Usborne's 'Unexplained' Series & Other Children's Supernatural Books

[johnnyboy1968]

Does anyone else of a certain age have memories of these from the 70s? I had three slim A4 paperbacks, covering ghosts, UFOs and monsters. At the age of six I read them until they were falling apart, and they really set me off on the whole fortean / unexplained thing (got a lot to answer for then!) They had quite an impression; I lived in fear of a visit from the Kelly-Hopkinsville Goblins for a while, and some of the pictures in the ghost book had me sleeping with the light on too.

A few years later I'd moved on to those big-format Daniel Farson and Peter Haining books, and I think the Usborne ones ended up on the bookstall at the school summer fair, along with my Beano annuals! Wish I still had them though. As they were aimed at fairly young kids, they'd probably seem totally noddy and full of inaccuracies now, but they got me started.

Were these three the only ones in the series? I can also recall getting another Usborne book about ghosts, vampires, werewolves etc out of the library, but that was a smaller format, and had gorier pictures in it as I remember. If you remember them, or any other fortean book that you read as a nipper, stick them up here, and we'll see if we can compile a list for weird kids everywhere!

 

[Mattattattatt]

I had one of the small black books on Ghosts. I also have (somewhere) a book of a similar A4 format on Robots.

The monsters title mentioned featured the picture of the Black Shuck that scared my brother so much as a kid (see the scary photos thread)

 

[Anonymous]

I had the ones on ghosts and UFO's. I still have the one on ghosts.

I also remember getting a bigger one from the library, on the general topic of "The Unexplained". This wasn't just an omnibus of the other books, it was a different set of articles, and covering a wider range.

 

[Mattattattatt]

Ahhh... here we go

Found the Robot book!

It's from 1979's "The World Of The Future" series, which featured Robots, Future Cities and Space Travel.

It has a fun section predicting 1980 and beyond... here's the general gist...

1980 - 1990

*Space telescope launched
*Space Shuttle demos large solar power unit for orbiting solar power station
*High Energy Lasers tested in space for defence
*Solar power plants set up in middle east
*Girder building equipment also tested in space
*Wave machines developed in UK to generate electricity
*nuclear fusion power station
*many industrial processes are proven cheaper in space

1990 - 2000

*robot fighter pilots
*laser guns used by military
*reign of the robot comes neared, as robots improved
*earthquake detector in orbit
*robot fire-fighting machines
*microcell surgery
*undersea fish farms built
*computers than learn from mistakes developed
*navies used high-speed hovercraft assault vessels
*Genetic engineering creates super-crops
*industrial robots improve
*space mirrors simulate daylight

Some hits, some misses there... It then goes on beyond the 22nd century!

As to other Fortean(ish) Usborne books, the list in the back mentions:

Galactic War
Ghosts
Monsters
UFO's

But I do remember the smaller series, too...

 

[johnnyboy1968]

Cheers Jack, I'd completely forgotten about "The Worlds of the Future" series! I think I had the Robots and Space Travel ones. There was one section in (I think) Space Travel that spooked me back then. It was about a group of tourists in the far flung future who'd teleported to their destination. The creepy thing was the accompanying text, which said something like the tourists weren't "real" people, but replicas created by breaking down the patterns of the originals and beaming it across space. The thought of these replicas enjoying their holiday whilst the the real ones had been destroyed seemed really horrible. I certainly never looked at Star Trek in the same light after reading that!:eek!!!!:

I can remember the scary Black Shuck pic too! All drooling and one-eyed and bursting from the page. The picture I didn't like was of Bigfoot in the Monsters book. Dunno why as he was only scoffing a handful of berries, but there was something about the expression on his face...

All great stuff though. Is there a similar series out for today's little forteans?

 

[madgarlick]

check out:

http://www.usborne.com/fiction/the_supernatural/the_supernatural_title.asp?Primary=372

for the new version.

 

[rossba1]

yeah man,
i had the omnibus of ghosts monsters and ufos in one book. I still have it at home. One of my first fortean books too.
i also have the usborne book of vampires, werewolves and monsters (i think thats what it was called) which maybe the one you were talking about with the smaller format, it had a picture of a scary skull with eyes and a map of the world on its cranium on the front.

