Closing Collection with a Question

 I have now completed my Armada Ghost book collection, but with the addition of today's  rejigged cover art reprints has left me with a question to which I can find no answer. 

Everyone who has made it a mission to collect this anthology series of ghost stories soon discovers there are several alternate reprints amongst their number with variant re-imaginings of their cover art. These can be seen in my Collection page here.

That stated, I have also noted that these Series 2 reprints also appear under various imprints. As seen below, these imprint versions are almost identical to their Armada counterparts, with the exception of the deletion of their title's reference to Armada.

 

 

The name of these Armada alternatives appear under a dragon logo:

Until this morning's final Armada Ghost Book delivery, I had been under the impression that when these Dragon version of these books appeared, Armada had already folded and had sold the right to their design to content to this alternate publisher. It was the only explanation I could muster to explain the existence of these non-Armada editions. But now I can only assume that my assumption must be incorrect. Why? Look at the price-tags on the Armada and Dragon versions of the same book. The Armada version is a fair chunk pricier than the Dragon books. Which is, frankly, frustrating as I can't understand why these non-Armada books exist?

Does anyone know?

The Bumper Book of Ghost Stories

 Whilst I was collecting Armada Ghost Books, I also acquired this gem of an Armada book. As you can see, it is also signed by Mary Danby!

Garden Reading

I have been wanting to read the short story  WHO's A PRETTY BOY, THEN by Jan Mark ever since I saw it collected in the 15th Armada Ghost Book. And wow, am I glad I took a few minutes of my time this afternoon to read it. Written from the point of a view of a child, the story is crafted perfectly and is rather a dark beast of a tale. The more thought given to it, the darker the simple tale becomes. Highly recommended reading.

15th Armada Ghost Book

1983 saw the 15th Armada Ghost Books appear on the bookshelves.

Despite reintroducing the iconic running child from the early entries in the series, the new cover design, introduced in the previous entry in the anthology series, does little to encourage fingers to open the book. Which is a shame, as there are some genuinely series stories contained within. I especially look forward to reading 'Who's a Pretty Boy, Then?'

Alas, all good things must come to an end. But the Armada Ghost Books remains in the hearts of many who grew up in the 1960's, 70's and early 80's, as well as the bookshelves of second hand book trade. My hope is, after reading my short guide to this fascinating slice of publishing history, your fingers will search out these well-read volumes and you feast your minds on the work of som very fine masters of the supernatural genre...

14th Armada Ghost Book

The 14th Armada Ghost Book, released in 1982, was the penultimate in the long-running anthology series of children's ghost stories. 

The first nail was already in the coffin of this popular series as the public were starting to turn their backs on supernatural and horror tales. A new artist was brought on board, whose illustrations appealed more to children, but the book cover art was a firm step down from the series' more iconic imagery.

That stated, the stories themselves are on par, with a couple of them edging on the dark side of children's fiction.

Unfortunately, the change of  book cover designs is difficult to get past.

13th Armada Ghost Book

Feast your eyes upon the groovy 13th Armada Ghost Book, up there with Guy N Smith's Deadbeat as being next to impossible to purchase in the mid 2020's. I won't embarass myself by trying to calculate the time and number of dead ends it took before I finally located the book on the other side of the planet, in Australia!

I eventually found the book thru https://www.vialibri.net/. Unfortunately the person selling the antholgy had stated she would only post it within Australia. Frustrated once more, I contacted the seller who visited their post office and sent me a photograph off the shipping prices to the UK. I chose the cheapest of the postal services, paid the price and sealed the deal. I was now so close to this grail item. All the book needed to do now to join its brethen in rainy old Wales was to safely negotiate the vagaries of travelling around the globe through the Australian and British postal services.

Finally, just 2 weeks later, I received the package through my letter box:

Inside, you guessed it, I found this little treasure:

Disappointingly, the Peter Archer illustrations are low of scares or eerie atmosphere, but the stories titles are all new to me and I look forward to reading them all :)

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 12th 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.