Arthur Lane

Arthur Bliss Lane was a hugely experienced American Diplomat, having worked all over the world before his posting to the Polish Government in 1944. The Polish Government was then in exile in London and he gained a great deal of respect for the Polish leadership. He followed them back to their homeland in 1945 as the Poles sought to set-up a democratic state from the smashed debris of years of Nazi domination. What transpired was a new form of despotism...

The Great God Pan (1894) is a novella by Arthur Machen. Condemned as decadent and obscene upon publication, The Great God Pan earned praise from Oscar Wilde and H. P. Lovecraft, and is now regarded as one of Victorian literature's finest-and most unsettling-stories of horror and the occult. Throughout the years, it has influenced such figures as Stephen King, Guillermo del Toro, and Josh Malerman with its depiction of the god Pan and unsettling blend...

First published in 1872, Carmilla is a classic gothic novella and one of the earliest examples of vampire fiction. Fast-paced and gripping, the story follows the protagonist Laura, who lives in a secluded castle in the woods with her father. One day, a carriage accident brings a young woman named Carmilla into their lives, and she is taken in as a guest. As time goes on, Laura becomes increasingly drawn to Carmilla, despite her strange behavior and...

In early colonial Massachusetts, a young woman endures the consequences of her sin of adultery and spends the rest of her life in atonement.

This strange little book depicts the ghastly utilitarian world of the pompous, ostentatiously Christian public school, obsessed with team spirit and spiced with sadism, and contrasts it with true spirituality, exemplified by the voices of nature and the survival of ancient traditions in the obscure hill of Wales. The school boy Andrew finds himself intensely drawn toward the old traditions, and we follow him on his journey toward a spiritual coming...

An urgent cry for help brings Poirot to France, but he arrives too late to save his client, whose brutally stabbed body now lies face downwards in a shallow grave on a golf course.

"The luxurious Blue Train carries its passengers across France, from dreary wintertime England to the sunny French Riviera. When it arrives at Nice, a guard attempts to wake serene Ruth Kettering from her slumber. But she will never wake again -- she has been killed, and a heavy blow has disfigured her features almost beyond recognition. What is more, her precious rubies are missing and her ever-present maid was dismissed from the train back in Paris....

The story is narrated by an unnamed seeker of "strange horrors" who is investigating the massacre of a community of some six dozen backwoods degenerates in an obscure region of the Catskills, a massacre which occurred during a particularly violent electrical storm and seems to have been perpetrated by an unidentified clawed beast. The narrator soon discovers that the most sinister legends of the region centre around the abandoned Martense mansion,...

There be islands in the Central Sea, whose waters are bounded by no shore and where no ships come -- this is the faith of their people. In the mists before THE BEGINNING, Fate and Chance cast lots to decide whose the Game should be; and he that won strode through the mists to MANA-YOOD-SUSHAI and said: "Now make gods for Me, for I have won the cast and the Game is to be Mine." Who it was that won the cast, and whether it was Fate or whether Chance...

The White People (1904) is a short story by Arthur Machen. Originally published in Horlick's Magazine, the story was later printed in The House of Souls (1906), a short story collection. Condemned as decadent and obscene upon publication, Machen's writing earned praise from Oscar Wilde and H. P. Lovecraft. Throughout the years, Machen's work has been referenced and adapted by such figures as Stephen King, Guillermo del Toro, and Josh Malerman for...