The collection of stories “The Transmigration of Souls” introduces the Russian reader for the first time to the work of a remarkable and extremely popular writer of his time, who managed not to get lost, which in itself is quite valuable, among such famous contemporaries as John Galsworthy, Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde , Jerome K. Jerome and many others. After leaving his military career, Payne gained fame in the literary field as the author of fantasies and stories about supernatural phenomena. However, the uniqueness of the world created by Payne in his stories, a mysterious and even frightening world at times, a world in which reality is often just fantasy, wealth is poverty, life is death, and death is life, is quite obvious. This uniqueness lies in the fact that any passage from Payne’s pen is full of humor: Payne’s work as a whole, no matter how varied and diverse the works he wrote, testifies to one thing - they were created by a master with an inexhaustible and bewitching sense of humor.