer, Daniel Morley, who uses real women as models for his characters. But as soon as he is done writing the story, he is compelled to murder them, and always the same way: with the maroon scarf he has had since childhood. The story begins in Minneapolis and follows him and his trail of dead bodies to Chicago, New York, and finally Hollywood, where his hit novel is going to be turned into a movie, and where his self-control may have reached its limit.
Bloch published three novels in 1954 – Spiderweb, The Kidnapper and The Will to Kill as he endeavored to support his family. That same year he was a weekly guest panelist on the TV quiz show It's a Draw.
Shooting Star (1958), a mainstream novel, was published in a double volume with a collection of Bloch's stories titled Terror in the Night. This Crowded Earth (1958) was science fiction.
With the demise of Weird Tales, Bloch continued to have his fiction published in Amazing, Fantastic, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Fantastic Universe; he was a particularly frequent contributor to Imagination and Imaginative Tales. His output of thrillers increased and he began to appear regularly in The Saint, Ellery Queen and similar mystery magazines, and to such suspense and horror-fiction magazine projects as Shock.
Jack the Ripper in later work
Bloch continued to revisit the Jack the Ripper theme. His contribution to Harlan Ellison's 1967 science fiction anthology Dangerous Visions was a story, "A Toy for Juliette", which evoked both Jack the Ripper and the Marquis de Sade in a time-travel story. The same anthology had Ellison's sequel to it titled "The Prowler in the City at the Edge of the World". His earlier idea of the Ripper as an immortal being resurfaced in Bloch's contribution to the original Star Trek series episode "Wolf in the Fold". His 1984 novel Night of the Ripper is set during the reign of Queen Victoria and follows the investigation of Inspector Frederick Abberline in attempting to apprehend the Ripper, and includes some famous Victorians such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle within the storyline.
Psycho
Bloch
won the prestigious SF Hugo award in 1959, the same year that Psycho
was published. Bloch had written an earlier short story involving split
personalities, "The Real Bad Friend", which appeared in the February
1957 Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, that foreshadowed the 1959 novel
Psycho. However, Psycho also has thematic links to the story "Lucy Comes
to Stay".
Norman
Bates, the main character in Psycho, was loosely based on two people.
First was the real-life serial killer Ed Gein, about whom Bloch later
wrote a fictionalized account, "The Shambles of Ed Gein". (The story can
be found in Crimes and Punishments: The Lost Bloch, Volume 3). Second,
it has been indicated by several people, including Noel Carter (wife of
Lin Carter) and Chris Steinbrunner, as well as allegedly by Bloch
himself, that Norman Bates was partly based on Calvin Beck, publisher of
Castle of Frankenstein.[8] Bloch's basing of the character of Norman
Bates on Ed Gein is discussed in the documentary "Ed Gein: The Ghoul of
Plainfield", which can be found on Disc 2 of the DVD release of The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003 film).
Though
Bloch had little involvement with the film version of his novel, which
was directed by Alfred Hitchcock from an adapted screenplay by Joseph
Stefano, he was to become most famous as its author.
The
novel is one of the first examples at full length of Bloch's use of
modern urban horror relying on the horrors of interior psychology rather
than the supernatural. "By the mid-1940s, I had pretty well mined the
vein of ordinary supernatural themes until it had become varicose,"
Bloch explained to Douglas Winter in an interview. "I realized, as a
result of what went on during World War II and of reading the more
widely disseminated work in psychology, that the real horror is not in
the shadows, but in that twisted little world inside our own skulls."
While Bloch was not the first horror writer to utilize a psychological
approach (that honor belongs to Edgar Allan Poe and J. Sheridan Le
Fanu), Bloch's psychological approach in modern times was comparatively
unique.
Bloch's
agent, Harry Altshuler, received a "blind bid" for the novel - the
buyer's name wasn't mentioned - of $7,500 for screen rights to the book.
The bid eventually went to $9,500, which Bloch accepted. Bloch had
never sold a book to Hollywood before. His contract with Simon and
Schuster included no bonus for a film sale. The publisher took 15
percent according to contract, while the agent took his 10%; Bloch wound
up with about $6,750 before taxes. Despite the enormous profits
generated by Hitchcock's film, Bloch received no further direct
compensation.
