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The Double Eye

by

William Fryer Harvey

 

Introduction by Richard Dalby

 

William Fryer Harvey (1885-1937), a Leeds-born Quaker and World War One hero, is remembered today for a handful of superlative uncanny and enigmatic tales, notably 'August Heat', 'Miss Cornelius', 'The Ankardyne Pew' and 'The Beast with Five Fingers', the latter made into a classic horror film in 1946 starring Peter Lorre. Harvey was acclaimed in the Times Literary Supplement in 1955 as one of the greatest ghost story writers of the twentieth century alongside M.R. James and Walter de la Mare.

 

A doctor of medicine by profession, Harvey drew heavily on the new psychiatric lore of the irrational subconscious, creating a lingering uncertainty in the reader's mind. Harvey is a master of the inconclusive or psychological ghost story, and his sardonic fantasies often come close to the genius of Saki. He occasionally attempted a more traditional ghost story, the earliest example being 'Across the Moors'.

 

This volume brings together all thirty of Harvey's uncanny tales, and his curious Introduction to Moods and Tenses. The collection is a feast of thrills, chills and uneasy entertainment for lovers of the supernatural story.

 

Contents: 'Introduction' by Richard Dalby, 'Midnight House', 'The Star', 'Across the Moors', 'August Heat', 'Sambo', 'Unwinding', 'Sarah Bennet's Possession', 'The Tortoise', 'The Beast with Five Fingers', 'Six to Six-Thirty', 'Blinds', 'Miss Cornelius', 'The Heart of the Fire', 'Peter Levisham', 'The Clock', 'Ghosts and Jossers', 'The Sleeping Major', 'The Ankardyne Pew', 'The Tool', 'The Devil's Bridge', 'Two and a Third', 'Miss Avenal', 'The Double Eye', 'The Dabblers', 'Mrs Ormerod', 'The Follower', 'The Man Who Hated Aspidistras', 'Double Demon', 'The Arm of Mrs Egan', 'Account Rendered', 'The Flying Out of Mrs Barnard Hollis', 'The Habeas Corpus Club'.

 

Cover artwork by R.B. Russell

 

Reviews

'...it's now possible to plug another gap in the century's roll-call of top short-fiction writers.' The Independent

'Harvey is indeed a master of the uncanny and the supernatural who is able to deal with a variety of eerie subjects and to produce solid, compelling fiction, the kind of fiction which, fortunately, will never go out of fashion.' Mario Guslandi, Bookgeeks