# Do you remember the Hitchcock compilations of short stories? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 15, 2008, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-the-hitchcock-compilations-of-short-stories/452969 "2008-06-15T01:22:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Tristan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tristan/32/18058_2.png) [@Tristan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tristan)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-the-hitchcock-compilations-of-short-stories/452969/21 "2008-06-17T02:01:55Z")
I remember reading a bunch of these, though I’m not sure if mine were directed at children or not… one that I remember is a guy who has buddy who is a scientist, who basically regressed Alligators, trying to get dinosaurs, but ends up with a dragon. Good times! About the same time(4th grade) I got into the Three Investigators as well. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-the-hitchcock-compilations-of-short-stories/452969/22 "2008-06-17T13:24:40Z")
I had to go home and look: the two I have are Stories for Late at Night and My Favorites in Suspense. Highlights include The Birds, It’s a Good Life, Second Night Out, and The Ash Tree. As I was looking at them, a kid came along with nothing to read and I put one in her hand. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![carlb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carlb/32/5930_2.png) [@carlb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlb)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-the-hitchcock-compilations-of-short-stories/452969/23 "2008-06-17T14:27:40Z")
I used to have a couple; I think they must have been the ones pitched for younger readers. I couldn’t remember any of the titles until **The Scrivener** posted that list above. I know I had _Spellbinders in Suspense_, and maybe _Daring Detectives_. I wish that I had paid attention to the names of the authors of the stories so I could have explored their other works. The only story I remember was one about a man who was killed by his own dog. It turns out that someone had injected him with a substance which made him smell different, and so his dog thought he was an intruder. A bit far fetched, but for some reason I always remembered that one. ---
**Author:** ![Siege](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-the-hitchcock-compilations-of-short-stories/452969/24 "2008-06-17T17:35:21Z")
Oh, man! I loved those when I was a kid back in the 1970s and, like others here, I read every one the library had! I don’t remember any of the plots now, but they were good. I’ve also introduced the younger generation to them. Several years ago, my priest’s son loved the _Goosebumps_ books, so I introduced him to the good stuff by giving him one of the Alfred Hitchcock collections. I still have one of my own somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Labdad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Labdad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labdad)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-the-hitchcock-compilations-of-short-stories/452969/25 "2008-06-17T18:51:41Z")
[QUOTE=Marlitharn] The one with the finger and the lighter is by Roald Dahl. I think it’s called “The Man from the South” but I wouldn’t swear to it. [/QUOTE] This story was televised in the original half-hour “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” series. Steve McQueen played the guy with the lighter and Peter Lorre played the man who bets McQueen his finger that the lighter won’t light ten times in a row. One of my all-time favorite episodes! One year (I think I was about 12) I asked for the “Stories They Wouldn’t Let Me Do on TV” anthology as a Christmas present, and got it! It was hardbound. Wish I knew where that book was now! ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2008, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-the-hitchcock-compilations-of-short-stories/452969/26 "2008-06-17T18:58:40Z")
[QUOTE=Labdad] This story was televised in the original half-hour “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” series. Steve McQueen played the guy with the lighter and Peter Lorre played the man who bets McQueen his finger that the lighter won’t light ten times in a row. One of my all-time favorite episodes! [/QUOTE] I remember that, great tension in that episode! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-the-hitchcock-compilations-of-short-stories/452969/28 "2010-08-12T18:58:47Z")
There was another series of short-storey compliations with titles like _Stories to read with the Door Locked_. Scared the pants off me wen I was eleven. ---
**Author:** ![In\_Winnipeg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/a8b319/32.png) [@In\_Winnipeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/In_Winnipeg)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-the-hitchcock-compilations-of-short-stories/452969/29 "2010-08-12T21:11:29Z")
I remember buying a couple – \*Get Me to the Wake on Time \*and _I Am Curious (Bloody)_. ---
**Author:** ![Proudest\_Monkey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/proudest_monkey/32/13257_2.png) [@Proudest\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Proudest_Monkey)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-the-hitchcock-compilations-of-short-stories/452969/30 "2010-08-12T22:00:29Z")
This thread brings back memories. My dad got me started on **Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine** and **Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine** way back when. I liked that there were stories of different lengths, so you could select one for a long read on the porch or a short read on the john. (Or vice versa ;)) I never had any of the AH books; didn’t even know about them but I’ll put them on my list of things to search for at the used book store. I remember puzzling at the title of a story called “Wide O” until the last line when the heroine, checking her house for intruders, discovers that her back door was wide o . . . ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-the-hitchcock-compilations-of-short-stories/452969/31 "2010-08-12T22:11:51Z")
In the early seventies, our family had a bunch of these, and I read the hell out of them. The one that I remember best had a title that tickled my juvenile sense of humour: _Stories To Be Read With The Light On_. ---
**Author:** ![kidneyfailure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9f8e36/32.png) [@kidneyfailure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidneyfailure)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-the-hitchcock-compilations-of-short-stories/452969/32 "2010-08-12T23:15:17Z")
I had a couple that were my dad’s. The best was _Alfred Hitchcock’s Sinister Spies_. Some damn good stories in there! ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2010, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-the-hitchcock-compilations-of-short-stories/452969/33 "2010-08-12T23:18:19Z")