Only Hitchcock's film was based on Bloch's
novel. The later films in the Psycho series bear no relation to either
of Bloch's sequel novels. Indeed, Bloch's proposed script for the film
Psycho II was rejected by the studio (as were many other submissions),
and it was this that he subsequently adapted for his own sequel novel.
The 2012 film Hitchcock tells the story of Alfred Hitchcock's making of the film version of Psycho but although it mentions Bloch and his novel, no part for the character of Bloch was cast for the movie.
The 1960s: Hollywood and screenwriting
Following his move to Hollywood, around 1960, Bloch had multiple assignments from various television companies. However, he was not allowed to write for five months when the Writers Guild had a strike. After the strike was over, he became a much used scriptwriter in television and film projects in the mystery, suspense, and horror genre. His first assignments were for the Macdonald Carey vehicle, Lock-Up, (penning five episodes) as well as one for Whispering Smith, and an original screenplay for the 1962 film The Couch. Further TV work included an episode of Bus Stop, 10 episodes of Thriller (1960–62, several based on his own stories), and 10 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1960–62). In 1962, he wrote the screenplay for The Cabinet of Caligari (1962), an unhappy experience.
In 1962, Bloch penned the story and teleplay "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" for Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The episode was shelved when the NBC Television Network and sponsor Revlon called its ending "too gruesome" (by 1960s standards) for airing. Bloch was pleased later when the episode was included in the program's syndication package to affiliate stations where not one complaint was registered. Today, due to public domain status, the episode is readily available in home media formats from numerous distributors and is even available on free video on demand.
His TV work did not slow Bloch's fictional output. In the early 1960s he published several novels, including The Dead Beat (1960) and Firebug (1961) (for which Harlan Ellison, then an editor at Regency Books, contributed the first 1200 words).
In
1962 his novels The Couch (1962) (the basis for the screenplay of his
first movie, filmed the same year) and Terror (originally titled Kill
for Kali) were published.
Bloch
wrote original screenplays for two movies produced and directed by
William Castle, Strait-Jacket (1964) and The Night Walker (1964), along
with The Skull (1965). The latter film was based on his short story "The
Skull of the Marquis de Sade".
Marriages and family
On October 2, 1940, Bloch married Marion Ruth Holcombe; it was reportedly a marriage of convenience designed to keep Bloch out of the army.[17] During their marriage, she suffered (initially undiagnosed) tuberculosis of the bone, which affected her ability to walk.
After working for 11 years for the Gustav Marx Advertising Agency in Milwaukee, Bloch left in 1953 and moved to Weyauwega, Marion's home town, so she could be close to friends and family. Although she was eventually cured of tuberculosis, she and Bloch divorced in 1963. Bloch's daughter Sally (born 1943) elected to stay with him. On January 18, 1964, Bloch met recently widowed Eleanor (Elly) Alexander (née Zalisko) (who had lost her first husband, writer/producer John Alexander, to a heart attack three months earlier) and made her his second wife in a civil ceremony on October 16 of that year. Eleanor was a fashion model and cosmetician. They honeymooned in Tahiti, and in 1965 visited London, then British Columbia. They remained happily married until Bloch's death.
Elly remained in the Los Angeles area for several years after selling their Laurel Canyon Home to fans of Bloch's, eventually choosing to go home to Canada to be closer to her own family. Eleanor Bloch died March 7, 2007 at the Betel Home in Selkirk, Manitoba, Canada. Her ashes have been placed next to Bloch's in a similar book-shaped urn at Pierce Brothers in Westwood, CA.
 |
| Eleanor Bloch |
The 1960s and screenwriting continued
In 1964 Bloch wrote two movies for William Castle - Straight-Jacket and The Night Walker.
Bloch's further TV writing in this period included The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (7 episodes, 1962–1965), [22] I Spy (1 episode, 1966), Run for Your Life (1 episode, 1966), and The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. (1 episode, 1967). He notably penned three original scripts for the original series of Star Trek (1966–67): "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", "Wolf in the Fold" (a Jack the Ripper variant), and "Catspaw".
His novels of this period include Ladies Day/This Crowded Earth (1968) (sf), The Star Stalker (1968) and The Todd Dossier (1969) (the book publication of which bears the byline "Collier Young").
In
1968 Bloch returned to London to do two episodes for the Hammer Films
series Journey to the Unknown for Twentieth Century Fox. One of the
episodes, "The Indian Spirit Guide", was included in the TV movie
Journey to Midnight (1968).
