In the Shadow of the Amates

Valades, Anne James

Literature & Fiction

Ash Tree Pr

When H. R. Wakefield's STRAYERS FROM SHEOL was published by Arkham House in 1961, it was fully intended that a further collection of the author's supernatural tales would follow within a few years; subsequent appearances of Wakefield's stories in Arkham House anthologies referred to this final volume. Unfortunately, no further Wakefield titles were issued by Arkham House, and it was widely assumed that any unpublished stories by the author had been destroyed by him prior to his death in 1964. 
Recently, however, Arkham House Editor Peter Ruber uncovered a cache of previously unknown Wakefield stories, most of them in the long neglected files of August Derleth. These seventeen tales by one of the twentieth century's masters of the supernatural are now being published for the first time, bringing to an exciting conclusion Ash-Tree Press's series reprinting Wakefield's supernatural stories. The supernatural tales in REUNION AT DAWN range from the gentle ('The Assignation', 'The Fall of the House of Gilpin') to the horrific ('Final Variation', 'A Man's Best Friend', 'The Bodyguard'). We meet - for the final time - the recurring characters of Dr Landon and Anstruther Sawbridge, Bart. ('That Sleep of Death'); encounter two variations on the same theme ('The Latch-Key' and '"The Night Can Sweat With Terror"'); and, unusually for Wakefield, venture into the past for a historical ghost story ('Familiar Spirit'). In these seventeen stories, H. R. Wakefield once more triumphantly proves himself to be a master of the weird tale.

Reunion at Dawn: And Other Uncollected Ghost Stories

Wakefield, H.R.

Genre Fiction

Terry Lamsley's first collection of supernatural fiction, UNDER THE CRUST (1994), has been called by Ramsey Campbell 'a major debut in the field'. It was nominated for three World Fantasy Awards, with the title story winning Best Novella. In 1996 came CONFERENCE WITH THE DEAD, a second collection of tales which went on to win the International Horror Critics' Guild award for Best Collection. In both books, writes Campbell, 'Lamsley has established himself as an inheritor of all the qualities of classic English supernatural horror'. In DARK MATTERS, Terry Lamsley once again demonstrates his mastery of the supernatural form, creating a series of waking nightmares in which something OTHER intrudes into the lives of ordinary people. A father and son spending a day together find a dark underside to a seemingly bucolic village; a new neighbour is not nearly as friendly and harmless as he initially seems; a woman doing volunteer work finds herself caught between her odd partner and their even odder client, both of whom have certain needs which must be met; a pleasant walk through the fields leads to a disturbing discovery; and a quiet caravan holiday awakens something better left alone. Add to this a family pet undergoing a VERY strange transformation, an old school friend up to something nasty, a pub visit which goes horribly wrong, a woman who uses some rather unorthodox material in creating her sculptures, two ghosts who need help filling their empty hours, and a seemingly deserted beach which is not, unfortunately, QUITE as uninhabited as it appears, and you have vintage Terry Lamsley: disturbing, frightening, sometimes blackly humorous, never reassuring. In this world, things are seldom, if ever, as they seem, and those who enter it do so at their own risk.

Dark Matters

Lamsley, Terry

In the latter years of the nineteenth century, Mary Elizabeth Braddon was one of the best known, and best-selling, authors of the day. Arnold Bennett described her, in 1901, as 'part of England', and wrote that while some might know of Hardy or Meredith, EVERYONE knew of Miss Braddon. Her best-known work was undoubtedly LADY AUDLEY'S SECRET (1862), a melodramatic tale of bigamy, madness, desertion, and murder which catapulted its author to the forefront of the literary world. In the years which followed she turned out dozens of novels and scores of short stories, in addition to editing two of her husband's publications: the monthly magazine BELGRAVIA and the Christmas annual THE MISLETOE BOUGH. Amongst Miss Braddon's prodigious output were many tales of the supernatural and the weird, scattered throughout her collections of short stories and her magazine appearances; but the scarcity of these tales has led to all but a handful being overlooked by anthologisers. Richard Dalby has collected together eighteen of Miss Braddon's finest tales of the uncanny, all of which demonstrate her mastery of the form and show why she was one of the best-selling authors of her time. In his extensive introduction, Dalby also takes a thorough look at a fascinating woman, who lived through hardship and scandal to become a respected and much-loved literary figure.

The Cold Embrace: And Other Ghost Stories

Braddon, M.E.

