Out of the Dark: Tales of Terror by Robert W. Chambers. Robert W. Chambers

      

       Copyright

      HarperCollinsPublishers

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      Collins Chillers edition published 2018

      First published in Canada in two volumes by Ash-Tree Press 1998, 1999

      Selection, introduction and notes © Hugh Lamb 2018

      Cover design by Mike Topping © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

      Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780008265366

      Ebook Edition © October 2018 ISBN: 9780008265373

      Version: 2018-09-04

       Dedication

       This collection of stories by a New York author is dedicated, with great affection, to another writer from that city – my daughter-in-law, Margaret Reyes Dempsey.

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      Copyright

      Dedication

      Preface

PART ONE: ORIGINS – 1895–1899

Introduction

The Yellow Sign

A Pleasant Evening

Passeur

In the Court of the Dragon

The Maker of Moons

       The Mask

       The Demoiselle d’Ys

       The Key to Grief

       The Messenger

       PART TWO: DIVERSIONS – 1900–1938

       Introduction

       Out of the Depths

       Un Peu d’Amour

       Grey Magic

       Samaris

       In Search of the Great Auk

       The Death of Yarghouz Khan

       The Sign of Venus

       The Third Eye

       The Seal of Solomon

       The Bridal Pair

       In Search of the Mammoth

       Death Trail

       The Case of Mr Helmer

       Bibliography

       Acknowledgements

      Also in this series

       About the Publisher

       PREFACE

      Robert William Chambers, in his day one of America’s most popular authors, was born in New York, 26 May 1865, the son of New York lawyer William P. Chambers. The family were of Scottish descent. He had an early interest in art, studying at the Art Students League in New York, and in 1886 he went to Paris where he studied at the Academie Julien for seven years. He was accompanied by Charles Dana Gibson, destined to become one of America’s most celebrated portrait painters, who also illustrated some of Chambers’s books in later life.

      When Chambers and Gibson returned to America in 1893, it was Gibson who got the lucky break into an art career. Chambers turned to writing instead. His first book, In the Quarter (1894), was based on his experiences in France. It sold fairly well, enough to encourage him to try his hand at a second book based on his French sojourn. The King in Yellow (1895) turned out to be an instant success and set Chambers on a writing career that lasted forty years. It was also one of the most successful books of the macabre, a genre to which Chambers would return only occasionally during his life.

      Out of the Dark contains the best of Chambers’s work in this field, taken from books as far apart in publication as 1895 and 1920. By the time of his death on 16 December 1933, Robert W. Chambers had produced nearly 100 books (88 are listed in the British Library Catalogue in Britain alone). Sadly, only a very few dealt with the macabre.