The disquieting tales of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman explore a world of contrast, where the supernatural erupts out of authentically drawn portraits of New England life. This is a world of witchcraft, secrecy, domestic spaces turned uncanny and ancestral vengeances inflicted upon the unfortunates of the present. Collecting the best of the author's strange tales - including 'The White Shawl', which was unpublished during her lifetime - this volume casts a light on an underappreciated contributor to weird fiction and the shadowy corners of a dark imagination.

A collection that shows Freeman's many modes - romantic, gothic, and psychologically symbolic - as well as her use of pathos and sentimentality, humour, satire and irony. These stories centre on questions of women's integrity, courage and privation; explore the idea of masculinity; and dramatise the relationship between rural New England and modern culture and commerce. Also included here is 'The Jamesons', a series of sketches about village life reprinted for the first time since the turn of the 20th century.

A young doctor comes to stay at the home of Doc Gordon to be an intern to his country medical practice. He soon learns that the family has a secret - one that's beginning to threaten the lives of the entire household. Good story, with good characterization.

New 6x9 inch paperback edition. Emily Dorothy Scarborough compiled these stories and her introduction is titled The Imperishable Ghost. The famous modern short stories in the book are: The Willows, by Algernon Blackwood; The Shadows on the Wall, by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman; The Messenger, by Robert W. Chambers; Lazarus, by Leonid Andreyev; The Beast with Five Fingers, by William Fryer Harvey; The Mass of Shadows, by Anatole France; What Was It?, by Fitz-James O'Brien; The Middle Toe of the Right Foot, by Ambrose Bierce; The Shell of Sense, by Olivia Howard Dunbar; The Woman at Seven Brothers, by Wilbur Daniel Steele; At the Gate, by Myla Jo Closser; Ligeia, by Edgar Allan Poe; The Haunted Orchard, by Richard Le Gallienne; The Bowmen, by Arthur Machen; and A Ghost, by Guy de Maupassant.