Instantly recognizable to secondhand scavengers, Leisure Books, a subsidiary of Dorchester Publishing, produced tons of paperback originals and reprints beginning in the early 80s through its untimely demise in 2010. In addition to Westerns, Mystery, and the somewhat nebulous “Leisure” which only bore the eponymous title without a genre designator, Leisure published horror in droves, including its own Leisure Horror line.
Try not to feel the pangs of nostalgia too badly when recalling this: Once, Leisure Horror had a subscription Book Club. Advertised with tear-out perforated sheets, the Leisure Horror Club offered 2 “free books, an $11.98 value!” for signing up and sending in 2 bucks shipping and handling. Much like BMG and Columbia House music, Leisure Horror would send 2 books a month that subscribers had 10 days to decide if they wanted to keep. If so, they’d get to keep them for the discounted price of $4.50.
At times, Leisure resorted to having subscription prizes. These were prominently posted on covers in large circles, obscuring the sometimes amazing covers. Toward the line’s end, covers certainly cheapened, with some embarrassingly bad (pictures forthcoming). That said, one thing Leisure did not suffer a dearth from was diversity. Leisure Horror published a wide range of authors, including first-time authors. Trends came and went, but Leisure Horror offered everything from the starkly psychological horror popular following Silence of the Lambs to outright splatterpunk. It was through Leisure I was introduced to some extreme horror writers like Wrath James White, as well as the reprinted genius of authors like Thomas Tessier, Ray Garton, and Douglass Clegg.
Especially unique to Leisure Horror were reprints of horror anthologies, some of which were long out of print. Great collections by Dennis Etchison, Robert B. Cave, Robert Devereaux, Peter Crowther, and others were reprinted by Leisure.
Quality is quite uneven, but nothing beat stopping by the local Borders or Barnes & Noble and picking up a new paperback for 6 bucks while I was serving in the Army. The sad epilogue to this tale came in 2010, when Brian Keene announced a boycott, sharing that Dorchester had failed to pay its authors advances. Amazon eventually purchased over 1,000 titles and offered to settle the accounts or permitted those authors’ rights to revert back. (“Dread Central Joins Boycott of Dorchester Publishing”).
The following table is an incomplete and ongoing project to catalog the hundreds (if not thousands) of titles published by Leisure Horror. Two tables are presented: horror titles printed under just the “Leisure” designation and a separate “Leisure Horror” designator. Prior to being purchasing Leisure, Dorchester published horror novels under their Book Margins, Inc. (BMI) imprint. Publication dates are presented in Roman numerals, per the copyright page; conversions are provided in parentheses for convenience. This chart is presented first.
Titles are presented by Month, Date, and then alphabetical by author’s last name. This list is ongoing; if you have a title to add, please send all four fields of information to macabrary@com.
Leisure Occult Imprint
| Title | Author | Publication Date | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|
| Undertow | Drake Douglas | 1984 | 0-8439-2121-8 |
BMI (“Book Margins, Inc.”) Horror Imprint
| Title | Author | Publication Date | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cursed Be The Child | Mort Castle | MCMXC (1990) | 0-83148-00499-4 |
| Borderland | S. K. Epperson | MCMXC (1992) | 0-8314-0049-94 |
| Carnivore | Leigh Clark | MCMXCVII (1997) | 0-8314-8002-50 |
Leisure Horror Imprint
| Title | Author | Publication Date | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|
