Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller Couch was a Cornish writer who published under the pen name of Q He is primarily remembered for the monumental Oxford Book of English Verse 1250 1900 later extended to 1918 and for his literary criticism He guided the taste of many who never met him including American writer Helene Hanff author of 84 Charing Cross Road its sequel Qs Legacy and the putatively fictional Horace Rumpole via John Mortimer his literary amanuensis Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller Couch was a Cornish writer who published under the pen name of Q He is primarily remembered for the monumental Oxford Book of English Verse 1250 1900 later extended to 1918 and for his literary criticism He guided the taste of many who never met him including American writer Helene Hanff author of 84 Charing Cross Road its sequel Q s Legacy and the putatively fictional Horace Rumpole via John Mortimer his literary amanuensis site_link Strange tales from a master of the short story There can be little doubt that the ideal length for the ghostly yarn is the short story The writing of shorter fiction is a specific talent and it s finest exponents M R James Rudyard Kipling Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sir Arthur Quiller Couch the author of this volume of tales of the bizarre are well known to all Aficionados of the genre know that supernatural fiction was exceptionally popular during the late 19th and early 20th centuries The proliferation of periodicals at that time offered numerous opportunities for the publication of the ghost stories and the quality of the writing of these justifiably well regarded authors ensured that supernatural fiction entered a golden age Quiller Couch who often published under the distinctive single letter pseudonym Q was the archetypal literary man of the age He may have belonged to an elite but he was at ease with the writing of novels short fiction criticism non fiction poetry and the compiling of anthologies Indeed it is widely accepted that Quiller Couch s most significant achievement was his learned compilation of the huge Oxford Book of English Verse Those unfamiliar with Quiller Couch s short fiction will find this special Leonaur collection to be a revelation and those who already know his work will value an volume dedicated solely to his tales of the ghostly and weird This book contains forty two masterful stories including A Blue Pantomime A Dark Mirror The Haunted Dragoon Not Here O Apollo Oceanus Old Aeson and many . Leonaur editions are newly typeset and are not facsimiles each title is available in softcover and hardback with dustjacket our hardbacks are cloth bound and feature gold foil lettering on their spines and fabric head and tail bands The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Sir Arthur Quiller Couch Forty Two Short Stories of the Strange and Unusual