Showing results by author "Egerton Castle" in All Categories

Detective stories existed for centuries before the concept of the detective itself—amateur or professional— was fully formulated, and tales of mystery and intrigue have been thrilling readers since ancient times. The Lock and Key Library is the classic overview of the history of the mystery genre, at once a rousing listen for fans of the unsolved and unknown as well as an essential literary resource for those seeking to understand the roots of modern pulp fiction. This volume is sure to delight and enthrall armchair detectives and fans of classic mysteries alike.

A highly unsettling collection of macabre stories in which death and the dead are key themes. Moon’s Gibbet by Egerton Castle, A Strange Goldfield by Guy Boothby, The Withered Arm by Thomas Hardy, The Pistol Shot by Alexander Pushkin, The Premature Burial by Edgar Allan Poe, The Dead Hand by Wilkie Collins, The Famous Race between the Hearse and the Steamroller by Sidney Keyes, The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe, Nine O’Clock by Wilkie Collins, The Queen of Spades by Alexander Pushkin.

An old man revisits the scene of a terrible incident from his youth. The place is Moon's Gibbet - where the body of a hanged murderer named Moon was hung, tarred, and fettered 35 years earlier. On that night, the man had been on that hill and had seen the body hung up. Once the hangman and his assistant had left, the hung body began to groan. At the same time an old man appeared, the father of the criminal, and between the two of them they managed to save the young man from the gallows. But this is only the start of the dreadful events of the evening.