"Joseph Payne Brennan is one of the most effective writers in the horror genre, and he is certainly one of the writers I have patterned my own career upon," declared Stephen King. "In fact," he added, "The Shapes of Midnight could serve as an exercise-book for the young writer who aspires to pen and publish his or her own weird tales."

A poet as well as a writer of horror fiction, Brennan worked at Yale's Sterling Memorial Library as an acquisitions assistant for over 40 years. He wrote hundreds of stories for Weird Tales and other pulp magazines. This new edition of his increasingly rare compilation, The Shapes of Midnight, presents 10 of his best stories.

Selections include "Diary of a Werewolf," a first-person account of bloody sprees; "The Corpse of Charlie Rull," recounting the rampage of a radioactive zombie; "The Pavilion," which unfolds at an abandoned seaside haunt with something ghastly beneath its pilings; "House of Memory," a wistful look at the past's imaginative grip; "The Willow Platform," featuring the machinations of a self-styled warlock; and other chillingly memorable tales.