 

[Mattattattatt]

fiction?

 

[johnnyboy1968]

i also have the usborne book of vampires, werewolves and monsters (i think thats what it was called) which maybe the one you were talking about with the smaller format, it had a picture of a scary skull with eyes and a map of the world on its cranium on the front.

Yup, that's the one! My local library was a great source of forteana when I was growing up. There was a worryingly large number of general UFO and ghost books in the childrens section. Once I'd twigged that I could get books from the adult section out on a kid's ticket, I was helping myself to things like FW Holliday's UFO books (one of these had a particularly scary account of Bender's encounter with the MIB) and various bigfoot, ghost and occult books. Most of them were still there the last time I looked in about a year ago!

One or both of my parents must've had an interest in this sort of stuff too, as, as soon as I was big enough to reach I was finding stuff on their shelves like Von Daniken's books, Alien Animals and Mysterious Britain by the Bords, along with any number of Arthurian / Glastonbury books. Weird really, as they're both as straight and sceptical as they come! I nicked most of them in later years!

Having lived in nine different places in the last ten years, the size of a library's spooky things section has varied. The best was Cardiff, which came in handy when I was on the dole and had nothing better to do that hang around in libraries all day! The worst, given the size of the library, was York, which only had the Bigfoot Casebook and a couple of Jenny Randles UFO books! My local library here in Portsmouth doesn't look too promising, but I'll have to find out what the central ones got!

 

[Anonymous]

There must have been more people traumatised by that Black Shuck painting then I thought. All the illustrations were fabulous though. They played the Bell Witch down a bit, I thought.

Works of genius, all. They even made Gef scary. Actually, if you ask me, it was already.

And I agree on the Hopkinsville Goblin stuff, but surely the effect was tempered by the proceding pictures of happy goblin creatures on their own distant planet, in a kind of proto-SETI 'what might it be like' scenario?

Unrelated to thread: were there ever any 'later developments on that case?'

 

[lucydru]

I do believe that I bought a modern version of the ghost one while out shopping!


luce

 

[Anonymous]

can you buy this book from whsmiths or is a website only kind?


cas




24 mins since luce posted again after her 48 hr retiremant and shes posted 3 times !!!
she truly is a top poster

 

[lucydru]

I bought mine from a discount book store in Middlesboro.


luce

 

[Anonymous]

okey dokey
i'll have a looksie for a copy

cas

 

[lucydru]

Publishers Book Clearance Co.

Thats the name of the place I got it from. Just looked at the date on the receipt and well I might of got caught in a time slip (or the till had the date wrong). It says -

DATE 02.02.2001 WED

And at the bottom of it -

TIME 12:50

Well I bought the book (plus another) on a wednesday in 2001, but both month and day of the month were wrong. Time was probably right (wasn't paying much attention to what time it was at the time).


luce

 

[evilsprout]

God, yeah, those books made Gef particularly scary! Some weird little girl's imaginary ventriloquism trick somehow became a horror story of terrifying stature!

The writers and (especially) the artists in those books were particularly macabre... I think they forgot they were producing stuff for ickle kiddies. Plus, if I remember rightly. they were written in a matter of fact, "this is all true" sense.

 

[augustverango]

...1979's "The World Of The Future" series, which featured Robots, Future Cities and Space Travel.

Yes, I had 'The Usborne Book of the Future' which was a compilation of those three books in one volume. That had some fantastic 'retro-futuristic' illustrations. Must try and find it!

 

[Anonymous]

I've just had a sudden trauma relating to this; the small, black and white illustration of the 'Ankau' (European grim reaper style thing what wandered about in the Black Plague) still badly unnerves me and I don't fully understand why. That and the drifty white 'sheet over the head' style ghost - dunno why, but they still freak me a little...

 

[dot23]

I think I had all of those! Defnatly had the book of the future combo, and I think I had a compilation of the Fortean ones also. I remember a very simlar softback book which had loads of stuff like men in black, ufos etc as well - don't think that was Usbourne (which was the name for M&S books I believe...)

