A name you know. A mood you’re in. Ten minutes to yourself. Start anywhere.
How the prose reads.
A young man explains how his mother’s final testament exposed the truth behind a brutal country household.
A suitor under constant observation begins a secret affair, then mistakes the wrong woman at a château window.
A terrified Prussian straggler searches occupied Normandy for the safest possible enemy: someone willing to take him prisoner.
A chance encounter in a provincial tobacco shop revives a vanished world of river outings, hard work, and ingenious schemes.
A failing shopkeeper finally tells his wife they face ruin, just as a family catastrophe offers an answer neither can admit wanting.
Alone in a remote Borneo observatory, an astronomer discovers that the darkness inside the dome holds a threat far closer than the stars.
After crossing a feared secret society, an arrogant colonial traveler finds that revenge follows him from Sierra Leone to London.
A young schoolmaster receives a golden fruit said to grant perfect knowledge, just as he begins his respectable new career.
A quiet orchid collector longs for one remarkable event, then a mysterious plant from the tropics begins to bloom in his greenhouse.
A professional burglar poses as a landscape painter, only to find that art criticism is the least predictable hazard of the job.
A housemaid watches her respectable fiancé rise in the world—and begin to treat their long engagement as something beneath him.
After his rival dies, a celebrated entomologist discovers a moth no one else can see—and cannot stop trying to catch it.
A laboratory accident blinds Davidson to London and replaces it with a vivid view of a remote island that may be more than hallucination.
A nervous visitor steals a scientist’s deadliest culture and races across London with catastrophe—and fame—on his mind.
A poor medical student accepts an old philosopher’s inheritance offer and wakes to find that far more than a name has changed hands.
A mediocre painter watches his portrait acquire a devilish expression—and then hears the canvas criticize his art.
Two exhausted adventurers follow a stolen treasure map into a tropical forest, certain that murder has put a fortune within reach.
Confined to a couch, an invalid watches a distant manhunt as entertainment until the chase crosses the river and comes to his window.
A scientist activates a machine that reveals forms of life hidden beside us, trapping his former friend in the experiment.
When an orphan’s kitten vanishes in Ulthar, every cat in the village leaves home for the same night.
Three robbers target an isolated former sea captain whose house contains bottles that answer when he speaks.
Reuniting with an old friend makes a Dublin clerk question the life and ambitions he has settled for.
A mother manages her daughter’s concert engagement and presses the organizers to honor their contract.
After a motor race, a wealthy young Irishman joins his foreign friends for a night of celebration.