Following the 1965 movie The Skull which
was based on a Bloch story but scripted by Milton Subotsky, between 1966
and 1972 Bloch wrote no less than five feature movies for Amicus
Productions - The Psychopath, The Deadly Bees, Torture Garden, The House
That Dripped Blood and Asylum, the last two films featured stories
written by Bloch that were printed first in anthologies he wrote in the
1940s and early 1950s.
 |
| *Notice the writing credit for 'Robert Block'. |
In
1969 he was invited to the Film festival in Rio de Janeiro, along with
other science fiction writers from the US, Britain and Europe.
The 1970s and 1980s
During the 1970s Bloch wrote two TV movies
for director Curtis Harrington - The Cat Creature and The Dead Don't
Die. The Cat Creature was an unhappy production experience for Bloch.
Producer Doug Cramer wanted to do an update of Cat People (1942 film),
the Val Lewton classic. Bloch says: "Instead I suggested a blending of
the elements of several well-remembered films, and came up with a story
line which dealt with the Egyptian cat-goddess (Bast), reincarnation and
the first bypass operation ever performed on an artichoke heart.” The
rest of story of the troubled production in which he was firstly made to
shorten his screenplay by twelve minutes, and then to lengthen it again
at short notice, is described in Bloch's autobiography.
Bloch meanwhile (interspersed between his
screenplays for Amicus Productions), penned single episodes for Night
Gallery (1971), Ghost Story (1972), The Manhunter (1974), and Gemini Man
(1976).
In 1975 Bloch was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the First World Fantasy Convention held in Providence, Rhode Island.
Bloch continued to publish short story collections throughout this period. His Selected Stories (reprinted in paperback with the incorrect title The Complete Stories) appeared in three volumes just prior to his death, although many previously uncollected tales have appeared in volumes published since 1997.
His numerous novels of this two decade period range from science fiction (Sneak Preview (1971) . . .
through horror novels such as the Lovecraftian Strange Eons (1978) . . .
and Night of the Ripper, and his two sequels to the original Psycho (Psycho II and Psycho House) . . .
Omnibus editions of hard-to-acquire early novels appeared as Unholy Trinity (1986) and Screams (1989).
In February 1991 he was given the Honor of Master of Ceremonies at the first World Horror Convention held in Nashville, Tennessee.
Death
In 1994, Bloch died of cancer at the age of 77.[25][26][27] in Los Angeles after a writing career lasting 60 years, including more than 30 years in television and film. He was cremated and interred in the Room of Prayer columbarium at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.[28] His wife Elly is also interred there.
Bibliography
Novels
The Scarf (1947, rev. 1966)
Spiderweb (1954)
The Kidnapper (1954)
The Will to Kill (1954)
Shooting Star (1958) (note: published in a
double volume with the SS collection Terror in the Night) No ISBN -
identified only as Ace Double D-265
This Crowded Earth (1958) (original magazine appearance; published as book in double format with Ladies Day 1968 - see below)
Psycho (1959). UK: Robert Hale, April 1960. (adapted into the 1960 film, Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock; later remade in 1998 by Gus Van Sant)
The Dead Beat (1960). No ISBN. An 'Inner Sanctum' Mystery. Library of Congress Card No 60-6100.
Firebug (1961) Regency Books RB 101.
The Couch (1962). Novelization by Bloch of his screenplay for the previously filmed movie (see Movies section below).
Terror (Belmont Books, 1962) No ISBN; Belmont L92-537 (Working title: Amok).
Ladies Day / This Crowded Earth (1968) A Belmont Double. Belmont Terror (Belmont Books, 1962) No ISBN; Belmont L92-537 (Working title: Amok).
The Star Stalker (Pyramid Books, 1968). Pyramid T-1869.
The Todd Dossier (1969, Delacorte US; Macmillan UK - no ISBN.)(as by Collier Young). Note: The byline on this book is not a Bloch pseudonym; Collier Young
was a film producer who had secured a book deal with Bloch for his
planned film called THE TODD DOSSIER. Bloch wrote the novel based on a
story by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne.
The film was never made; Bloch, who had contracted for a paperback
release, was shocked to learn that the producer had placed his own name
on the book as author when it was published in hardcover editions.
