Search Worlds Without End

Slithering from these pages are never-before-collected tales of suspense and wonder by the woman who invented modern-day dark fantasy: A man goes quietly to bed aboard the doomed Lusitania and awakens on a magical South Pacific Island just as the passenger liner is torpedoed. In a future where women rule the world, a sentient island becomes murderously jealous of a shipwrecked couple. Dire consequences await a human swept into the dark, magical world of elves. A deadly labyrinth coils around the dark heart of a picturesque landscape garden. Within an Egyptian sarcophagus lies the horrifying price of infidelity. Swirling unseen around us are loathsome creatures giving form to our basest desires and fears. A beautiful, veiled medium may hold the key to preventing unspeakable evil from slipping through the borderlands between life and death. On a lost island a woman pipe player and her monstrous dancing partner bring death and terror to five adventurers.

The stories in this collection have played an integral role in the development of modern dark fantasy, greatly influencing such writers as H. P. Lovecraft and A. Merritt.

Contents:

• ii - The Nightmare And Other Tales Of Dark Fantasy (frontispiece) - interior artwork by Thomas C. Floyd
• ix - Francis Stevens: The Woman Who Invented Dark Fantasy - essay by Gary Hoppenstand
• 1 - The Nightmare - (1917) - novella by Francis Stevens
• 1 - The Nightmare - interior artwork by Thomas C. Floyd
• 79 - The Labyrinth - (1918) - novel by Francis Stevens
• 79 - The Labyrinth - interior artwork by Thomas C. Floyd
• 193 - Friend Island - (1918) - shortstory by Francis Stevens
• 193 - Friend Island - interior artwork by Thomas C. Floyd
• 204 - Behind the Curtain - (1918) - shortstory by Francis Stevens
• 204 - Behind the Curtain - interior artwork by Thomas C. Floyd
• 212 - Unseen--Unfeared - (1919) - shortstory by Francis Stevens
• 212 - Unseen--Unfeared - interior artwork by Thomas C. Floyd
• 227 - The Elf Trap - (1919) - shortstory by Francis Stevens (variant of The Elf-Trap)
• 227 - The Elf Trap - interior artwork by Thomas C. Floyd
• 248 - Serapion - novel by Francis Stevens (variant of Possessed: A Tale of the Demon Serapion 2003)
• 248 - Serapion - interior artwork by Thomas C. Floyd
• 343 - Sunfire - (1926) - novella by Francis Stevens
• 343 - Sunfire - interior artwork by Thomas C. Floyd