The first spellbinding novel in multi-fantasy award winner Manley Wade Wellman's classic horror trilogy about Judge Hilary Pursuivant, the jurist so deeply seeped in the lore of deviltry and supernatural evil, that no one or thing, not even the most powerful of dark forces, can stand against him. Talbot Wills, a skeptic, gave up his career as a stage magician to study psychic phenomena—and once and for all prove or disprove its existence to himself. Learning this, his friend Doctor Otto Zoberg, an expert in occult subjects brings him to an isolated hamlet to attend a séance at the home of a spirit medium whose powers are legendary. There Talbot meets Susan Gird, an intelligent and likable young woman, and after an afternoon together finds himself attracted to her. The séance is held that night—and though everyone is handcuffed to someone else, a strange wolf-like shape moves in the dark. When Susan Gird's father cries out some sort of accusation, the shape leaps upon him and slaughters him. The town constable investigates and, since Wills is a magician and escape artist, arrests him for the crime. Later, while Talbot is locked in jail, an angry mob gathers to lynch him. With his knowledge of locks, Talbot breaks out his cell and in eluding his pursuers finds himself in the Devil's Croft, a mysterious grove which most locals are afraid to approach. As he enters it, Wills falls, exhausted. What happens next shatters his skepticism for good. Fleeing, Talbot meets Judge Pursuivant, a giant of a man both physically and mentally, and a man with an almost uncanny knowledge of the occult who promises to help him and Susan. Thus begins this classic novel of hideous, stark horror from Weird Tales, the magazine that gave birth to the works of H.P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu mythos. Soon Susan and Talbot find their only hope of saving themselves from sudden and frightful death is to battle side-by-side with Judge Pursuivant against the frightful thing that lives in the Devil's Croft.

Gilbert Connatt, former film star, now dead broke, would give his life for a good role. And that may be just what he has done when he signs to be the lead in a newly discovered play by George Gordon, Lord Byron. As an added inducement, Gilbert finds he will be playing opposite his former flame, Sigrid Holgar, who has become a megastar since they broke off their headline-making Hollywood romance. The play is to be premiered at a summer theater, deep in the Berkshires, far from the maddening crowds. Not long after the cast's arrival there, Sigrid and her manager are attacked by menacing, half-shaped entities in the dark, and barely escape with their lives and sanity. Then, Gilbert accidentally stabs Varduk with a sword—but no blood is drawn and the producer is apparently unharmed. Things become stranger still, when Judge Keith Pursuivant, an eminent authority on the occult, who has been invited by Varduk to authenticate the handwritten manuscript of the play, is stumped when realizes it is the great poet's work—even though the paper is less than ten years old. As Judge Pursuivant and Gilbert are discussing these unearthly events, Varduk's valet warns them not to challenge his master who, he says, is a man of tremendous and uncanny powers. Later that night, things become more terrifying Gilbert and Sigrid, finding the flame of their former love has not been entirely extinguished, discover everyone's life is threatened by terrifying forces from beyond… Another dark masterpiece from Manly Wade Wellman, World Fantasy Award Lifetime Achievement and Hugo Award winner.

Here are the final two adventures of multi-award winning author of dark fantasy Manly Wade Wellman's Judge Keith Hilary Pursuivant in his battles against occult forces of darkness. The penultimate story describes the terrifying consequences when someone violates the terms of a treaty his township signed with Native-Americans, a clause that was intended to protect the settlers from their own heedlessness. In the second eldritch tale, Judge Pursuivant comes to the aid of a man who asks him, "How would you feel if something followed you all around your new home—something cold and sneaky, that wasn't even there when you turned your head?" These are followed by a pair of very important Wellman stories. “Sin’s Doorway,” according to the fantasy historian G.W. Thomas whose work has appeared in The Armchair Detective, Mystery Review, and Dark Worlds Quarterly, was said by Wellman, to feature "a younger, guitarless Silver John, although he is not named." Its nameless protagonist moves into a remote cabin he has inherited, only to discover to his horror it is not truly a house, but something far different. The second of these reader treats is in a way a sequel to the first Judge Pursuivant adventure The Hairy Ones Shall Dance, where he fought a desperate battle against darkest evil in a pine forest called "The Devil's Croft" by locals. In the "Pineys," The Devil's Croft is revealed as the legendary land of the Shonokins. Among Wellman's most popular creations, the Shonokins appear frequently in his John Thunstone stories and the Silver John tales—the Shonokins (or pine-people) are a race of humanoid-like creatures who inhabited the U.S. before the first homo sapiens crossed the land bridge into the Americas—and they are still enraged by the intrusion. In this story a group of people find themselves at the end of a road deep in the Devil's Croft and have a deadly confrontation with the Shonokins and the King of the Pine People—in a denouement clearly inspired by a world-famous story fantasy story of the era. We are sure fans of dark fantasy or Wellman's work will find these four eerie stories display this winner of the World Fantasy Convention's Award for Lifetime Achievement at the height of his creative and literary powers.