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    Then, in a state similar to the Buddhic plane, he is able to mingle with them and identify himself with their actors and objects. Still later, there is a transition in which the visions, and the monstrous and demonic forces he has evoked, begin to overpower him, to hurry him on helplessly, under circumstances of fright and panic. Armies of fiends and monsters, many drawn from the worlds of myth and fable, muster against him, pursue him through a terrible cosmos, and he is driven at last to the verge of a gulf into which falls in cataracts the ruin and rubble of the universe; a gulf from which the face of infinity itself, in all its awful blankness, beyond stars and worlds, beyond created things, even fiends and monsters, rises up to confront him." -- Clark Ashton Smith, Argument of 'The Hashish-Eater'

    a woman is haunted by the ghost of a child... two twins share a terrible destiny... a brother and sister find their holiday disturbed when they engage rooms at a haunted inn... These are just some of the dark delights awaiting readers of this classic collection of spine-chillers, originally published in 1920.

    A mysterious nobleman offers him an immense fortune if he will consent to cure her...of her life! Horrified, Urbino refuses to murder her, and must flee his native Venice with his family to avoid the powerful stranger's vengeance. They flee to the isolated Castello della Torvida, which local peasants affirm to be haunted. But the spectre the servants see and the supernatural warnings the family receives are the least of their worries when Urbino's niece, the lovely Paulina, is kidnapped by the lascivious Marchese di Valdetti. Confined a prisoner in Valdetti's castle, Paulina must choose: become the Marchese's wife, or fall victim to his insatiable lust! Can her friends penetrate the mysteries of the haunted castle and save Paulina in time? With a colourful cast of characters and an intricate plot, Italian Mysteries was among Francis Lathom's most successful Gothic novels. This edition, the first since 1820, includes a new introduction and explanatory notes for modern readers.