Where Satan Dwells: The Kitty Telefair Gothic Series by Florence Stevenson (1971-1977)

If you've been following Too Much Horror Fiction or have read Paperbacks from Hell, you're likely aware of the scarcity of some of the titles talked about and the oft-times inflated prices online booksellers afix to those books. These disposable artifacts from a bygone age often are going for $75 to $100, and even more in some cases. To be blunt, it sucks. Mea culpa, and all that. Certainly collectors of all stripes run into this issue.

 

I also want to say that these inflated prices in no way reflect the "literary" quality of those books. Like, at all. The cost only reflects the scarcity and a near-mint condition (at least one hopes). Any good collector must be well aware of this, and proceed accordingly when opening the wallet. Don't expect that dropping 50 bucks on a rare book will get you the reading experience of a lifetime... alas.

 

Which brings me to these Florence Stevenson (1922-1991) Gothic paperbacks, the virtually impossible to find Kitty Telefair series. According to the much-missed blogger Curt Purcell, this occult series features terrific vintage Sixties and Seventies flavor while engaging in classic horror tropes like vampires, sorcerers, and past lives. Rare and good? Mmm-boy, sounds delicious!

According to Purcell, Kitty herself is a kind of psychic Nancy Drew, but what I really dig about these books is, of course, the cover art (all uncredited except Horror from the Tombs, by a George Bush). Candles, castles, bats, spooky windows, flowing gowns, widened eyes, sexy Seventies women, mustachioed mystery men, blurbs about The Exorcist: all the Gothic accoutrements one could ask for.

Also impossible to find is any info on Ms. Stevenson herself, which kinda drives me crazy. A few of these titles turn up very occasionally on Abebooks if you have a sharp eye and email alerts—same goes for many of her other Seventies Gothics; I myself only own two of her Eighties horror titles—but these are the kinds of paperbacks for which you must haunt thrift stores, garage sales, and junk heaps, cursed for eternity.

Victim of Agony: The Horror Paperbacks of Florence Stevenson

I am not much sure who Florence Stevenson is but going by these paperbacks of hers written throughout the late '60s, '70s and into the horror heyday of the 1980s, she wrote the gamut: quiet horror, Gothic horror, witches, vampires, even cat lady horror--I love Ira Levin's blurb on Ophelia (Signet/Apr 1969): "fresh, delectable, refinedly sexy."

Amazon lists dozens of her paperback novels. The cover art on all of these offers much to be enjoyed, from the creepy-kid vibe of A Feast of Eggshells (Signet/Dec 1969--and don't miss that body at the bottom of the stairs) to the proto-paranormal romance imagery of Moonlight Variations (HBJove/Jan 1981), or the delicious bosomy Gothic of The Curse of the Concullens (Signet Gothic/Nov 1976) and The Witching Hour, to the luridly overdone '80s covers for Household (Leisure/Mar 1989) and The Sisterhood (Leisure/Oct 1989).

 

 

I found only the most basic biographical info on a romance site; if anyone knows anything more, let us know. And oh yeah, if you've read any of these too!