Oh, hell, yes! My aunt was a librarian, and I’d hang out at the library all day and read all of Hitch’s compilations, for kids and adults both. Scared me out of several years growth, those books did. There is one story that has haunted me, because it was not only creepy, but puzzling. It involved a young girl and a…a…garbage monster? some garbage in a dump came together in a humanoid shape and came alive. The irate townspeople chased it and buried it deep in the ground. And the young girl would go out to that spot and lie down on the ground and hear the garbage monster buried far below, scratching, scratching away…brrrrrrrrrrr!!! And another one, written to resemble A Curious Experiment in Victorian Times - an invisible creature just … arrived in a room…it was invisible, and I forgot what happened, they may have killed it - took a mold of its face and it was the most hideous deformed thing they had ever seen. A demon from hell? ??? ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2010, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-the-hitchcock-compilations-of-short-stories/452969/34 "2010-08-13T00:38:07Z")
I remember watching his TV show where he would always start the show with his profile shadowed on a door, and I would be thinking, “Wow, he’s almost as cool as Rod Serling!” I really had no idea what a giant he was in film until I studied him in film class. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2010, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-the-hitchcock-compilations-of-short-stories/452969/35 "2010-08-13T01:12:36Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#): > > I used to read these all the time as a kid; I think I read the local library system out of them in one summer… Me too. And I’ve been finding them in a cool used bookstore (on Main St. in Galena, IL). Almost any story I start hits me with “Oh, wow. I remember this! And right where I was when I read it… in 1968!” ---
**Author:** ![Prelude\_to\_Fascination](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a183cd/32.png) [@Prelude\_to\_Fascination](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prelude_to_Fascination)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2010, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-the-hitchcock-compilations-of-short-stories/452969/36 "2010-08-13T01:15:00Z")
I’ve got a collection of somewhere around 50-60 of those books. Great stuff. Originally, I bought only those that featured Robert Bloch stories, but I quickly learned to appreciate many of the other authors, Henry Slesar in particular (who also wrote some of the scripts for the _CBS Radio Mystery Theater_ in the early/-70s, hosted by E.G. Marshall). ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2010, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-the-hitchcock-compilations-of-short-stories/452969/37 "2010-08-13T01:31:52Z")
> [@irham](#): > > i’m looking for the title of a short story where a husband hires a hitman to kill his wife and then starts calling her and tries to tell her about the murder plot.the title is related to telephone or phone call “Sorry, Wrong Number.” Best wishes, hh ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2010, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-the-hitchcock-compilations-of-short-stories/452969/38 "2010-08-13T02:37:18Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > > [@irham](#): > > > > i’m looking for the title of a short story where a husband hires a hitman to kill his wife and then starts calling her and tries to tell her about the murder plot.the title is related to telephone or phone call > > “Sorry, Wrong Number.” > > Best wishes, > hh And it was adapted to film in 1948, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster. It gets pretty damn complicated, what with flashbacks within flashbacks, but is still kinda neat. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2010, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-the-hitchcock-compilations-of-short-stories/452969/39 "2010-08-13T03:25:10Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > And another one, written to resemble A Curious Experiment in Victorian Times - an invisible creature just … arrived in a room…it was invisible, and I forgot what happened, they may have killed it - took a mold of its face and it was the most hideous deformed thing they had ever seen. A demon from hell? ??? Are you saying there was a story titled “A Curious Experiment in Victorian Times” with that plot? Because it sounds exactly like the short story _What Was It?_ by Fitz-James O’Brien. [XIII What Was It? A Mystery - Collection at Bartleby.com](http://www.bartleby.com/195/13.html) ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2010, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-the-hitchcock-compilations-of-short-stories/452969/40 "2010-08-13T14:06:30Z")
> [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > > [@salinqmind](#): > > > > And another one, written to resemble A Curious Experiment in Victorian Times - an invisible creature just … arrived in a room…it was invisible, and I forgot what happened, they may have killed it - took a mold of its face and it was the most hideous deformed thing they had ever seen. A demon from hell? ??? > > Are you saying there was a story titled “A Curious Experiment in Victorian Times” with that plot? Because it sounds exactly like the short story _What Was It?_ by Fitz-James O’Brien. [XIII What Was It? A Mystery - Collection at Bartleby.com](http://www.bartleby.com/195/13.html) Oh, that’s the story I was thinking of - “What Was It?”. Thanks for digging it up! ( I could have sworn it was called A Curious Experiment). ---
**Author:** ![PoorYorick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PoorYorick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoorYorick)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2010, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-the-hitchcock-compilations-of-short-stories/452969/41 "2010-08-13T14:44:22Z")
> [@drpepper](#): > > [QUOTE=Thudlow Boink] > [There still is.](http://www.amazon.com/Alfred-Hitchcock-Mystery-Magazine/dp/B000066SZO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=magazines&qid=1213548435&sr=1-1) Well I’ll be. Glad the genre is alive and well. [/QUOTE] I used to love that magazine. I resubscribed to it a couple of years ago and was aghast at how the quality of writing had gone down hill. Some truly execrable stuff. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-the-hitchcock-compilations-of-short-stories/452969.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-remember-the-hitchcock-compilations-of-short-stories/452969.md?page=3)