REUNION AT DAWN

When H. R. Wakefield's STRAYERS FROM SHEOL was published by Arkham House in 1961, it was fully intended that a further collection of the author's supernatural tales would follow within a few years; subsequent appearances of Wakefield stories in Arkham House anthologies referred to this final volume. Unfortunately, no further Wakefield titles were issued by Arkham House, and it was widely assumed that any unpublished stories by the author had been destroyed by him prior to his death in 1964.

Recently, however, Arkham House Editor Peter Ruber uncovered a cache of previously unknown Wakefield stories, most of them in the long neglected files of August Derleth. These seventeen tales by one of the twentieth century's masters of the supernatural are gathered in this new volume for the first time, bringing to an exciting conclusion Ash-Tree Press's series reprinting Wakefield's supernatural stories.

The supernatural tales in REUNION AT DAWN range from the gentle ('The Assignation', 'The Fall of the House of Gilpin') to the horrific ('Final Variation', 'A Man's Best Friend', 'The Bodyguard'). We meet—for the final time—the recurring characters of Dr Landon and Anstruther Sawbridge, Bart. ('That Sleep of Death'); encounter two variations on the same theme ('The Latch-Key' and 'The Night Can Sweat with Terror'); and, unusually for Wakefield, venture into the past for a historical ghost story ('Familiar Spirit'). In these seventeen stories, H. R. Wakefield once more triumphantly proves himself to be a master of the weird tale.