One of the nicest things about living thirty-odd, ox cart miles from the nearest town, and that 'town' only a few adobes and a cattle loading chute astride the railroad, is the quiet that allows me to hear the tales the firelight tells. And being located in North-Central Sonora, Mexico, the peculiar stillness and peace of the high desert adds to the lack of clamor and makes it possible to hear things otherwise inaudible if you will but listen. They are best heard when after a blue norther has burst out of Canada and plastered with snow the eastern slopes of the Rockies from Montana to New Mexico and then petered out over my valley into a soft, steady snow fall that insulates the cabin and the world like a blanket. Then it is that the crackling and popping of the pinion logs becomes a language so readily understandable that it can be jotted down. Footsteps of the Ancient Ones; Son of Sundance; John Ringo, Murder or Suicide?; a Loch Ness Monster of the Sand Hills, Maximilian II, Emperor of the Desert, Mary Todd Lincoln's trips through Rebel Lines, Sippenhaft and the Silent Seat mate, the JFK Assassination: What happened to the bullets? and others make up this presentation.

DigiCat presents to you this unique collection, designed and formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. Content: Edgar Allan Poe: The Tell-Tale Heart The Cask of Amontillado The Black Cat... Henry James: The Turn of the Screw The Ghostly Rental... H. P. Lovecraft: The Dunwich Horror The Shunned House... Mary Shelley: Frankenstein The Mortal Immortal The Evil Eye... John William Polidori: The Vampyre Bram Stoker: Dracula The Jewel of Seven Stars The Lair of the White Worm... Algernon Blackwood: The Willows A Haunted Island A Case of Eavesdropping Ancient Sorceries... Gaston Leroux: The Phantom of the Opera Marjorie Bowen: Black Magic Charles Dickens: The Mystery of Edwin Drood Oscar Wilde: The Picture of Dorian Gray Washington Irving: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Théophile Gautier: Clarimonde The Mummy's Foot Richard Marsh: The Beetle Arthur Conan Doyle: The Hound of the Baskervilles The Silver Hatchet... Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: Carmilla Uncle Silas... M. R. James: Ghost Stories of an Antiquary A Thin Ghost and Others Wilkie Collins: The Woman in White The Haunted Hotel The Devil's Spectacles E. F. Benson: The Room in the Tower The Terror by Night... Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Birth Mark The House of the Seven Gables... Ambrose Bierce: Can Such Things Be? Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories Arthur Machen: The Great God Pan The Terror... William Hope Hodgson: The House on the Borderland The Night Land M. P. Shiel: Shapes in the Fire Ralph Adams Cram: Black Spirits and White Grant Allen: The Reverend John Creedy Dr. Greatrex's Engagement... Horace Walpole: The Cas...

Doctor Manette, a prominent French Doctor, must flee Paris in the midst of the chaos that has ensued in what became known as the Reign of Terror. Fearing further persecution from his 18 maddening years of imprisonment in the Bastille of Paris, Doctor Manette hurriedly leaves France to be with the daughter he’s never met. Opening with the famous lines, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...” Charles Dickens’, A Tale of Two Cities is perhaps one of the most celebrated and popular novels of its time. Weaving together the narratives of vastly different but equally profound characters against the backdrop of political revolution and strife, A Tale of Two Cities is a tale of human perseverance. Throughout the novel, Charles Dickens is able to portray the hardships of each social class during the trying times of the French Revolution in a way that is both profoundly elegant and heartbreaking at the same time. Becoming known as the perhaps the epitome of Dickensian writing and style, A Tale of Two Cities measures the boundaries of human will in the fight for what is right during a time when that just might cost your life.

Originally published as On fortune's wheel. New York: Atheneum, 1990.

Catherynne M. Valente enchanted readers with her spellbinding In the Night Garden. Now she continues to weave her storytelling magic in the next book of Orphan’s Tales—an epic of the fantastic and the exotic, the monstrous and mysterious, that will transport you far away from the everyday. . . . Her name and origins are unknown, but the endless tales inked upon this orphan’s eyelids weave a spell over all who listen to her read her secret history. And who can resist the stories she tells? From the Lake of the Dead and the City of Marrow to the artists who remain behind in a ghost city of spice, here are stories of hedgehog warriors and winged skeletons, loyal leopards and sparrow calligraphers. Nothing is too fantastic, anything can happen, but you’ll never guess what comes next in these intimately linked adventures of firebirds and djinn, singing manticores, mutilated unicorns, and women made entirely of glass and gears. Graced with the magical illustrations of Michael Kaluta, In the Cities of Coins and Spice is a book of dreams and wonders unlike any you’ve ever encountered. Open it anywhere and you will fall under its spell. For here the story never ends and the magic is only beginning. . . .

The Fall 1988 issue of Weird Tales showcases the work of Featured Author Keith Taylor and Featured Artist Carl Lundgren. Also includes work by Tad Williams, Alan Rodgers, W.T. Quick, and many more.

Tale-weavers of old have long known the mythological alchemy that fashions a gripping adventure tale. Quests force heroes out into the world where they encounter ancient dangers and temptations of the heart. Treasures give these heroes purpose while forcing us as readers to question what is worth valuing. Fantastical beasts and adversaries lure imaginations from the depths of oblivion. This collection exhibits thirty adventure tales that have survived through the ages due to their mythological usefulness. They portray a range of narrative structures, yet each story carries the same adventurous spirit that excites and encourages the soul. These tales do not merely entertain, but also serve as historic guides built on the knowledge of ancient tale-weavers. Dragons, fairies, dwarves, and more inhabit these pages, and they are willing to tell their secrets to those who will listen.