 

[Anonymous]

Were these three the only ones in the series? I can also recall getting another Usborne book about ghosts, vampires, werewolves etc out of the library, but that was a smaller format, and had gorier pictures in it as I remember.

Oooo that brought back a nasty flash.

I had the Vampires and the Werewolves books, they where great but looking back some of the stuff about Vlad the impaler may have been a little over the top.
I can particularly remember:
Vlad - nailing peoples hats to their heads - burning barns full of the poor - impaling (obviously)
A picture of a Chinese(?) Vampire, it's hands and feet bloodied from climbing out of a well. (eek)
Ripping the front off the Werewolves book 'cos it gave me the willies

They were A5 I think, quite thick with bright covers. Vampires in red and Werewolves in green I think.........


I'll have to find out if the folks still have them somewhere.

 

[augustverango]

This all makes me want to restate my opinion that ALL Fortean books henceforth published should be required BY LAW to include illustrations!

...Oh yes, I am serious...

 

[johnnyboy1968]

I've just had a sudden trauma relating to this; the small, black and white illustration of the 'Ankau' (European grim reaper style thing what wandered about in the Black Plague) still badly unnerves me and I don't fully understand why. That and the drifty white 'sheet over the head' style ghost - dunno why, but they still freak me a little...

Yeah! I'd sort of forgotten about the content of the Ghosts book, but two images just popped straight into my head on reading this!

1: The ghost appearing in front of its suddenly blank portrait
2: The white ghost in the graveyard

Both of these did my head in a bit, but I can remember drawing loads of pictures based on the white sheety ghost, so it must've made quite an impression! Wasn't there a double page on Pluckley? ISTR being quite annoyed that none of the ghosts were shown, only boring old photos...

 

[marion]

My father had an entire set of Man , Myth and Magic magazines when I was little , even the covers terrified me . We had a ghost book that my mother wouldn't let me see , I looked at it when she was out and was afraid to go to sleep for about a year .
Marion

 

[augustverango]

...I looked at it when she was out and was afraid to go to sleep for about a year .
Marion

You should go over to the 'Sleep Deprivation' thread, that's surely a record!

 

[escargot]

My kids had those books when quite young. I bought them for my son Dyl when he was about 8 and we spent some time discussing whether the pix were too scary. The conclusion was that they were just great.
I too liked the totally accepting, 'this is real' attitude. Not patronising like every other kids' books on such subjects. (Though there aren't many!)
We had the books in both the separate and combined formats and they were all read to bits.

 

[marion]

You should go over to the 'Sleep Deprivation' thread, that's surely a record!

Don't be silly ! I still did sleep , I was just terrified about it . It didn't help that our house was haunted anyway .
Marion

 

[Anonymous]

Heh. I have the entire six set! Ghosts, UFOs, Monsters, and Ghosts, Strange Phenomena & Vampires, Werewolfs and Demons!

I reember being about eight or so on holiday in Cornwall, buying the first three in one go and reading them obsessively - told by my family I would dream of ghostly monsters walking out of a UFO, and I laid there unable to sleep wondering if aliens were just on the other side of the tent canvas...

Some of the illustrations were a bit over the top, but well stimulating (in a good way).

I still have them all, in reasonably good nick. Sadly I read them again a few years ago and was saddened by how sensationalist and innaccurate they were ('scientists beleive UFOs have one of two explanations - either they are real, or they are hallucinations').

Still, Usbourne with all its books has done more for educating kids than probably a dozen schools. Huzzah for them!

 

[escargot]

Glad to see this thread revived. I shall trawl car booties for these books from now on.

I have seen them at such emporia of taste but always resisted the temptation to buy in the hope of encouraging a fresh generation of little Forteans!

 

[Hospitaller]

I'm not sure if I've posted here already (and too lazy to check!), but I have the great fortune of living near the best secondhand bookshop this side of Enniskillen, where I purchased the bound volumes of the Unexplained 1-9. How many am I missing? I know there's also an index. The lot cost me IR£18(UK£16) at the time.

 

[James_H]

I had the unexplained phenonema one - despite interest, no amount of persuasion would ever have got me to buy the ghost or vampire ones - they would scare the living shit from me, as it were