"A striking contribution to the literature of darkness." - Humbert Wolfe "A disturbing study of spiritual domination . . . subtle and terrifying." - Daily Telegraph "Mr. Onions is an inspired writer . . . A poet of prose." - John Betjeman When Peter Byles's father dies shortly before the boy's thirteenth birthday, the young orphan is sent to live at the Victorian Gothic mansion of his father's friend, Dr. Kornelius Voyt. Peter arrives at the dreary house, surprised to find that he sees nothing of the enigmatic Voyt, instead passing his time in lessons with a young German tutor. But it soon becomes clear to Peter that these lessons are only preparations for something much more sinister that Voyt intends to teach him. Voyt, unable either to hear or speak, has learned to compensate for his disability by developing extraordinary powers of the mind, powers which allow him to communicate telepathically, control the wills of others, and even inflict pain on those who anger him. Voyt has a terrifying vision of the world's future, and he is determined to use Peter as a pawn in his inscrutable plans. . . . Best known today for his ghost stories, Oliver Onions (1873-1961) was also a masterful novelist, and all his talents are on display in The Hand of Kornelius Voyt (1939), which, as Mark Valentine writes in the new introduction to this edition, "is a formidable achievement in sustaining an atmosphere of uncanny dread." This edition, the first in nearly fifty years, reprints the unabridged text of the rare first edition and features a reproduction of the original dust jacket illustration.

With entries that range from specific works to authors, folklore, and popular culture (including music, film, television, urban legend, and gaming), this book provides a single-volume resource on all things ghostly in the United States and in other countries. The concept of ghosts has been an ongoing and universal element in human culture as far back as recorded history can document. In more modern popular culture and entertainment, ghosts are a popular mainstay—from A Christmas Carol and Casper the Friendly Ghost to The Amityville Horror, Ghostbusters, Poltergeist, The Sixth Sense, and Ghost Whisperer. This book comprehensively examines ghost and spirit phenomena in all its incarnations to provide readers with a holistic perspective on the subject. It presents insightful information about the contribution of a specific work or author to establish or further the evolution of ghost lore, rather than concentrating solely on the film, literature, music, or folklore itself. The book focuses on ghosts in western culture but also provides information about spirit phenomena and lore in international settings, as many of the trends in popular culture dealing with ghosts and spirits are informed by authors and filmmakers from Germany, Japan, Korea, and the United Kingdom. The writers and editors are experts and scholars in the field and enthusiastic fans of ghost lore, ghost films, ghost hunting, and urban legends, resulting in entries that are informative and engaging—and make this the most complete and current resource on ghost and spirit lore available.

Pulitzer Prize-winning critic Michael Dirda has been hailed as "the best-read person in America" (The Paris Review) and "the best book critic in America" (The New York Observer). His latest volume collects fifty of his witty and wide-ranging reflections on a life in literature. Reaching from the classics to the post-moderns, his allusions dance from Samuel Johnson, Ralph Waldo Emerson and M. F. K. Fisher to Marilynne Robinson, Hunter S. Thompson, and David Foster Wallace. Dirda's topics are equally diverse: literary pets, the lost art of cursive writing, book inscriptions, the pleasures of science fiction conventions, author photographs, novelists in old age, Oberlin College, a year in Marseille, writer's block, and much more. As admirers of his earlier books will expect, there are annotated lists galore—of perfect book titles, great adventure novels, favorite words, books about books, and beloved children's classics, as well as a revealing peek at the titles Michael keeps on his own nightstand.Funny and erudite, Browsings is a celebration of the reading life, a fan's notes, and the perfect gift for any booklover.

Fantasy is a genre in motion, gradually expanding its reach and historical sources to embrace a global identity Historical Dictionary of Fantasy Literature, Second Edition is a snapshot of the genre in this moment, identifying new themes and sources that are emerging to inspire, enhance and invigorate the published works of fantasy writers.

PART I THE COBDEN CORNER I One day in the early June of the year 1900 I was taking a walk on Hampstead Heath and found myself in the neighbourhood of the Vale of Health. About that time my eyes were very much open for such things as house-agents' notice-boards and placards in windows that announced that houses or portions of houses were to let. I was going to be married, and wanted a place in which to live. My salary was one hundred and fifty pounds a year. I figured on the wages-book of the Freight and Ballast Company as "Jeffries, J. H., Int. Ex. Con.," which meant that I was an intermediate clerk of the Confidential Exchange Department, and to this description of myself I affixed each week my signature across a penny stamp in formal receipt of my three pounds. I could have been paid in gold had I wished, but I had preferred a weekly cheque, and I took care never to cash this cheque at our own offices in Waterloo Place. I did not wish it to be known that I had no banking account. As a matter of fact, I now had one, though I should not have liked to disclose it to the Income Tax Commissioners. The reason for this reticence lay in the smallness, not in the largeness, of my balance. I had learned that in certain circumstances it pays you to appear better off than you are. It was a Sunday, a Whit-Sunday, on which I took my walk, and on my way up from Camden Town across the Lower Heath I had passed among the canvas and tent-pegs and staked-out "pitches" that were the preparation for the Bank Holiday on the morrow. Tall chevaux de frises of swings were locked back with long bars; about the caravans picked out with red and green, the proprietors of cocoanut-shies and roundabouts smoked their pipes; and up the East Heath Road there rumbled from time to time, shaking the ground, a traction-engine with its string of waggons and gaudy tumbrils.... II III IV V PART II VERANDAH COTTAGE I II III FOOTNOTE: IV V PART III WELL WALK I II III IV V PART IV IDDESLEIGH GATE I FOOTNOTE: II ENVOI SIR JULIUS PEPPER DICTATES ENVOI FOOTNOTE: