Tartarus Press

publishers

Uncanny Tales

F. Marion Crawford

 

with

 

A Were-Wolf of the Campagna

Mrs Hugh Fraser

 

A Mystery of the Campagna

Von Degen

 

Introduction by Richard Dalby

 

Uncanny Tales is one of the classic collections of ghost and horror stories. Dorothy Scarborough, one of their earliest critics and connoisseurs observed: 'Few writers have equalled F. Marion Crawford in the modern ghost story. His tales have a curdling intensity, a racking horror that set them far above the ordinary supernatural fiction. They linger in the mind long after one has tried in vain to forget them, if indeed one ever does forget their sense of evil power. There is in each of his stories an individual horror that marks it as distinct from its fellows ...'

 

This volume not only adds to the collection F. Marion Crawford's 'lost' story, 'The King's Messenger', but also further uncanny tales by his sisters, Mary and Anne. The former, Mrs Hugh Fraser, adds an account of werewolves in the Campagna, and the latter, Countess von Rabe (writing as Von Degen), two weird tales; 'A Mystery of the Campagna' and 'A Shadow on a Wave.'

 

Editor and anthologist Richard Dalby contributes an Introduction to the life and works of this remarkable literary family.

 

Contents:

'Introduction' by Richard Dalby,

Uncanny Tales by F. Marion Crawford: 'The Dead Smile', 'The Screaming Skull', 'Man Overboard!', 'For the Blood is the Life', 'The Upper Berth', 'By the Waters of Paradise', 'The Doll's Ghost', 'The King's Messenger'

'A Were-Wolf of the Campagna' by Mrs Hugh Fraser

'A Mystery of the Campagna' and 'A Shadow on a Wave' by Von Degen

 

Review

'This is a treasure for the book-lined study we all hope one day to retire to.' Gail-Nina Anderson, Prism.