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Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole (1884-1941) was a New Zealand-born English novelist, famous for his skill at scene setting and vivid plots. He was a best-selling author in the 1920s and 1930s and remains popular to this day. The Staircase tells the story of a house. An old house, which has seen much and knows many things about the ways of humans. In this story the house feels compelled to intervene in the affairs of the inhabitants to prevent an impeding disaster by murdering one of the humans.

Ella D'Arcy (1856-1939) was a British short story writer, novelist and translator who grew up in the Channel Islands, France and Germany. 'White Magic' is a short story set in a rural part of the Channel Islands and tells the story of a pharmacist who provides a potent love potion to a young girl who has quarreled with her lover.

Richard Austin Freeman (1862-1943) was a British writer of detective stories, many featuring the investigator Dr. Thorndyke, who uses a mixture of medical and forensic techniques to solve the most baffling crimes. In The Blue Sequin, a beautiful young woman as been found alone, dead in a railway carriage, with a peculiar combination of head injuries inflicted with great force by a sharp, round implement.

Arthur George Morrison (1863-1945) was an English writer and journalist known for his realistic novels and stories about working-class life in London's East End. 'Dobbs' Parrot' is a cleverly constructed humorous story about a con artist who manages to swindle four people simultaneously by selling them all a parrot in a cage, despite the fact that he has neither parrot nor cage at the start of the story.

William Fryer Harvey (1885-1937) was an English writer of short stories, most notably in the mystery and horror genres, in which many of his works are recognized as masterpieces of the genre. The Ankardine Pew is one of W. F. Harvey's most famous works. It is a curious tale of a house haunted by the tortured soul of a previous owner who had once committed a most dreadful and unusual atrocity.

'Make Westing' is a story of a ship, the Mary Rogers, struggling to round Cape Horn in adverse weather. The way to round the Horn is always to 'make westing'. As time goes on, Captain Dan Cullen becomes more and more obsessed with making westing at all costs. When a sailor accidently falls overboard, he refuses to stop and rescue the drowning man. The ship's only passenger, Mr George Dorety, is horrified by this and determines to see justice done.

On the surface, Immensee is a simple love story, of an old man, Reinhardt Werner, remembering Elisabeth, the lost sweetheart of his youth, who married his best friend, Erich. Reinhardt had neglected their relationship when he had gone away to university, and after two years when he failed to write to Elisabeth, she gave up waiting and accepted a marriage proposal from Erich, a wealthy young farmer with a fine house on the shores of the Immensee.

Bithia Mary Croker (1848-1920) was an Irish-born novelist and a notable writer of ghost stories; most of her work concerned life and society in British India. 'To Let' is a ghost story set in the Raj. Having left very late in the season to travel into the hills from Lucknor to escape the fierce summer heat, Aggie Shandon asks for a friend's help in locating accommodation for herself, her two children and her sister-in-law, Susan. There is only one property available - Briarwood - and it is amazingly cheap.

Olive Schreiner (1855-1920) was a South African author, suffragist and political activist. She is best known for her novel The Story of an African Farm, but some of her most haunting and memorable works are her short stories. This collection presents four drealike short stories with multilayered meaning and allegorical significance: "A Dream of Wild Bees", "Life's Gifts", "The Artist's Secret" and "In a Far-Off World".

Fedor Sologub (1863-1927) was a mystic, a realist and a writer of novels and outstanding short stories in the Dostoyevsky school. "The Hoop" is very representative of his evocative work. It tells the story of an old man who is captivated by the sight of a young child playing with a hoop. The image embeds itself in his psyche and from it, right at the end of his life, he finally learns how to live in the moment.

A gripping collection of Victorian supernatural stories from the greatest ghost story writers of the age. 'Room Number Ten' by Bessie Kyffin-Taylor, 'Kerfol' by Edith Wharton, 'A Child of the Rain' by Elia W. Peattie, 'The Cold Embrace' by Mary E. Braddon, 'The Mummy of Thompson-Pratt' by Charles John Cutcliffe Hyne, 'When I Was Dead' by Vincent O'Sullivan, 'The Everlasting Club' by Arthur Gray, 'The Story of the Spaniards' by E & H Heron, 'The Staircase' by Hugh Walpole....

Morley Roberts (1857-1942) was an adventurer who worked on railways, cattle, and sheep ranches all over Africa and the Americas and still found time to write a large number of very varied novels and stories with a zest that only real-life experience can give. The Mad Hatter is a fast paced and gripping adventure story about a magazine editor who is pursued across London by a murderous psycopath who is determined to kill him in revenge for rejecting a short story of his about his escape from the asylum.

Herbert George Wells (1866 - 1946) was a prolific English writer of science fiction stories and novels, and is often credited as the father of science fiction. 'The Triumphs of the Taxidermist' is a tongue in cheek macabre tale of a taxidermist's anecdotes of strange creatures he has stuffed, ranging from fraudulent birds to human beings.

Ernest Bramah (1868-1942) was an English author of 21 novels and numerous short stories and features. His humorous works have been ranked with Jerome K. Jerome and W. W. Jacobs, his detective stories with Conan Doyle, his politico-science fiction with H. G. Wells, and his supernatural stories with Algernon Blackwood. In his stories of detection, Bramah hit on the idea of a blind detective, Max Carrados, whose triumphs are all the more amazing because of his disability.

The story opens with the narrator on his way home from the theatre one evening, when his attention is drawn to a crowd gathered around a road accident in the West End of London. A taxi has hit a pedestrian. Out of the crowd emerges Charles, an old friend, supporting a fainting women. They had been the passengers in the taxi, and Charles now charges the narrator with seeing the lady home.

Richard Barham Middleton (1882-1911) was an English poet and author who is remembered mostly for his supernatural tales and ghost stories, in particular 'The Ghost Ship', 'The Coffin Merchant' and 'On the Brighton Road'. 'The Coffin Merchant' is the peculiar tale of Eustace Reynolds, who is handed a handbill by a stranger one day. The flyer reads: "You will soon be wanting a coffin! At 606 Gray's Inn Road, your order will be attended to with civility and despatch. Call and see us!"

'A School Story' is an intriguing ghost tale set in a private school near London. During a lesson one of the boys finds himself writing a strange sentence in Latin which he himself cannot properly explain. When the teacher reads it, he turns pale and appears to become suddenly very ill. A week or so later, again during class, another even more mysterious Latin message appears...and then events turn very strange and sinister indeed.

William Hope Hodgson (1877-1918) was an English author of horror, fantastic fiction, and science fiction. Hodgson used his experiences at sea to lend authentic detail to his short horror stories, many of which are set on the ocean. He became one of the most influential horror writers of the 20th century. He died in World War I at age 40. 'A Tropical Horror' is the vivid story of a ship which is attacked by a hideous sea serpent.

A. J. Alan was the pseudonym of Leslie Harrison Lambert (1883-1941), an English magician, intelligence officer, short story writer, and radio broadcaster. He was hugely popular in the '20s and '30s for his radio broadcasts, wherein he performed his own humorous and often macabre short stories, which he always delivered wearing full evening dress.

Fifty unusual and enchanting short stories.