First of all, I would like to commend Wordsworth for publishing great books at such affordable prices. The covers are decent, the pages do not rip off (I have bought their edition of The Karamazov Brothers, carried it with me everywhere and my copy remains in one piece) and their criteria of what to publish is outstanding. I recently became very interested in supernatural fiction but did not know where to start. So based on the reviews by other users I have bough a handfull (about 10) of titles from the Wordsworth "Tales of Mystery and The Supernatural" collection and so far I have not been faulted. M:R: James, Lefanu, Ambrose Bierce, E. Nesbit where some of the authors I bought from said collection. And as much as I have enjoyed every one of the authors I have mentioned, I was particularly impressed with Oliver Onions. To define his short fiction as "ghost stories" is rather innacurate and reductive, for they are very diverse and many times do not mention ghosts in the least. The scope and range of his stories is suprisingly diverse, as it deals with individuals with very different backgrounds, diverse preocupations and of stronger or frailer minds. The stories that refer to the inability of an artist to dissassociate with their creation and being engolfed by it (in a particular case, "merging" with it - or did he?-) are the ones that speak out the most to me- specially the thoroughly excellent "Benlian" and "The Beckoning Fair One". All in all, a great collection that features all of Onions supernatural fiction at a great price. It seems to me quite unfair how overlooked Onions seems to be. Benlian was definatly one of the best short stories I have ever had the pleasure of reading, I was completly blown away by it. I suggest that this book should be read without the anticipation of a "jolly good scare", but approached as a intellectual and cerebral experience that challenges one's beliefs - for your belief or not in forces beyond our comprehension will afect how you perceive most the stories. Higly recommended.
