“Among the Dark Places of the Earth charts a bold new path in the world of Lovecraftian Cosmic Horror. I'm looking forward to much more from Mr. Toro San Martin!” — William Holloway, author of Blackwood Estates Journey to worlds both eerie and strange, to times long in the past and to futures yet to be, in this debut collection of nineteen short stories and five poems by Julio Toro San Martin. In its pages you’ll learn of an outer god who found a novel way to enter our world, encounters with cosmic horrors in ancient Rome, an airplane ride gone deadly wrong, grim-faced barbarians battling otherworldly enemies, and a mysterious being who wants to invade the earth using the internet. These stories, told in the genres of contemporary horror, dark fantasy, sword and sorcery, and sci-fi are sure to chill, excite and terrify. Here nothing is assured and victory a fleeting promise, if possible at all.

Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist in History A dramatic work of historical detection illuminating one of the most significant—and long forgotten—Supreme Court cases in American history. In 1820, a suspicious vessel was spotted lingering off the coast of northern Florida, the Spanish slave ship Antelope. Since the United States had outlawed its own participation in the international slave trade more than a decade before, the ship's almost 300 African captives were considered illegal cargo under American laws. But with slavery still a critical part of the American economy, it would eventually fall to the Supreme Court to determine whether or not they were slaves at all, and if so, what should be done with them. Bryant describes the captives' harrowing voyage through waters rife with pirates and governed by an array of international treaties. By the time the Antelope arrived in Savannah, Georgia, the puzzle of how to determine the captives' fates was inextricably knotted. Set against the backdrop of a city in the grip of both the financial panic of 1819 and the lingering effects of an outbreak of yellow fever, Dark Places of the Earth vividly recounts the eight-year legal conflict that followed, during which time the Antelope's human cargo were mercilessly put to work on the plantations of Georgia, even as their freedom remained in limbo. When at long last the Supreme Court heard the case, Francis Scott Key, the legendary Georgetown lawyer and author of "The Star Spangled Banner," represented the Antelope captives in an epic courtroom battle that identified the moral and legal implications of slavery for a generation. Four of the six justices who heard the case, including Chief Justice John Marshall, owned slaves. Despite this, Key insisted that "by the law of nature all men are free," and that the captives should by natural law be given their freedom. This argument was rejected. The court failed Key, the captives, and decades of American history, siding with the rights of property over liberty and setting the course of American jurisprudence on these issues for the next thirty-five years. The institution of slavery was given new legal cover, and another brick was laid on the road to the Civil War. The stakes of the Antelope case hinged on nothing less than the central American conflict of the nineteenth century. Both disquieting and enlightening, Dark Places of the Earth restores the Antelope to its rightful place as one of the most tragic, influential, and unjustly forgotten episodes in American legal history.

Sinister and incisive, Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad has retained the fascination of readers and scholars alike. It is accompanied here by the stories with which it has been published since 1902: the autobiographical Youth, and the tale of an old man's fall from fortune, The End of the Tether. Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket-sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition features an afterword by Dr Keith Carabine, specialist in American literature and former chair of the Joseph Conrad society. One night on the Thames, Charles Marlowe tells his fellow sailors the vivid and brutal tale of his time as a riverboat captain in the Belgian Congo. From the mists of London we are whisked to the darkness of Africa’s colonial heart – and into the thrall of the tyrannical Kurtz, an ivory trader who has established himself as a terrifying demi-god.

Challenging received opinion and breaking new ground in Kipling scholarship, these essays on Kipling’s attitudes to the First World War, to the culture of Edwardian England, to homosexuality and to Jewishness, bring historical, literary critical and postcolonial approaches to this perennially controversial writer. The Introduction situates the book in the context of Kipling’s changing reputation and of recent Kipling scholarship. After the perspectives of Chesterton (1905), Orwell (1942) and Jarrell (1960), newer contributions address Kipling's approach to the Boer war, his involvement with World War One, his Englishness and the politics of literary quotation. Different aspects of Kipling’s relation to India are explored, including the ‘Mutiny’, Eastern religions, his Indian travel writings and his knowledge of ‘the vernacular’. This collection, whose contributors include Hugh Brogan, Dan Jacobson, Daniel Karlin and Bryan Cheyette, is essential reading for academics and students of Kipling, Victorian and Edwardian English literature and cultural history.