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Two men in one body! That's how Lief Langdon had always felt. One part of him was a modern day adventurer, the other was a strange half-memory of another life where he was a High Priest sacrificing living people to Khalk'ru, a demon god from another time and space. Then Langdon stumbled through the mirage into a hidden Arctic valley, where he fell under the spell of Evalie, as beautiful outwardly as she was inwardly, and her friends the Little People, elfin warriors constantly warring with Lur, the Witch-Woman, and her demon riders, who raided the Little People's land for sacrifices to their dark god, the Kraken. Horrified at the thought of their becoming sacrifices, Langdon took up the Little People's cause and wooed Evalie. But when he learned the Kraken was also known as Khalk'ru, memories of his past life -- as Lur's lover and High Priest of her sect came rushing back. Soon Langdon was fighting against his other self, a far stronger self that submerges him entirely and eagerly joins Lur, to rain kisses on her lips and wield the bloody knife of sacrifice on his own best friends!

In this fast-moving tale, we meet James Kirkham, an adventurer/explorer who is kidnapped off the streets of downtown Manhattan by the minions of Satan, a crime lord/supervillain/evil genius. Kirkham is forced to play a game in Satan's lair, during which he is made to tread on seven glowing footprints, four of which are "fortunate" and three "unfortunate." Depending on the steps he lands on, he will either be killed, serve Satan for a year, or be given a fantastic fortune.

Kirkham winds up a bond servant to Satan, and is compelled to commit various fantastic crimes while in his service. He is housed in Satan's mazelike chateau with dozens of others, and falls in love with a fellow prisoner, Eve.

The discoverers of a 200-year-old ship are strangely influenced by the dead crew.

The novel concerns American mining engineer Nicholas Graydon. While searching for lost Inca treasure in South America, he encounters Suarra, handmaiden to the Snake Mother of Yu-Atlanchi.

Table of Contents:

• The Fox Woman - (1946) - novelette
• The People of the Pit - (1918) - shortstory
• Through the Dragon Glass - (1917) - shortstory
• The Drone - (1934) - shortstory
• The Last Poet and the Robots - (1934) - shortstory
• Three Lines of Old French - (1919) - shortstory
• The White Road - shortstory
• When Old Gods Wake - (1948) - shortstory
• The Woman of the Wood - (1926) - novelette

Explorer John Kenton returns from a lifetime of wanderings and the wreckage of World War I to discover a mysterious block of Babylonian basalt containing a crystal model of an ancient ship - the Ship of Ishtar! The sultry magic of the fabled ship draws Kenton into its dreamworld, where a strange crew plucked from the ages sails in a lushly imagined mystical seascape. At the fore of the ship is Sharane, beautiful, proud, luxurious priestess instilled with the power of Ishtar, goddess of Love, Wrath, and Vengeance. On the prow broods inhuman Klaneth, infused with the essence of Negal, god of the Underworld. Kenton finds himself in a cosmic struggle of wills between them - sixty centuries in the making! Will he claim Sharane and take command of the Ship of Ishtar, or will its mysterious power take command of him?

Mafia Versus Witchcraft! "With such consummate skill," wrote the New York Times, "has Mr. Merritt told his story in Burn Witch Burn that one is almost ready to believe that such things can be, even in this twentieth century of ours." Not available in paperback, here is the fabled novel of an eminent physician who agrees to work along side one of the city's most notorious gangsters to put an end to a strange and mysterious series of deaths that have claimed a child, a millionaire, one of the don's men and the doctor's nurse. Investigation leads the pair to the uncanny Madame Mandilip, proprietress of a most unusual doll shop, and her apparently mute and terrified daughter. Soon the Mafia don lies on the verge of death and the doctor finds himself the victim of strange hallucinations--or are they? From page to page the nightmare figure of Madame Mandilip grows more horrible and deadly until she spreads like a menacing shadow across the lives of the doctor and his friends.

Long out of print, this novel, which inspired the legendary 1930s horror film, Devil Doll with Lionel Barymore, is considered one of the supreme masterpieces of dark fantasy. "There is no individual writing today," wrote Donald A. Wollheim, author of Mimic, "that can torture his reader by way of the suspense element as much as Merritt and know at which point to stop; to save him perhaps for future tortures." Or, as the New York Times said, "You'll find here a collection of horrors that really horrify, most skillfully blended into a tale of mounting hellishness, the whole flavored with that peculiar quality that Merritt readers know about."

