The themes that thread through these nine accomplished stories are drawn from the great tradition of the twentieth-century weird tale, and they are suffused with a distinctly cosmopolitan, European feel. Mark Samuels writes about the fundamental fears of modern life, especially the effects of isolation and the dislocation that city dwellers can experience in their inhospitable, man-made environment.

The White Hands: You may recall Alfred Muswell, he whom devotees of the weird tale will know as the author of numerous articles on the subject of literary ghost stories but who died in relative obscurity just over a year ago.