The Library of Death begins at a leisurely pace, and a tone that seems to set the stage for a light romance. But then Ronald S.L. Harding deftly builds the mystery and from the moment we learn of the legend of a headless spectre that purportedly stalks the grounds and rumors of hereditary vampirism the novel undergoes another transformation with the light tone of the early chapters forgotten as horror is piled upon horror . . . So says John Pelan's introduction to this 1938 horror classic.