Strange Conjurings Volume 1

The through lines running from E.T.A. Hoffman to Sheridan Le Fanu to Bierce, Machen, and Blackwood - all the way to H.P. Lovecraft and other purveyors of weird pulp tales - have withstood the bloviations of many a critical analysis. This gloriously rich vein of off-center ruminations stands poised for rediscovery by a new generation of True Believers. Ghosts of dead women. Burials administered by giant rats. Animated ship portholes. Angry red brains. What could be more natural than this whimsical confluence of disconcertion? Almost as interesting as the stories is the cast of characters bringing them to you: A chess aficionado who survived a bullet to the head... a man who vanished without a trace circa 1913... the personal assistant of actor Sir Henry Irving... a failed banker whose suicide was thwarted by the mysterious delivery of a book entitled Afterlife... a physical fitness nut obsessed with bizarre fungi... a hypochondriac who routinely sampled food, tobacco, and medicine (and gawd knows what else) found on coworkers' desks... several occultists... a few members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn... a couple of writers who saw chloroform as their best bet for tying up loose ends. The stuff of myth and legend written by the very same. In Strange Conjurings, the Intrepid Gnome and his Lunatic Fringe assemble a unique mix of deep cuts, B-sides, and radio-friendly classics from the Golden Age of... well... strange. Fantasy, horror, mystery, and science fiction - it's all here. Presented in the technicolor glory that only black-and-white can deliver. So relax a spell... dim the lights... sip a fine ale... turn on, tune in, and drop out of the chaos for a few hours with some of planet earth's finest creatives! Volume One Contents: The Cremona Violin / Rat Krespel (1819) The Dead Woman in Love ("La Morte Amoureuse") (1836) Madam Crowl's Ghost (1870) An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1890) The Damned Thing (1893) Novel of the White Powder (1895) The Burial of the Rats (1896) The Man on the Bottle (1904) Max Hensig - Bacteriologist and Murderer (1907) The Voice in the Night (1907) The Screaming Skull (1908) If the Cap Fits (1914) How Nuth Would Have Practised His Art Upon the Gnoles (1911) Casting the Runes (1911) On the Brighton Road (1912) The Bloodstained Parasol: A Study in Madness (1923) The Face (1924) The Night Wire (1926) The Colour Out of Space (1927) Pickman's Model (1927)