Voodoo — John Richard Stephens

Voodoo . . . . The very word conjures shadowy and sinister images of black magic and primitive rites and rituals: crudely fashioned dolls stuck with pins, mojos, animal sacrifices, wild dancing to savage drumbeats, venomous snakes, and bones charged with lethal supernatural powers that can make a person drop dead for no apparent reason.

Then there are zombies, the soulless living dead, whose reanimated corpses are sprung from graves at midnight to mindlessly serve the summoning voodoo houngan. Edited by distinguished anthologist John Richard Stephens, this voodoo miscellany features harrowing horror classics by H. G. Wells, H. Rider Haggard, and Robert Louis Stevenson, as well as little-known tales of voodoo hoodoo by forgotten fantasy masters.

Also included are newspaper accounts of a genuine voodoo festival in the Louisiana bayou and a series of purported “voodoo axe murders,” all of which delve into voodoo's darkest mysteries, from its birthplace in the jungles of Africa to its practice in the islands of the Caribbean and the dark swamps of Louisiana.

Voodoo will entertain you with its fanciful accounts of authentic voodoo ceremonies, and chilling tales of terror that just might make you look warily over your shoulder and wonder, what if?