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"How long have things been coming apart in this way?" - The Lure of Silence"Generally speaking the dead do not return," pronounced Antonin Artaud. But the dead are permitted to visit those who welcome them. Their spectral, machine-made voices echo in deep tunnels under London. Voices without hosts. Without agency. They make their oracular pronouncements even when nobody is listening on the vast empty platforms of the Elizabeth Line. They have their codes and their secret meanings.Four stories starting everywhere and finishing in madness. Four acknowledged guides. Four tricksters. Four inspirations. Algernon Blackwood. Arthur Machen. J. G. Ballard. H. P. Lovecraft. They are known as "Agents of Oblivion". And sometimes, in brighter light, as oblivious angels . . .As host, as oracle, Iain Sinclair moves through this quartet of tales, through a spectral London that once was, or might never have been.

"She did not want to be organised at all. She wanted to be solitary and free."This is the story of Jenny Flower, London slum child, who one day, on an outing to the country, meets a Dark Stranger with horns on his head. It is the first day of August-Lammas-a witches' sabbath. Jenny was born on Hallowe'en, and possibly descended from witches herself . . .Reminiscent of Machen's, "The White People", Lucifer and the Child is a tale of witchcraft-or is it? The author does not commit herself; merely stating that the story is open to natural explanation; alternatively, she invites "the willing suspension of disbelief"."There is never any name for the impact of strangeness on the commonplace," Mannin writes. With this sensibility Lucifer and the Child will at last be recognised as a classic of strange fiction and a work to be enjoyed by contemporary lovers of the genre.Once banned in Ireland by the Censorship of Publications Board, Lucifer and the Child is now available worldwide in this splendid new edition from Swan River Press featuring an introduction by Rosanne Rabinowitz and cover by Lorena Carrington.

"Old Hoggen had disappeared: and murder was naturally suspected."At the time of his death in 1912, Bram Stoker was preparing for publication three volumes of stories. The first, Dracula's Guest, saw print in 1914; the second and third never manifested. Old Hoggen and Other Adventures is a tantalising possibility of one of these unrealised selections, and the stories in this volume span the author's entire career. In reading them, one thing becomes clear: adventure and mystery rival even the gothic in Stoker's literary heart. And yet, one will find among these pages many of the same themes found in Dracula: reverence for the dead, the malice of wicked men, black humour, hidden fortunes, daring bravery, exotic locales, a deep love of the sea, and the creeping intrusion of the supernatural.

"Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of truth." - William BlakeThe Lure of the Unknown is a collection of Algernon Blackwood's essays, talks, reviews and anecdotes exploring encounters with the strange and unusual or, in Blackwood's preferred word, the "odd". They include his first attempts to investigate alleged haunted houses, his association with such luminaries as W. B. Yeats, "A.E.", and Gurdjieff; his thoughts on telepathy, reincarnation, elemental spirits, other dimensions, and his beliefs in what lies beyond our normal perceptions. These writings reveal not only Blackwood's diverse experiences, but his depth of reading and analysis of the unexplained. Few of these essays have been reprinted beyond their first publication or their broadcast on radio and television. They provide another dimension to an understanding of one of the great writers of the supernatural.

"I found the white cities just as they were in my dreams." - Joseph RothTransylvania: the country beyond the forest and land of the seven fortress towns. In The Silver Voices we encounter the previously unknown eighth town: Sternbergstadt. Now known as Steaua de Munte, it's one of those places where past and present continually meet, with no-one being entirely sure which has the upper hand. In Steaua de Munte history can never be said to be dead and buried; it plays too many tricks on the present and future for that.

"Strange," he said to himself. "I had an idea that Pat's Tommy was dead."First collected in 1974, the stories in A Flutter of Wings span Mervyn Wall's entire writing career, dating back as far as the 1940s. Told in an easy style, tales such as "They Also Serve . . . " and "Adventure" offer the same satirical sensibilities found in Wall's classic novel The Unfortunate Fursey; while darker tales such as "Cloonaturk" and "The Demon Angler" are not without a hint of the grimly sardonic. In addition to an introduction by Val Mulkerns and illustrations by Clare Brennan, this new edition boasts the uncollected Jamesian fragment "Extract from an Abandoned Novel", and Wall's early play, Alarm Among the Clerks, a savagely hilarious and ultimately brutal depiction of office life.

"An uncanny effect often arises when the boundary between fantasy and reality is blurred . . ." - Sigmund FreudNicholas Royle's stories are "immaculately sinister", according to Olivia Laing in the Times Literary Supplement, while Phil Baker, in the Sunday Times, described Royle as "a real craftsman of disquiet".In his third collection, The Dummy & Other Uncanny Stories, Royle focuses on archetypes and phenomena that, through their particular melding of the familiar and the unfamiliar, produce uneasy, or uncanny, effects. These stories reflect Royle's continuing development as an exponent of the form, in which he is always seeking to learn and to grow, and to push against boundaries.