Nights of the Round Table: A Book of Strange Tales

With an Introduction by Richard Dalby
Jacket art is by Paul Lowe

Nights of the Round Table is one of the last remaining completely forgotten ghost story collections of the 1920s, possibly because copies of the original book publication have, over the years, been virtually impossible to find. However, the twelve stories in this collection well justify a place alongside those written by E.F. Benson, A.M. Burrage, H.R. Wakefield, and Eleanor Scott, and their author, Margery Lawrence (1889–1969) possessed a story-telling skill comparable to each of those more famous writers.

The collection of stories is formed by the narrations of members of a dining club, hosted by Saunderson, a man who undoubtedly had a liking for congenial, interesting company. Lawrence writes that 'the one unspoken rule, the Open Sesame to dine at Fat Frank Saunderson's, was to come armed with a story worth hearing . . . The rarer and more curious the better.' These 'rare and curious'  tales last appeared in print in 1947, and the time is well overdue for readers once more to share and enjoy the stories of Hellier, Vesey, Lutyens, Otway, Ponting, Dennison, and all the others who deservedly shared the hospitality of host Saunderson.

Margery Lawrence's narrative style will transport the reader to the comfortable, club-style atmosphere of a dining club of the 1920s. Her stories will entertain, chill, even horrify—for here are twelve strange tales, undeservedly neglected tales, that deserve their place alongside the very best that the genre has to offer.

A second collection, The Terraces of Night, will be published by Ash-Tree Press in 1999.

Contents:

• Introduction by Richard Dalby
• Vlasto's Doll
• Robin's Rath
• The Woozle
• Floris and the Soldan's Daughter
• The Fifteenth Green
• How Pan Came to Little Ingleton
• Death Valley
• The Curse of the Stillborn
• The Fields of Jean Jacques
• Morag-of-the-Cave
• The White Cat
• The Haunted Saucepan

Limited to 500 copies