This Two Thousand Year-Old Sorceress Had the Power to Turn People into Shadows!

Here is A. Merritt's masterwork, our publisher's pick for the best of all his classic fantasies. Creep, Shadow! Is based on legends of Ys and an old Breton song:

Fisher, fisher, have you seen
White Dahut, the Shadow Queen
Riding on her stallion black
At her heels her shadow pack?

Had the last King and Princess of wicked Ys, returned after three thousand years? Why were they creating an exact replica of Stonehenge on their New Jersey estate? What was the Mael Bennique, the Breaker of Chests? And what was the dread Gatherer in the Cairn? And can men and women really be turned into shadows and made the helpless slaves of the one who transformed them?

Ethnologist Alan Caranac (who may just be the reincarnation of the Alain de Carnac who brought about the destruction of sinful Ys and its evil rulers) has to find out the answer, for one of his best friends has been killed, and perhaps transformed into a shadow, while his fiancee Helen, her brother, Bill, and the famed Dr. Lowell have already been marked for death or worse!

But first Alan will have to enter the tower of the Demoiselle Dahut de Ys in New York and journey through it thousands of years into the past to her tower in the legendary city from which she draws her name. And then return, if he can!

In this stunning sequel to his classics Burn, Witch, Burn!, the great A. Merritt, an authority on ancient magic and civilizations, captured the feeling of sorcery and the supernatural as never before! Discover why the New York Times raved that Merritt's writings spin "a shimmering, glittering web of imagination" whose "fertility never seems to lessen"; andwhy Analog magazine called his stories "crammed with fascinating people and creatures." Here is a classic by the author the Science Fiction Encyclopedia crowned "the supreme fantasy genius."

Returning to New York following a botanical expedition to the South Seas, Dr. Walter T. Goodwin encounters an old friend who relates a strange story of an exotic island, a strange stone door, and a hypnotic, mysterious light, but when he investigates the tale, he discovers more than he had bargained for.

One of the most gripping fantasies ever written, The Moon Pool embodies all the romanticism and poetic nostalgia characteristic of A. Merritt's writings. Set on the island of Ponape, full of ruins from ancient civilizations, the novel chronicles the adventures of a party of explorers who discover a previously unknown underground world full of strange peoples and super-scientific wonders. From the depths of this world, the party unwittingly unleashes the Dweller, a monstrous terror that threatens the islands of the South Pacific.

Although Merritt did not invent the lost world novel, following in the footsteps of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Burroughs and others, he greatly elaborated upon that tradition. This new edition includes a biography of the author, and an introduction detailing Merritt's many sources and influences, including the occult, mythological, and scientific discourses of his day.

Table of Contents:

• The Face in the Abyss 5
• The People of the Pit 128
• The Women of the Wood 151

Dr. Walter T. Goodwin is a botanist on an expedition to examine the varieties of a certain flower which grows in the Middle East. Starting from Tehran in Persia (Iran) Goodwin plans to wander through several countries until he comes to the Himalayas in Tibet. While in a valley in the Himalayas Goodwin comes upon Richard Drake, the son of an old friend who has recently died. Liking one another they decide to combine their expeditions and see where fate leads them. One evening they witness the light of the setting sun behaving oddly. Goodwin offers the explanation that it is the result of some unusual atmospheric effect, but Drake remarks that it almost seemed to be orchestrated by some intelligent force. That night the two hear strange noises, but do not see the source of the sound. The next day they come upon what seems to be a huge footprint from a creature of great weight. Later the same day the two explorers come upon Martin and Ruth Ventnor hiding in the ruins of a stone fortress. This brother and sister are trying to escape from soldiers who fantastically seem to be a throwback to time of Darius, complete with armor, swords and bows and arrows. The four flee from these ancient Persian worriers but are almost captured, when, appearing out of nowhere, an other-worldly woman and a shape-changing metal monster come to their aid. The soldiers are gruesomely annihilated. The strange woman's name is Norhala. Is Norhala the four's savior, or is she an even more dangerous enemy? Even more, what is the nature and secret of the metal monster?