Three dramatic novellas and four chilling shorter tales form this first complete collection of Ray Russell's exceptional Gothic work. Stephen King called the novella 'Sardonicus' "Perhaps the finest example of modern Gothic ever written." Christopher Lee, a famous film Dracula, said of the novella 'Sagittarius': "It is a wonderfully flamboyant Chinese puzzle of a story which rewards close scrutiny by yielding up further mystery upon mystery."The characters in this book form a fascinating gallery. There is Maude Randall, and her lover Sir Robert Cargrave, and the heartless monster who holds a terrible threat over them. There is the beautiful Elisabeth, who journeys down a hellish road from virginal innocence to the depths of depravity; Dorottya, the evil gypsy corrupts her; Vassily, whose genius may be the result of a pact with Satan; dark-eyed Fiammetta, who is virtually a prisoner of her mad brother, Carlo; Laval, a great actor whose stage crimes spill out of the theat
RAY RUSSELL was born in 1924 in Chicago, Illinois, and served in the United States Air Force during World War II in the South Pacific. After the war, he attended the Chicago Conservatory of Music and eventually joined the editorial staff at
Playboy, helping turn the magazine into a showcase for imaginative fiction. At
Playboy, Russell published such writers as Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, Richard Matheson, Jack Finney, Robert Bloch, and Charles Beaumont, while also editing many of the bestselling
Playboy anthologies, including
The Playboy Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy and the
Playboy Book of Horror and the Supernatural. His first novel,
The Case Against Satan, will appear in Penguin Classics in 2014, and his best known work, "Sardonicus," was called by Stephen King "perhaps the finest example of the modern Gothic ever written. His work also included publications in
The Paris Review and several screenplays, including
Mr. Sardonicus,
The Horror of it All, and
X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes. Russell received the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1991. He passed away in Los Angeles in 1999.
GUILLERMO DEL TORO is a Mexican director, producer, screenwriter, novelist, and designer. He both cofounded the Guadalajara International Film Festival and formed his own production company—the Tequila Gang. However, he is most recognized for his Academy Award-winning film, Pan’s Labyrinth, and the Hellboy film franchise. He has received Nebula and Hugo awards, was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award, and is an avid collector and student of arcane memorabilia and weird fiction.