Contemporary

In the Dark

NESBIT, EDITH

In 1859, a twenty-four year old author burst upon the American literary scene with a short story 'In the Cellar', which caused a sensation. Although not a supernatural tale, it was followed in quick succession with two weird stories and the novel SIR ROHAN'S GHOST, all of which earned Harriet Prescott comparisons with Matthew 'Monk' Lewis, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Ann Radcliffe; while there were those who, due to the rich Romanticism of her work, were ready to crown her as the successor to Edgar Allan Poe. In 1862, one critic predicted that Prescott would one day write 'the greatest novel by any American so far'. Today, however, Harriet Prescott Spofford's reputation rests mainly on a handful of early tales, written before she was persuaded to abandon her inclination for the weird and uncanny, and focus instead on the New England regional tales which were so popular with late nineteenth century readers and publishers. Jessica Amanda Salmonson has now rescued Spofford's weird tales and poems, collecting them all together into one volume; a project which the author herself pursued in the last years of her life, but which came to nothing. In addition, Salmonson has written a lengthy introduction, in which she draws on extensive research to examine the life and ghostly fiction of a woman who was, in her day, one of the most respected and popular authors in America.

The Moonstone Mass and Others

Spofford, Harriet Prescott

Of the many authors who have turned their hands to the creation of 'supernatural sleuths', few have been so colourful, and as contradictory, as Dion Fortune. She was, in her time, a highly significant and influential figure within spiritualistic circles: a one-time member of the Order of the Golden Dawn, she left it to create another society, the Fraternity of the Inner Light, which (under another name) still exists today; and which refuses to discuss her. During the 1920s and 1930s she wrote books, pamphlets, and articles about her spiritual philosophies and various sociological and sexual issues, including vegetarianism, the servant problem, and contraception. 
She also turned her hand to fiction, writing novels which contained such elements as black and white magic, the great god Pan, astral bodies, reincarnation, and the lost city of Atlantis. When she died in 1946, Fortune left her final novel, MOON MAGIC, uncompleted; the last two chapters are said to have been dictated by her from beyond to one of the Inner Light mediums. 
Her first work of fiction, however, was THE SECRETS OF DR TAVERNER, first published in 1926. The stories concern some of the psychic adventures of the Holmes-like Taverner, as narrated by his assistant, Dr Rhodes. In addition to containing the eleven stories from the first edition, this volume also includes a twelfth Dr Taverner tale, 'A Son of the Night', which was not published until some years after Fortune's death, and which has been the cause of some speculation regarding its authorship. In his lengthy introduction, Jack Adrian examines the enigma who was Dion Fortune, and provides a possible solution to the question of which real person served as the basis for Dr Taverner.

The Secrets of Dr. Taverner

Fortune,Dion

Used. Very Good conditions. May have soft reading marks and name of the previous owner.

The Transcenoent Holmes

Montgomery, John Warwick

History & Criticism

Knight Errant: The Singular Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

From time to time, in his narration of the many and varied cases of Sherlock Holmes, Dr Watson would make reference to incidents and other cases, of which he tantalisingly told us nothing more. There was, for instance, the help Holmes was able to give to Mrs Cecil Forrester; Holmes's notes on Merridew (of abominable memory); and the famous Smith-Mortimer succession case. In this stunning collection of new cases involving Sherlock Holmes, we finally learn the facts that Watson never disclosed. Written in true canonical style, KNIGHT ERRANT: THE SINGULAR ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES will appeal to all those who enjoy further adventures of the Master Detective.

Rubino, Jane

United States

When four of Shamus Frazer's supernatural tales appeared in two anthologies in 1965, editor Charles Birkin hailed him as a 'welcome newcomer'. Yet this 'newcomer' had, in the mid-1930s, been acclaimed as a master of satirical irony, and a natural successor to Evelyn Waugh. In the intervening thirty years, Frazer had been a teacher in England, a Marine serving in Europe during the Second World War, and a lecturer in Singapore, where he wrote several school texts, one of which, THE CROCODILE DIES TWICE, has become a standard text. Although Frazer turned to the supernatural tale late in his career, his flair for the genre was clearly recognised by the praise his stories received. Five of his weird tales were published before his death in 1966, but the author had completed a further five; and he had intended to publish all ten stories together in a single volume, WHERE HUMAN PATHWAYS END. Ash-Tree Press is proud to make this collection available for the first time. In his introduction, Richard Dalby looks at the varied career of Shamus Frazer, while the author's widow, Joan Neale Frazer, provides a glimpse of the colourful private life of the writer. In these ten tales and one poem set where human pathways end, the dead and the un-dead meet in settings both domestic and fantastic, where the weird and horrific are never far away, and where the human protagonists find - often to their cost - that they have no place.

Where Human Pathways End

Frazer, Shamus

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