The Horror on the Stair and Other Weird Tales Horror Book Review

Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch - who published much of his fiction under the pseudonym ‘Q’ - was born in Cornwall in 1863, and the county, its history, and its people were to have a marked influence on his life and writing. After moving to London to pursue a writing career, the author returned to his native county in 1892, and maintained a permanent residence there until his death in 1944. 

He established a reputation as a literary critic and editor, and was also a successful novelist: his final, unfinished novel, CASTLE D’OR,  was completed by another writer with strong Cornish connections,  Daphne du Maurier. Yet Quiller-Couch was also interested in the unseen and unknown, and this prompted him to turn his hand, time and again,  to supernatural stories, which are scattered amongst his collections of short stories. 

S.T. Joshi has now collected together the finest of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch’s weird tales. They range from the gently humorous drolls ‘Widdershins’ and ‘My Grandfather, Hendry Watty’ to the outright horror of ‘The Haunted Dragoon’ and ‘The Legend of Sir Dinar’, and include such classics of the supernatural as ‘A Pair of Hands’, ‘The Seventh Man’, and Quiller-Couch’s best-known ghost story,  the haunting ‘The Roll-Call of the Reef’. In his introduction, Joshi discusses the author’s life and times, providing a fascinating look at this most accomplished and respected writer. 

  CONTENTS: Introduction; Psyche; ‘Doubles’ and Quits; Old Aeson; A Dark Mirror; The Magic Shadow; The Haunted Dragoon; A Blue Pantomime; The Roll-Call of the Reef; My Grandfather, Hendry Watty; Widdershins; The Legend of Sir Dinar; Oceanus; The Seventh Man; The Room of Mirrors; A Pair of Hands; The Lady of the Ship; The Mystery of Joseph Laquedem;  The Laird’s Luck; Phoebus on Halzaphron; The Haunted Yacht; John and the Ghosts; The Talking Ships; The Horror on the Stair; The Bend of the Road; Mutual Exchange, Limited; Not Here, O Apollo!