Sneak Preview (Paperback Library, 1971)
It's All in Your Mind (Curtis Books,
1971). Reprinted from its Imaginative Tales 1955 magazine appearance,
where it was titled 'The Big Binge". "The Big Binge" can also be found
in The Lost Bloch, Volume One.
Night World (Simon & Schuster, 1972). UK: Robert Hale, 1974.
American Gothic (Simon & Schuster, 1974). Note: This novel was inspired by the true life story of mass murderer H.H. Holmes.
Bloch also wrote a 40,000 word essay based on his research for the
novel, "Dr Holmes' Murder Castle" (first published in Reader's Digest
Tales of the Uncanny, 1977; since reprinted in Crimes and Punishments:
The Lost Bloch, Vol 3", 2002).
Strange Eons (Whispers Press, 1978) (a Cthulhu Mythos novel).
There Is a Serpent in Eden (1979). Reissued as The Cunning (Zebra Books, 1979).
Psycho II (Whispers Press, 1982). (Unrelated to the film of the same name)
Twilight Zone: The Movie. (Warner Books, 1983). Novelisation of the Warner Bros movie, based on stories by John Landis, George Clayton Johnson, Richard Matheson, Josh Rogan, and Jerome Bixby.
Night of the Ripper (Doubleday,1984). Novel about Jack the Ripper.
Unholy
Trinity (collects The Scarf, The Couch and The Dead Beat(Scream/Press
Press, 1986). (Trade edition and 350 copy boxed ed signed by author and
artist bear the same ISBN)
Lori (Tor, 1989)
Screams: Three Novels of Suspense (collects The Will to Kill, Firebug and The Star Stalker)(Underwood-Miller, 1989)
Psycho House (Tor, 1990) (Unrelated to the films Psycho II, Psycho III or Psycho IV: The Beginning)
The Jekyll Legacy (Tor, 1991)
Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper (1991) (Pulphouse; a 100-copy hardbound signed edition of Bloch's famous short story)
The Thing (1993) (Pretentious Press; a
limited edition of 85 copies, only 9 bound in cloth, of the author's
first appearance in print - a parody of H.P. Lovecraft which originally
appeared in the April 1932 issue of The Quill, his Lincoln High School
literary magazine)
Psycho - The 35th Anniversary Edition
(Gauntlet Press, 1994). Limited edition of 500 copies. The last work to
be signed by Bloch before his death; includes a new intro by Richard Matheson and a new Afterword by Ray Bradbury)
Short-story collections
The Thing (1932) actually a single short story (parodying the style of H.P. Lovecraft), the author's first, but initially published in book form by The Pretentious Press in (1993)
A
Portfolio Of Some Rare And Exquisite Poetry By The Bard Of Bards (1937
or 1938) written under the pseudonym Sarcophagus W. Dribble. One page
folded to make 4. Poetry.
The Opener of the Way (Arkham House, 1945)
Sea Kissed (London: Utopian, 1945)
Terror in the Night (Ace Books, 1958) (note: published in a double volume with the novel Shooting Star)
Pleasant Dreams: Nightmares (Arkham House,1960)
Blood Runs Cold (1961). UK: Robert Hale, 1963.
Nightmares (1961)
More Nightmares (Belmont Books, 1961).
Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper (Belmont Books, 1962)
Atoms and Evil (1962)
Horror 7 (Belmont Books, 1963)
Bogey Men (Pyramid Books, March 1963) No ISBN; Pyramid F-839. Includes the essay "Psycho-Logical Bloch" by Sam Moskowitz.
House of the Hatchet (Belmont Books, 1960). UK: Tandem Books, 1965.
The Skull of the Marquis de Sade (1965). UK: Robert Hale, 1975.
Tales in a Jugular Vein (Pyramid Books, 1965)
Chamber of Horrors (Award Books, 1966)
The Living Demons (Belmont Books, Sept 1967)
Dragons and Nightmares: Four Short Novels (Mirage, 1968) No ISBN . Voyager series V-102.
Bloch and Bradbury: Whispers from Beyond (Peacock Press, 1969)
Fear Today, Gone Tomorrow (Award Books/Tandem Books, 1971)
The King of Terrors: Tales of Madness and Death (The Mysterious Press, 1977)
The Best of Robert Bloch (Del Rey/Ballantine, 1977). Introduction by Lester Del Rey.
