Search Worlds Without End

Oliver Onions is unique in the realms of ghost story writers in that his tales are so far ranging in their background and substance that they are not easily categorised. His stories are powerfully charged explorations of psychical violence, their effects heightened by detailed character studies graced with a powerful poetic elegance. In simple terms Oliver Onions goes for the cerebral rather than the jugular. However, make no mistake, his ghost stories achieve the desired effect. They draw you in, enmeshing you in their unnerving and disturbing narratives.

This collection contains such masterpieces as 'The Rosewood Door', 'The Ascending Dream', 'The Painted Face' and 'The Beckoning Fair One', a story which both Algernon Blackwood and H. P. Lovecraft regarded as one of the most effective and subtle ghost stories in all literature. Long out of print, these classic tales are a treasure trove of nightmarish gems.

Includes:

• Credo
• The Beckoning Fair One
• Phantas
• Rooum
• Benlian
• The Ascending Dream
• The Honey in the Wall
• The Rosewood Door
• The Accident
• Io
• The Painted Face
• The Out Sister
• 'John Gladwin Says...'
• Hic Jacet
• The Rocker
• Dear Dryad
• The Real People
• The Cigarette Case
• The Rope in the Rafters
• Resurrection in Bronze
• The Woman in the Way
• The Smile of Karen
• The Ether-Hogs
• The Mortal
• The Master of the House
• Tragic Casements

When Peter Byles's father dies shortly before the boy's thirteenth birthday, the young orphan is sent to live at the Victorian Gothic mansion of his father's friend, Dr. Kornelius Voyt. Peter arrives at the dreary house, surprised to find that he sees nothing of the enigmatic Voyt, instead passing his time in lessons with a young German tutor. But it soon becomes clear to Peter that these lessons are only preparations for something much more sinister that Voyt intends to teach him. Voyt, unable either to hear or speak, has learned to compensate for his disability by developing extraordinary powers of the mind, powers which allow him to communicate telepathically, control the wills of others, and even inflict pain on those who anger him. Voyt has a terrifying vision of the world's future, and he is determined to use Peter as a pawn in his inscrutable plans....

Best known today for his ghost stories, Oliver Onions (1873-1961) was also a masterful novelist, and all his talents are on display in The Hand of Kornelius Voyt (1939), which, as Mark Valentine writes in the new introduction to this edition, "is a formidable achievement in sustaining an atmosphere of uncanny dread." This edition, the first in nearly fifty years, reprints the unabridged text of the rare first edition and features a reproduction of the original dust jacket illustration.

Table of Contents:

• The Beckoning Fair One - (1911)
• Phantas - (1910)
• Rooum - (1910)
• Benlian - (1911)
• IO - (1911)
• The Accident - (1911)
• The Cigarette Case - (1910)
• The Rocker - (1911)
• Hic Jacet - (1911)