Tales

By Wickford Welden

These ten tales represent the author's first foray into the world of short stories. They are his original creations. Although it wasn't done intentionally, some of these stories have been written in the long shadow of Poe, and perhaps more recently, the New England writer H.P. Lovecraft. The reader may also notice the subtle influence of Walter De La Mare, a master of atmosphere. As the reader makes his way through the labyrinth of these stories, he'll find that fear is his constant companion and that a sense of foreboding is seldom far away. When he was a youth, the future author spent many hours immersed in a thick volume entitled, "Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural". Although it was nearly forty years ago, sometimes our earliest impressions have the strongest effect on us. It was here that the author was introduced to one of the most frightening tales of all time, Lovecraft's "The Dunwich Horror." After reading these stories, you might be reluctant to turn off the light in your normally comforting bedchamber. A dark room is capable of unleashing the sinister forces which lurk deep inside cavernous vaults of our normally placid subconscious. "The Incident At St. Mary's", "The Old Wreck" and "The Spectral Organist" are all based extremely loosely on actual experiences, but all of the others were produced by the authors lively, if not macabre, imagination. "The Old Wreck" was inspired by the sight of the ribs of a boat's hull in the marshes of Wellfleet, Mass., way back in the summer of 1984. I simply asked myself, "What if?" Happy reading...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1432774239
• ISBN13: 9781432774233
• Release Date: January 2012
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Length: 140 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"