Books published by publisher The British Library Publishing Division

A masquerade ball in a secluded abbey; a vendetta settled in the wine cellars of an Italian palazzo; a gloomy castle in a desolated landscape; the beating of a heart beneath the floorboards: the plots and settings of Poe’s dark, mysterious tales continue to haunt the popular imagination. This new selection introduces the greatest Gothic fiction from one of the most deranged and deliciously weird writers of the 19th century. The tales are accompanied by the classic illustrations of Harry Clarke, an artist fully alive to the deep darkness at the heart of Poe’s writing.

The Haunted Library is a new collection of classic ghost stories—many of which have never before been anthologized—from the golden age of the genre in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Each of these stories revolves around the arcane secrets and dark psychic traces to be found in libraries, museums and other treasure troves of hidden knowledge. The 12 stories included are "The Nature of the Evidence" by May Sinclair, "Mr Tallent’s Ghost" by Mary Webb, "The Lost Tragedy" by Denis Mackaill, "Bone to His Bone" by Edmund Gill Swain, "Herodes Redivivus" by A. N. L. Munby, "The Book" by Margaret Irwin, "The Whisperers" by Algernon Blackwood, "The Tractate Middoth" by M. R. James, "Afterward" by Edith Wharton, "Fingers of a Hand" by Theo Douglas, "The Apple Tree" by Elizabeth Bowen, and "The Work of Evil" by William Croft Dickinson.

At the Central Criminal Court, an eager crowd awaits the trial of Victoria Lamartine, an active participant in the Resistance during the war. She is now employed at the Family Hotel in Soho, where Major Eric Thoseby has been found murdered. The cause of death? A stabbing reminiscent of techniques developed by the Maquisards. While the crime is committed in England, its roots are buried in a vividly depicted wartime France. Thoseby is believed to have fathered Lamartine's child, and the prosecution insist that his death is revenge for his abandonment of Lamartine and her arrest by the Gestapo. A last-minute change in Lamartine's defence counsel grants solicitor Nap Rumbold just eight days to prove her innocence, with the highest of stakes should he fail. The proceedings of the courtroom are interspersed with Rumbold's perilous quest for evidence, which is aided by his old wartime comrades.

The invention of the printing press led to an explosion of cheap printed materials in the 16th and 17th centuries. Ballads were no longer limited to oral tradition, agitators no longer confined to the soapbox. Mass communication was now possible. The broadsides pasted on walls and disseminated among the masses, together with the written ballads hawked at street corners, represented the zeitgeist of popular culture in early modern Britain. Frequently designed in "blackletter" gothic type and accompanied with distinctive woodcut illustrations, this dynamic, lively form encompassed the obsessions and characteristic humor of the times. This beautifully designed book highlights some of the most striking and amusing examples from the British Library’s collections and provides brief commentary on the political and social background of the times. Frequent topics of illustration include monsters, witches, criminals, drinking, war and politics.

The Platform Edge is a collection of the greatest stories of strange happenings on the tracks. In this express service to the unknown, phantom passengers join the jostling of the daily commute, a subway car disappears into another dimension without a trace, while a tragic derailment on a lonely hillside in the Alps torments the locals with its horrifying nightly repetition. From the open railways of Europe and America to the pressing dark of the London Underground, The Platform Edge is the perfect traveling companion for unforgettable journeys into the supernatural.

A strange figure foretells tragedy on the railway tracks. A plague threatens to encroach upon an isolated castle. The daughter of an eccentric scientist falls victim to a poisonous curse. The stories in this anthology depict the haunting moment when characters come face-to-face with their own mortality. Spanning two centuries, Mortal Echoes features some of the finest writers in the English language, including Edgar Allan Poe, Graham Greene, May Sinclair, and H. G. Wells.

From atop the choppy waves to the choking darkness of the abyss, the seas are full of mystery and rife with tales of inexplicable events and encounters with the unknown. In this anthology we see a thrilling spread of narratives: sailors are pitched against a nightmare from the depth, invisible to the naked eye; a German U-boat commander is tormented by an impossible transmission via Morse Code; a ship ensnares itself in the kelp of the Sargasso Sea and dooms a crew of mutineers, seemingly out of revenge for her lost captain. The supernatural is set alongside the grim affairs of sailors scorned in these salt-soaked tales, recovered from obscurity for the 21st century.

As tragic antihero, hubristic maniac or sadistic villain, the mad scientist is as familiar to the Gothic literary tradition as the seductive vampire or evil monk. Assembled here are ten thrilling tales of literature’s most brilliant and misguided minds; minds that strive for the unnatural secrets of immortality, artificial life and the teleportation of matter; minds that must eventually grapple with the bitter cost of their obsessions.From essential Gothic stories by Mary Shelley, E. T. A. Hoffmann and Edgar Allan Poe to later forays into the weird and psychedelic by E. Nesbit, H. P. Lovecraft and George Langelaan, the classic figure of the mad scientist is reanimated in these pages along with every untethered ambition and its calamitous consequences.

From the imaginations of Gothic short-story writers such as Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mary Shelley, and later weirdists such as H.P. Lovecraft came one of the most complex of villains—the mad scientist. Promethean Horrors presents some of the greatest mad scientists ever created, as each cautionary tale explores the consequences of pushing nature too far. These savants take many forms: there are malcontents who strive to create poisonous humans; technologists obsessed with genetic splicing; mesmerists interested in the way consciousness operates after death, and inventors who believe in a hidden reality. United by an unhealthy obsession with wanting to reach beyond their circumstances, these mad scientists are marked by their magical capacity to alter the present, a gift that always comes at a price.

One "golden afternoon" in Oxford, in July 1862, the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, accompanied three young sisters, Lorina, Alice, and Edith, on a boating trip. To keep the children amused, Dodgson, began to tell a tale about an inquisitive youngster called Alice, and her escapades in an underground world. Dodgson's story, later revised and illustrated by John Tenniel, would go on to become one of the most famous and best-loved children's books of all time—published as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, under the pen name Lewis Carroll. However, the original tale—Alice's Adventures Under Ground—remains less well-known. In this facsimile edition of Dodgson's manuscript—now one of the British Library's most treasured possessions—with its accompanying commentary by former British Library curator Sally Brown, modern readers can enjoy the expressive story as it was first told.

Immerse yourself in festive magic with this brand-new collection of the finest Christmas stories and poetry for children from some of the greatest writers in the English language. Inspired by the approach and style of A Literary Christmas, this carefully chosen anthology celebrates the wonders of the Christmas season, following the escapades of Santa Claus and adventures of the frost fairies. Divided into five sections, this anthology of historical and modern stories covers festive traditions, fairytales, gift-giving, and family fun. Timeless favorites from Charles Dickens, Clement C. Moore, and Louisa May Alcott are presented alongside award-winning and contemporary voices, such as Matt Haig, Swapna Haddow, and Shirley Hughes. This treasure trove of extracts is beautifully presented with illustrations from the collections of the Library as well as a few pieces of original artwork.