Cellars

Number six in Centipede Press' Vintage Horrors series, John Shirley’s Cellarsis a classic early 1980s horror novel, grisly and atmospheric, and an important novel that heralded the advent of splatterpunk. Now available in a new hardcover edition with cover artwork by Camille Alquier and an introduction by Cody Goodfellow, this can only be considered the definitive edition: old edition classic Avon paperback, and a new afterword by John Shirley. William Gibson once described Cellars as “H.P. Lovecraft on PCP.” 

An ancient evil deep beneath New York City turns subway stations into bloody altars for ritual sacrifice. Monsters made of blood arise from drains, an invisible hellhound devours human flesh, feral children stalk the shadowy streets and make murder a terrifying game. Occult investigator Carl Lanyard risks his life, his love, and his sanity as he battles the unspeakable forces of darkness. A modern classic by a master of the macabre in a new revised edition. 

A seminal horror novel, Cellars is set in the New York of the 1980s — the New York of Studio 54, of the first assault of the most vicious wolves of Wall Street, of the new era of yuppie cocaine-infused selfishness and glossy partying; the New York of the Hellfire Club and Plato’s Retreat and the Donald Trumps buying up tenements cheap and forcing the poor out of them… 

This was a new, modern Gomorrah, no one consciously remembering the primordial worship of the golden bull, the sacrifices to Ba’al and Moloch, the ancient sorcerers like Simon Magus. But Moloch and Simon Magus have never left us. Cellars shows us what’s hidden beneath our outer gloss of sophistication, beneath the glamor and the clamor and the amour. The cellars, the sub-cellars, the forgotten subway tunnels under New York contain ancient secrets that fester anew…and reveal once more the monsters among us. And in 2019 — it’s a strangely relevant tale, indeed…

The book is hardcover with a sewn binding and a printed front panel. The dustjacket has a die cut oval which reveals part of the image. This is the sixth in our Vintage Horrors series. Cellars is a classic, now resurrected back into print in a handsome hardcover.

Edition Specifications

• Limited to 250 copies, each signed by John Shirley, Camille Alquier, and Cody Goodfellow.
• New introduction by Cody Goodfellow.
• New artwork by Camille Alquier.
• Reprint of original paperback cover, in color.
• Die cut dustjacket with printed front panel.
• Ribbon marker, head and tail bands.
• Original book price: $45.
• Published March 2019.
• ISBN 978-1-61347-235-4.
• Book size 5½ × 8½ inches.
• Number of pages: 328.