In this, the second Ash-Tree Press Annual Macabre, the focus is on half a dozen authors whose names are not inevitably associated with the tale of the supernatural. Yet all six—W. Somerset Maugham, Arthur Ransome, Ford Madox Ford, E.C.Bentley, Hilaire Belloc, and John Buchan—are undisputed masters of the narrative form, and here—in 'Told in the Inn at Algeciras', 'Post-Mortem', 'The Medium's End', 'Exactly As It Happened', 'The Unpleasant Room', and 'Ho! The Merry Masons' respectively—bring a new vitality to an old medium, and prove that literary renown is no obstacle to telling a gripping and chilling story.

These six tales, assembled and introduced by Jack Adrian, have remained out of print since their initial publication as many as ninety years ago—both the Maugham and the Buchan qualify as 'lost' stories, since neither appears in their respective author's bibliographies. Elegantly told by some of the finest writers of the century, the tales in Annual Macabre 1998 make perfect reading for dark winter nights.