Most readers associate the name of Leslie Powles Hartley with the wonderful novel “The Go-Between,” but few know that he began his career precisely as the author of macabre stories, some of which can confidently be called masterpieces of British mysticism of the 20th century. A Vengeful Ghost, devouring its victims from the inside, dinner with the dead, a monster living on a secluded island... The stories included in this collection belong to different areas of mysticism and horror - traditional and surreal, serious and ironic, including motifs of fantasy and folklore "ghost stories" "However, the secret of the attractiveness of Hartley's works is quite simple: he brings to light the deepest fears, studies them, shows them to the reader, and then returns them back to the darkness.