The Black Reaper

Bernard Capes was celebrated as one of the most prolific authors of the late Victorian period, producing dozens of short stories, articles, and more than forty novels across multiple genres, culminating in the first original crime novel published by Collins, The Skeleton Key. His greatest acclaim, however, came from penning some of the most terrifying ghost stories of the era. Yet following his death in 1918 his work all but slipped into oblivion until the 1980s, when veteran anthologist Hugh Lamb first collected Capes's tales of terror as The Black Reaper. Every story bears the stamp of Capes's fertile and deeply pessimistic imagination, from werewolf priests and haunted typewriters to marble hands that come to life and plague-stricken villagers haunted by a scythe-wielding ghost. Now expanded with eleven further stories, a revised introduction and a new foreword by Capes's grandson, Ian Burns, this classic collection will thrill horror fans and restore Capes's reputation as one of the best writers in the horror genre. CONTENTS Foreword • (1998) • essay by Ian Burns Introduction • (1998) • essay by Hugh Lamb 1. The Black Reaper • (1899) • short story 2. The Vanishing House • (1898) • short story 3. The Thing in the Forest • (1915) • short story 4. The Accursed Cordonnier • (1900) • novelette 5. The Shadow-Dance • (1915) • short story 6. William Tyrwhitt's "Copy" • (1899) • short story 7. A Queer Cicerone • (1915) • short story 8. A Gallows-Bird • (1906) • short story 9. The Sword of Corporal Lacoste • (1900) • short story 10. The Glass Ball • (1915) • short story 11. Poor Lucy Rivers • (1906) • short story 12. The Apothecary's Revenge • (1915) • short story 13. The Green Bottle • (1902) • short story 14. The Closed Door • (1915) • short story 15. The Dark Compartment • (1915) • short story 16. The Marble Hands • (1915) • short story 17. The Moon Stricken • (1896) • short story 18. The Queer Picture • (1915) • short fiction 19. Dark Dignum • (1897) • short story 20. The Mask • (1915) • short story 21. The Strength of the Rope • (1906) • short story 22. The White Hare • (1915) • short story 23. An Eddy on the Floor • (1899) • novella Acknowledgements by Hugh Lamb Bibliography by Hugh Lamb * A revised and expanded version of the 1989 Equation edition, adding 11 stories. First published in full by Ash-Tree Press, 1998 xxi+298 pages