Evil is never dormant - it gestates. - from the Foreword by Guillermo del Toro Actor, journalist , devotee of Celtic Christianity and the Holy Grail legend, Welshman Arthur Machen is considered a seminal writer of weird fiction, a master of whose work has drawn comparisons to H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe. This exceptional collection offers the perfect introduction to his vision and style. With the title story, an exercise in the bizarre that leaves the reader disoriented virtually from the first page, Machen turns even fundamental truths upside down. 'Of living creators of cosmic fear raised to its most artistic pitch, few if any can hope to equal the versatile Arthur Machen, author of some dozen tales long and short, in which the elements of hidden horror and brooding fright attain an almost incomparable substance and realistic acuteness.' - H.P. Lovecraft Edited with an Introduction and Notes by S. T. JOSHI