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Forthcoming titles

(Book titles are subject to change)

A Royal Engineer in the Low Countries

A Cavalry Surgeon at Waterloo

With the Third Guards during the Peninsular War

The First and Last Campaigns of the Great War

Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Vincent O'Sullivan

Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Algernon Blackwood

Narratives of the Anglo-Zulu War

and many others

The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Mary Shelley Volume 2

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The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Mary Shelley Volume 2
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Author(s): Mary Shelley
Date Published: 2010/02
Page Count: 524
Softcover ISBN-13: 978-0-85706-059-4
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-0-85706-060-0

Mary Shelley is possibly one of the most renowned women authors of all time. She is, of course, the literary creator of the iconic Frankenstein’s monster and that alone has guaranteed it and her immortality rivalled only by Bram Stoker’s Dracula in the pantheon of the bizarre. Beyond her most famous literary work, ’Frankenstein,’ she possessed an incredible creative talent, responsible for a dazzling collection of novels, short stories, essays, plays, biographies and travel books. Mary Shelley was an independent, free thinking woman, decades before her time, who strongly adhered the ideals of her father, the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother, the feminist and liberal Mary Wollstonecraft. She notoriously—for her time—became the mistress of the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, and she subsequently married him upon the suicide of his wife. Those familiar with ‘Frankenstein’ will not be surprised to find it within this special collection, but those for whom it will be a new experience will discover a superb work of fiction which towers above our perceptions of it from its familiarity through film and television. Fortunately, Mary Shelley did not confine her excursions into the other worldly, weird and Gothic to just this tale of the ‘man-made’ man. This two volume edition contains two novels and many shorter pieces in testament to Mary Shelley’s talent for the literature of the macabre.
The second volume of this special collection of Mary Shelley’s literary excursions into the bizarre and horrific includes the substantial novel, ‘The Last Man.’ This fine tale languished in obscurity until after the middle of the 20th century and is another good example of the writing and thoughts of an author far ahead of her time. It tells of a future post-apocalyptic world ravaged and massively depopulated by plague. If the theme seems a familiar one today, it should be remembered Shelley published ‘The Last Man’ in 1826. It is joined here by ‘The Invisible Girl,’ ‘The Evil Eye’ and ‘The False Rhyme.’
Available in soft cover and hard cover with dust jacket. 

The wind was fair, and they hoped to make good way before nightfall, and to get into port ere the rising of the storm. They pushed off with good cheer, at least the fishermen did; as for the stranger, the deep mourning which he wore was not half so black as the melancholy that wrapt his mind. He looked as if he had never smiled—as if some unutterable thought, dark as night and bitter as death, had built its nest within his bosom, and brooded therein eternally; he did not mention his name; but one of the villagers recognised him as Henry Vernon, the son of a baronet who possessed a mansion about three miles distant from the town for which he was bound. This mansion was almost abandoned by the family; but Henry had, in a romantic fit, visited it about three years before, and Sir Peter had been down there during the previous spring for about a couple of months.<br>
The boat did not make so much way as was expected; the breeze failed them as they got out to sea, and they were fain with oar as well as sail, to try to weather the promontory that jutted out between them and the spot they desired to reach. They were yet far distant when the shifting wind began to exert its strength, and to blow with violent though unequal puffs. Night came on pitchy dark, and the howling waves rose and broke with frightful violence, menacing to overwhelm the tiny bark that dared resist their fury. They were forced to lower every sail, and take to their oars; one man was obliged to bail out the water, and Vernon himself took an oar, and rowing with desperate energy, equalled the force of the more practised boatmen.<br>
There had been much talk between the sailors before the tempest came on; now, except a brief command, all were silent. One thought of his wife and children, and silently cursed the caprice of the stranger that endangered in its effects, not only his life, but their welfare; the other feared less, for he was a daring lad, but he worked hard, and had no time for speech; while Vernon bitterly regretting the thoughtlessness which had made him cause others to share a peril, unimportant as far as he himself was concerned, now tried to cheer them with a voice full of animation and courage, and now pulled yet more strongly at the oar he held.<br>
The only person who did not seem wholly intent on the work he was about, was the man who baled; every now and then he gazed intently round, as if the sea held afar off, on its tumultuous waste, some object that he strained his eyes to discern. But all was blank, except as the crests of the high waves showed themselves, or far out on the verge of the horizon, a kind of lifting of the clouds betokened greater violence for the blast. At length he exclaimed—“Yes, I see it!—the larboard oar!—now! if we can make yonder light, we are saved!” Both the rowers instinctively turned their heads,—but cheerless darkness answered their gaze.<br>
“You cannot see it,” cried their companion, ‘but we are nearing it; and, please God, we shall outlive this night.” Soon he took the oar from Vernon’s hand, who, quite exhausted, was failing in his strokes. He rose and looked for the beacon which promised them safety;—it glimmered with so faint a ray, that now he said, “I see it;” and again, “it is nothing:” still, as they made way, it dawned upon his sight, growing more steady and distinct as it beamed across the lurid waters, which themselves became smoother, so that safety seemed to arise from the bosom of the ocean under the influence of that flickering gleam.<br>
“What beacon is it that helps us at our need?” asked Vernon, as the men, now able to manage their oars with greater ease, found breath to answer his question.<br>
“A fairy one, I believe,” replied the elder sailor, “yet no less a true: it burns in an old tumble-down tower, built on the top of a rock which looks over the sea. We never saw it before this summer; and now each night it is to be seen,—at least when it is looked for, for we cannot see it from our village;—and it is such an out of the way place that no one has need to go near it, except through a chance like this. Some say it is burnt by witches, some say by smugglers; but this I know, two parties have been to search, and found nothing but the bare walls of the tower.<br>
All is deserted by day, and dark by night; for no light was to be seen while we were there, though it burned sprightly enough when we were out at sea.<br>
“I have heard say,” observed the younger sailor, “it is burnt by the ghost of a maiden who lost her sweetheart in these parts; he being wrecked, and his body found at the foot of the tower: she goes by the name among us of the ‘Invisible Girl.’”<br>
The voyagers had now reached the landing-place at the foot of the tower. Vernon cast a glance upward,—the light was still burning. With some difficulty, struggling with the breakers, and blinded by night, they contrived to get their little bark to shore, and to draw her up on the beach: they then scrambled up the precipitous pathway, overgrown by weeds and underwood, and, guided by the more experienced fishermen, they found the entrance to the tower, door or gate there was none, and all was dark as the tomb, and silent and almost as cold as death.
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