This long awaited volume Xelucha and Others by Matthew Phipps Shiel (1865-1947) was announced for publication years ago. Shiel, an old friend of August Derleth, especially revised "Xelucha" for this collection. Here are such stories as "The House of Sounds", which H. P. Loyecraft considered his undoubted masterpiece, a tale of Scandinavian horror on a sub-arctic island; "The Primate of the Rose", another story of condign punishment in the Poe tradi tion; "The Tale of Henry and Rowena" and "The Bride", ghost stories in which the motivating force is vengeance; "The Pale Ape", bearing kinship of a sort to the tale of lycanthropy; and the lead story, a hideous description of decay and corruption from be yond the grave.

Chance and the inevitable play a large part in the cosmos created by Shiel. His characters are larger than life, motivated sometimes by curiosity, more often by revenge, a misguided sense ot justice, or by the external forces of society, nature, or the supernatural. Melodramatic and silly as many of his plots may sound in the summarizing, there is somehow, as in all great writers, stimulating experience in his work, due to the exceeding skill with which he manipulates his material. As Richard Strauss puts it, his unique style is stamped with "a white-hot enthusiasm. "

CONTENTS
vii-viii • Introduction by M. P. Shiel
1. Xélucha (1896)
2. The Primate of the Rose (1928)
3. Dark Lot of One Saul (1933)
4. The House of Sounds (1911)
5. The Globe of Ggold-Fish (1934)
6. Many a Tear (1911)
7. The bride (1911)
8. The Tale of Henry and Rowena (1928)
9. The Bell of St. Sépulcre (1928)
10. Huguenin's Wife (1911)
11. The Pale Ape (1911)
12. The Case of Euphemia Raphash (1911)

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The jacket work by Frank Utpatel