12th Armada Ghost Book

 Isn't it always the way for book collectors? You start collecting cheap copies of a series, only to find that there are a couple you need for your collection that are as scarce as hen teeth! Such has been the case since starting my collection of Armada Ghost Books published in the 1970's and 80's.

A fellow collector warned me that the 12th Armada Book was the most difficult to get your grubby fingers on in the mid 2020's. With that knowledge, I purchased the one copy I ever seen offered for sale, but had to source it from Canada for an outlandish price (when Canadian postage fees were added to the equation).

Funnily enough, whilst costing me the most financially, this book wasn't the most difficult to source. The winner of that particular frustration goes to the next book in the season, which I will write about in my next blog post...

I wonder why these later editions are so difficult to find when others from the range are so easily found for a price between £5-10?

The 13th Armada Ghost Books takes us screaming into the 1980's with a luscious nightmarish cover:

Peter Archer is once again the artist for this collection of ghost stories, but as usual with this Armada series, most of the images he illustrates detail the more mundane aspects of the tale. In this particular book, only one scare drawing stands out:

I have not read any of the stories as yet, but the titles The Chess Set, The Cat Room and The Haunted Village hold enough intrigue to pique my interest:

11th Armada Ghost Book

The 11th Armada Ghost Book comes in x2 different cover edition. Both are great, but I think the style of the earlier edition (shown on your left in the pic below) is my favourite version:

Peter Archer produces his usual accomplished story illustrations, with a couple of real standouts amongst them (see below):

All in all another great addition to the series.

Fingers Crossed...

Finally completed my Armada Ghost Book collection. Wasnt easy, required searching ebay in different countries and begging them to ship to UK lol. I just hope it makes from the other side of the world o my letter box now...

 

10th Armada Ghost Book

1978. The year I started Comprehensive school. The school handed out regular book catalogues selling books at a discount to encourage reading. And that is where I first came into contact with Armada Ghost Books.

To say I loved this book would be an understatement, and I also like the idea that the school was sanctioning the reading of ghost stories. :)

Peter Archer is again credited as the book's artist, and he has certainly upped his game with the interior story illustrations:

With a fantastic book cover and scary interior illustrations, the set list of supernatural stories really rounds off what I still consider the best in the Armada Ghost Book series.

Two stories, in particular, stand out amongst the selection. The first is The Sinister Schoolmaster by Rosemary Timperley. Who could resist reading this tale after seeing the genuinely scary cover art illustrating it? The thought of encountering a ghostly mystery whilst on the way to school was appealing beyond words to me as a child! 

The other tale that stuck with me was Mousey by John Halking. Now, I had a pet mouse myself at the time of reading this story, and as soon as I realised this tale was about a boy who took his mouse out and about with him, I cringed. My only hope was that I was reading a children's book, so hopefully, the mouse would make it to the end alive. But Armada was canny with their athologies and often slotted in darker themes in with with their more lightweight offerings!

9th Armada Ghost Book

Continuing my collection of Armada Ghost Books from the 1970s and early 1980s, it time to show off the 9th book in the supernatural series:

Peter Archer takes the helm as the book's illustrator, but the the inside drawing detail non-scary scenes from the ghost stories, which is disappointing.

The cover art for the book, on the other hand, is up there with the finest in the series and the book shifted enough copies to keep the series going for another x6 anthologies!

8th Armada Ghost Book

1973 brought another collection of spooky stories together in the form of the 8th Armada Ghost Story.

We are back to the effective scary book covers of a child being chased by a supernatural peril that were a highlight of the early books in this anthology series, Peter  Archer doing a sterling job of portraying the literary scares awaiting the reader within the title's pages.

The book's later reboot, with a pricetage of more than double of the original (darn that inflation!) sported a a cover with a direct reimagining of its predecessor's artwork. This, however,  somehow feels less powerful than its earlier incarnation.

As for the stories in the book, I think Mary Danby did a fine curator's job, with at least a handful of tales drawing in the readee with their curious titles alone:

This book stands as the centrepiece of the Armada Ghost Book's 15 volume run.

7th Armada Ghost Book

Another book cover I am not overly fond of, especially for a book anthology of ghost stories:

Despite it's rather lacklustre cover, the anthology boasts a few interesting titles...

...and the tome received a more powerfully visual cover for its 1983 reincarnation! 

It is also nice to see the artist get a credit in this issue too:

6th Armada Ghost Book

The 6th Armada Ghost Book has my least favourite cover in the anthology series. It looks more like a juvenile adventure/mystery book to my weary eyes rather than suggesting the ghostly terrors awaiting readers within its pages. Again, the artist doesn't receive a credit in the book.

The book was released in 1975, for the price of 25p, making the cost of each tale within the book just a little of 2p a story, which has to be a bargain.

Along with disappointing cover art the story illustrations in the book hardly pump up the fear factor either:

All in all, this was a rather quiet entry in the series. That said, it sold well enough for Armada to start immediate work on a successor...

The later updated artwork for the book's re-release addressed the lack of scares in the original art with this:

Just look at the state of that cat!

5th Armada Ghost Book

It's January 1st, 1973, and look what has just hit the bookshop shelves:

 

Moving on to the 5th Armada Ghost Book, we find the first girl protagonist decorating a cover in the series. It also features its first horse! And doesn't that horse look terrified? 

The rear cover art does a great job, with the scariest looking treesthe in the Armada books to date terror too. Shame the publisher didn't think to credit the artist!

The story's illustrations are pretty scary too, especially for the age group the book was aimed at:

I've not read any of the stories in Book 5 yet, but when I do, the tale with the illustration directly above will definitely the first I tuck into.

4th Armada Ghost Book

1972 saw Armada publish its 4th Ghost Book. Peter Archer was responsible for illustrating the book's cover and internal pages. This was the first of the Armada Ghost books to ditch the familiar running boy motif on the front cover Whilst the running boy motif

I love seeing the prices on old books -you could leave a bookstore with this little beauty having spent just 20p!

This is a delightful collection of stories with some genuine stand-out first-class spooky entries nestled amongst the lineup. It's great to see children introduced to the Master of the Macabre, M.R. James, who adds literary class to the ghoulish fayre with his tale The Haunted Doll's House. And I remember E.F. Benson's classic The Bus Conductor giving me the heeby-jeebies when I first read it as a child in my bedroom at night. This tale haunted me for a long while afterwards, adding to my reluctance to open my bedroom curtain at night to peek out into the dark! The tale was made famous by featuring in the 1945 portmanteau Ealing horror Dead of Night.

Just what I need...

... a new project to justify my collecting and give me something new to work on...

3rd Armada Ghost Book

1970, two years after their previous anthology, the 3rd Armada Ghost Book hit the bookshelves. This time, a new Captain had taken the helm - Mary Danby. 

Danby's name was to become synonymous with the ghostly Armada franchise over the next thirteen years. Much to their reader's delight, as well as curating the stories presented in the anthologies, she was also happy to include her own spooky outings amongst their number.

Peter Archer was the chosen illustrator for this third volume of ghost stories, and he did a sterling job - even keeping the now familiar running boy, crooked tree and flying agressor motifs on the cover artwork.

Archer also delivered the scariest story illustration so far in the series. Imagine laying in bed as a child reading scary stories and coming across this image!