Algernon Blackwood hardly needs an introduction to connoisseurs of the mysterious and terrible. Arkham House is proud to publish in this book his first collection of new tales in ten years.

The Doll is the story of a strange image delivered to the suburban villa of Colonel Masters, of the terror its coming brought into the house, of the mortal danger it threatened to Colonel Masters and his small daughter—told in the very best-Blackwood vein.

The Trod is the narrative of a little-known corner of England where people in all walks of life have guards on their houses and their persons—and even On their gates—lest one of the "gay people" appear on nights of the equinox and lure away the souls of all who walk unprotected.

These two novelettes are typical of the best of Blackwood's work. "Of the quality of Mr. Blackwood's genius there can be no dispute," wrote the late great H. P, Lovecraft in Supernatural Horror in Literature, "for no one has even approached the skill, seriousness and minute fidelity with which he records the overtones of strangeness in ordinary things and experiences, or the preternatural insight with which he builds up detail by detail the complete sensations and perceptions leading from reality into supernormal life or vision. He is the one absolute and unquestioned master of weird atmosphere!"