| Children of The End | Mark A. Clements | April 1994 | 0-8439-3594-4 978-0843-9359-43 |
| The Moons of Summer | S. K. Epperson | May 1995 | 0-8439-3786-6 978-0843-9378-62 |
| The Taking | Donald Beman | March 1997 | 0-8439-4202-9 |
| The Halloween Man | Douglas Clegg | October 1998 | 0-8439-4439-0 978-0843-9443-96 |
| Brass | Robert J. Conley | April 1999 | 0-8439-4505-2 978-0843-9450-58 |
| The Nightmare Chronicles | Douglas Clegg | September 1999 | 0-8439-4580-X 978-0843-9458-05 |
| Regeneration | Max Allan Collins & Barbara Collins | October 1999 | 0-8439-4615-6 978-0843-9461-54 |
| You Come When I Call You | Douglas Clegg | March 2000 | 0-8439-4695-4 978-0843-9469-56 |
| The Dawning | Hugh B. Cave | July 2000 | 0-8439-4739-X 978-0843-9473-97 |
| Mischief | Douglas Clegg | September 2000 | 0-8439-4766-7 978-0843-9476-63 |
| Naomi | Douglas Clegg | April 2001 | 0-8439-4857-4 978-0843-9485-78 |
| The Evil Returns | Hugh B. Cave | July 2001 | 0-8439-4893-0 978-0843-9489-36 |
| Dead Love | Donald Beman | December 2001 | 0-8439-4951-1 |
| Darker | Simon Clark | January 2002 | 0-8439-4962-7 978-0843-9496-29 |
| The Death Artist (Short Story Anthology) | Dennis Etchison | February 2002 | 0-8439-4967-8 978-0843-9496-74 |
| Caliban and Other Stories (Short Story Anthology) | Robert Devereaux | March 2002 | 0-8439-4977-5 978-0843-9497-73 |
| Moon on The Water (Short Story Anthology) | Mort Castle | July 2002 | 0-8439-5032-3 978-0843-9503-28 |
| Vampyrrhic | Simon Clark | July 2002 | 0-8439-5031-5 978-0843-9503-11 |
| The Infinite | Douglas Clegg | October 2002 | 0-8439-5055-2 978-0-8439-5055-7 |
| Servants of Chaos | Don D’Ammassa | December 2002 | 0-8439-5069-2 978-0843-9506-94 |
| The Restless Dead | Hugh B. Cave | January 2003 | 0-8439-5082-X 978-0843-9508-23 |
| In This Skin | Simon Clark | June 2004 | 0-8439-5157-5 978-8439-5157-8 |
| The Wind Caller | P.D. Cacek | July 2004 | 0-8439-5383-7 978-0-8439-5383-1 |
Leisure Fiction Imprint
| Title | Author | Publication Date | ISBN |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blood Crazy | Simon Clark | January 2001 | 0-8439-4825-6 978-0-8439-4825-7 |
| The Longest Single Note (Short Story Anthology) | Peter Crowther | April 2003 | 0-8439-5078-1 978-0843-9507-86 |
| The Hour Before Dark | Douglas Clegg | September 2003 | 0-8439-5142-7 978-0843-9514-24 |
| Nightmare House | Douglas Clegg | May 2004 | 0-8439-5177-X 978-0843-9517-76 |
| The Abandoned | Douglas Clegg | May 2005 | 0-8439-5410-8 978-0843-9541-04 |
| Keepers (Bram Stoker Award) | Gary Braunbeck | September 2005 | 0-8439-5577-5 978-0843-9557-74 |
| The Tower | Simon Clark | August 2005 | 0-8439-5492-2 978-0843-9549-20 |
| Death’s Dominion | Simon Clark | November 2006 | 0-8439-5493-0 978-0-8439-5493-7 |
| Mr. Hands | Gary Braunbeck | August 2007 | 0-8439-5610-0 978-0-8439-5610-8 |
| This Rage of Echoes | Simon Clark | November 2007 | 0-8439-5954-9 978-0-8439-5994-4 |
| Coffin Country | Gary Braunbeck | June 2008 | 0-8439-6050-7 978-0-8439-6050-1 |
| Covenant (Bram Stoker Award) | John Everson | September 2008 | 0-8439-6018-3 978-0-8439-6018-1 |
| Sacrifice | John Everson | May 2009 | 0-8439-6019-1 978-0-8439-6019-8 |
| The Shore | Robert Dunbar | July 2009 | 0-8439-6166-X 978-0-8439-6166-9 |
| Far Dark Fields | Gary Braunbeck | August 2009 | 0-8439-6190-2 978-0-8439-6190-4 |
| The 13th | John Everson | November 2009 | 0-8439-6267-4 978-0-8439-6267-3 |
| Ghost Monster | Simon Clark | December 2009 | 0-8439-6179-1 978-0843-9617-99 |
| Siren | John Everson | August 2010 | 0-8439-6354-9 978-0-8439-6354-0 |
Works Cited
Barton, Steve. “Dread Central Joins Boycott of Dorchester Publishing.” Dread Central, 31 Mar. 2011, http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/23330/dread-central-joins-boycott-of-dorchester-publishing/. Accessed 26 Apr. 2025.
The Macabrary 