Frederick Cowles - The Night Wind Howls, Ash-Tree Press 1999.

Introduced by Hugh Lamb.

This book is as new and unread in perfect condition, It is in hardback with beautiful dark maroon true Ash-Tree Press style with a perfect Dust Jacket illustrated by Lind Dyde.

This collection was published on 26th March 1999 and was limited to 600 copies.

Printed and bound in Canada by Morris’s Printing Company.

When Frederick Cowles died in 1948, he left behind two collections of supernatural fiction—The Horror of Abbot's Grange and The Night Wind Howls—which rank amongst the rarest books in the genre. Cowles, an admirer of M.R. James, Bram Stoker, Sheridan Le Fanu, and Edgar Allan Poe, drew on all of these influences for his tales, which range from the horrific to the gently sentimental.

It was not until twenty-five years after his death that it was learned that Cowles had written a third, unpublished, collection of supernatural tales, entitled Fear Walks the Night. These tales languished in obscurity, as did Cowles's previously published stories, and it was not until 1973, when Hugh Lamb included 'Terrible Mrs Greene' in his anthology A Wave of Fear, that Cowles began to emerge from the shadows. Lamb was almost single-handedly responsible for resurrecting Cowles's weird tales from obscurity; and it was he who discovered, through correspondence with Cowles's widow, the existence of Fear Walks the Night.

The Night Wind Howls includes all sixty-one of Frederick Cowles's supernatural stories, as well as an account of 'true' hauntings written by Cowles and never before reprinted. The collection has a foreword by the author's son, and is introduced by Hugh Lamb, who provides a fascinating look at an author whose works remained in shadow for so long. There is also a photograph of Cowles and illustrations of the two extremely rare dust jackets from The Horror of Abbot's Grange and The Night Wind Howls.

CONTENTS: Foreword by Michael Cowles; Introduction by Hugh Lamb; THE HORROR OF ABBOT'S GRANGE (1936): 'The Horror of Abbot's Grange'; 'The House on the Marsh'; 'Room for One'; 'The New Inn'; 'Terrible Mrs Greene'; 'The Mandarin's Chair'; 'The Haunted Church'; The Castle in the Forest'; 'The Bell'; 'One Side Only'; 'Guardians of the Dead'; 'The Unfinished Tower'; 'The Headless Leper'; 'The Pink Columbine'; 'Passenger from Crewe'; 'The Ring'; 'Eyes for the Blind'; 'Treasure Trove'; 'The Limping Ghost'; 'The Thing from the Sea'; THE NIGHT WIND HOWLS (1938): 'Rendezvous'; 'The House of the Dancer'; 'Wood Magic'; 'Twisted Face'; 'June Morning'; 'The Witch-finder'; 'The Florentine Mirror'; 'The Vampire of Kaldenstein'; 'Lavender Love'; 'The Mask of Death'; 'King of Hearts'; 'Voodoo'; 'The Little Saint of Hell'; 'Confession'; 'The Lamasery of Beloved Dreams'; 'The Cadaver of Bishop Louis'; 'Out of the Darkness'; 'The Lover of the Dead'; 'The Caretaker'; 'Gypsy Violin'; 'Death in the Well'; 'Retribution'; 'Lady of Lyonnesse'; 'Rats'; FEAR WALKS THE NIGHT (1993): 'Fear Walks the Night'; 'Punch and Judy'; 'The Florentine Chest'; 'Variety Show'; Prince of Darkness'; 'Death of a Rat'; 'The Echo of a Song'; 'The House in the Forest'; 'Goosefeather Bed'; 'Christmas Eve'; 'Three Shall Meet'; 'Lisheen'; 'Voodoo Drums'; 'The Strange Affair at Upton Stonewold'; 'Gypsy Hands'; 'The End of the Lane'; 'Twilight'; 'Do You Believe in Ghosts?'; Afterword by Neil Bell.