The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Edward Bulwer Lytton—Volume 2

The second volume of a collection of weird tales by a Victorian master of the gothic and occult

In his time, the aristocratic Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1st Baron Lytton) was one of the most popular and prolific writers in the English language as well as a notable administrator who held the post of secretary of state for the colonies under Derby's government during the Victorian era. Today, few remember his works or indeed how he has left his mark on the language. For example we owe him acknowledgement for the expressions, 'the pen is mightier than the sword,’ 'the great unwashed' and for the infamous opening line of his novel, Paul Clifford, 'It was a dark and stormy night.’ This last contribution has inspired humorists for decades and even a writing competition. However, it would be unfair to Bulwer-Lytton to consider him solely by these diversions. Here was a well regarded writer of poetry and stage plays, of historical novels, mysteries, romances, science fiction and of excellently crafted tales of the supernatural and the occult—the subject of this special four volume collection from Leonaur. Several of his works were converted into operas and Bulwer-Lytton was also the editor of popular magazines, The New Monthly and The Monthly Chronicle. It is not uncommon for prolific writers to turn their talents to a variety of genres and in any event Bulwer-Lytton belonged to the golden age of gothic and supernatural writing in which there were several highly regarded authors whose contributions remain cherished to this day. In his retrospective view of the very finest writers of ghost stories, the author M. R. James (widely accepted as a master of the genre himself) made special note of Bulwer-Lytton's, 'The Haunters and the Haunted.’ However, the author's particular interest in the occult found expression in his writings on the bizarre and many of his most chilling tales have this at their core.
The second volume of this Leonaur four volume collection includes a novel A Strange Story, one short story and one ballad of the strange and unusual.
This substantial collection is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket for collectors. 

“Rise and follow me,” said the voice, sounding much nearer than it had ever done before.<br>
And at those words I rose mechanically, and like a sleepwalker.<br>
“Take up the light.”<br>
I took it. The Scin-Laeca glided along the wall towards the threshold, and motioned me to open the door. I did so. The Shadow flitted on through the corridor. I followed, with hushed footsteps, down a small stair into Forman’s study. In all my subsequent proceedings, about to be narrated, the Shadow guided me, sometimes by voice, sometimes by sign. I obeyed the guidance, not only unresistingly, but without a desire to resist. I was unconscious either of curiosity or of awe,—only of a calm and passive indifference, neither pleasurable nor painful. In this obedience, from which all will seemed extracted, I took into my hands the staff which I had examined the day before, and which lay on the table, just where Margrave had cast it on re-entering the house. I unclosed the shutter to the casement, lifted the sash, and, with the light in my left hand, the staff in my right, stepped forth into the garden.<br>
The night was still; the flame of the candle scarcely trembled in the air; the Shadow moved on before me towards the old pavilion described in an earlier part of this narrative, and of which the mouldering doors stood wide open. I followed the Shadow into the pavilion, up the crazy stair to the room above, with its four great blank unglazed windows, or rather arcades, north, south, east, and west. I halted on the middle of the floor: right before my eyes, through the vista made by breathless boughs, stood out from the moonlit air the dreary mausoleum. Then, at the command conveyed to me, I placed the candle on a wooden settle, touched a spring in the handle of the staff; a lid flew back, and I drew from the hollow, first a lump of some dark bituminous substance, next a smaller slender wand of polished steel, of which the point was tipped with a translucent material, which appeared to me like crystal.<br>
Bending down, still obedient to the direction conveyed to me, I described on the floor with the lump of bitumen (if I may so call it) the figure of the pentacle with the interlaced triangles, in a circle nine feet in diameter, just as I had drawn it for Margrave the evening before. The material used made the figure perceptible, in a dark colour of mingled black and red. I applied the flame of the candle to the circle, and immediately it became lambent with a low steady splendour that rose about an inch from the floor; and gradually front this light there emanated a soft, gray, transparent mist and a faint but exquisite odour. I stood in the midst of the circle, and within the circle also, close by my side, stood the Scin-Laeca,—no longer reflected on the wall, but apart from it, erect, rounded into more integral and distinct form, yet impalpable, and from it there breathed an icy air.<br>
Then lifting the wand, the broader end of which rested in the palm of my hand, the two forefingers closing lightly over it in a line parallel with the point, I directed it towards the wide aperture before me, fronting the mausoleum. I repeated aloud some words whispered to me in a language I knew not: those words I would not trace on this paper, could I remember them. As they came to a close, I heard a howl from the watch-dog in the yard,—a dismal, lugubrious howl. Other dogs in the distant village caught up the sound, and bayed in a dirge-like chorus; and the howling went on louder and louder.<br>
Again strange words were whispered to me, and I repeated them in mechanical submission; and when they, too, were ended, I felt the ground tremble beneath me, and as my eyes looked straight forward down the vista, that, stretching from the casement, was bounded by the solitary mausoleum, vague formless shadows seemed to pass across the moonlight,—below, along the sward, above, in the air; and then suddenly a terror, not before conceived, came upon me.