Cold Chills (Doubleday, 1977).
Out of the Mouths of Graves (Mysterious Press, 1978)
The Laughter of a Ghoul/What Every Young Ghoul Should Know (Necronomicon Press, 1978)
Such Stuff as Screams Are Made Of (Ballantine Books, 1979)
Mysteries of the Worm (Zebra Books, 1981). Introduction "Demon-Dread Lore" by Lin Carter
Midnight Pleasures (Doubleday,1987)
Lost
in Space and Time With Lefty Feep (Creatures at Large Press, 1987).
(boxed/deluxe ed, 250 copies signed). Note: This book was designated
"Volume One" but in fact no further volumes of the series were
published.
Selected Stories of Robert Bloch (Underwood-Miller, 1987, 3 vols).
Note: The following three entries represent paperback reprints of the Underwood Miller Selected Stories set. Complete Stories is a misnomer as these three volumes do not contain anywhere near the complete oeuvre of Bloch's short fiction.
The Complete Stories of Robert Bloch: Volume 1: Final Reckonings (1987)
The Complete Stories of Robert Bloch: Volume 2: Bitter Ends (1987)
The Complete Stories of Robert Bloch: Volume 3: Last Rites (1987)
Fear and Trembling (1989)
Mysteries of the Worm (rev. 1993) from Chaosium books
The Early Fears (1994). Fedogan & Bremer.
Flowers from the Moon and Other Lunacies (Arkham House, 1998). Introduction by Robert M. Price.
Collects rarities from the Bloch canon, previously published in Weird
Tales, Strange Stories and Rogue magazines; of its 20 stories, 15 are
not readily obtainable outside the original pulps where they appeared.
The
Lost Bloch: Volume 1: The Devil With You! (Subterranean Press, 1999).
(Limited ed of 724 numbered copies signed by editor/introducer David J. Schow
and Foreword writer Stefan Dziemaniowicz). Includes interview with
Bloch, 'An Hour with Robert Bloch" conducted by David J. Schow. One of
the stories included is "The Big Binge" (originally in Imaginative Tales
in 1955 and reprinted as the short novel It's All in Your Mind in 1971,
see above). The Lost Bloch supplements Flowers from the Moon in
reprinting rare and unreprinted Bloch stories; however at early 2011
around 50 Bloch stories remain uncollected
The
Lost Bloch: Volume 2: Hell on Earth (2000). (Limited ed of 1250
numbered copies signed by editor/introducer David J. Schow and Foreword
writer Douglas E. Winter). Includes afterword by Schow and interview "Slightly More than Another Hour with Robert Bloch" by J. Michael Straczynski.
The
Lost Bloch: Volume 3: Crimes and Punishments (Subterranean Press,
2002). (Limited ed 750 numbered copies signed by editor/introducer David
J. Schow). Includes introductory piece by Gahan Wilson, interview "Three Hours and Then Some with Robert Bloch" by Douglas E. Winter and "My Husband, Robert Bloch" by Eleanor Bloch.
The
Reader's Bloch: Volume 1: The Fear Planet and Other Unusual
Destinations (Subterranean Press, 2005; limited ed, signed by editor,
750 numbered and 26 lettered copies). Edited by Stefan R. Dziemanowicz,
who provides an introduction, "Future Imperfect". Collects more Bloch
rarities; most of its 20 stories are science fiction, and are otherwise
unobtainable outside their original magazine appearances.
The
Reader's Bloch: Volume 2: Skeleton in the Closet and Other Stories
(Subterranean Press, 2009; 750 numbered copies signed by the editor).
Edited by Stefan R. Dziemanowicz. No intro. A collection of Bloch
rarities, most of whose 16 stories are otherwise unobtainable outside
their original magazine appearances.
- Robert Bloch at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
- Robert Bloch Obituary at Hitchcock wiki
The following is an interview with Robert Bloch by John Stanley in CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN #17 (Vol. 5 No. 1, 1971).
In the July, 1982 issue of MYSTERY magazine, Bloch was interviewed by Ray Zone. You may recognize Ray as a pop culture historian and pioneer of 3D imaging. His enthusiasm for the genre's classic roots make for an interesting discussion.
*Scanned interviews sourced from http://monstermagazineworld.blogspot.com/
Main text body sourced from Wikipedia & graphic images from Google Image Search.
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