Coir Ceitien was the archivist of Dregnotia before the fall. He escaped, fleeing blindly from port on a moonless night in a Dregnotian bark loaded with as much of the most treasured artifacts and manuscripts of the Archives of Dregnot as could be saved. It was then that a strange gale, a scintillating light-storm, descended upon the vessel and its sparse crew. When all sense of direction was lost, a rending shook the vessel as its keel struck upon shoals. As the ship capsized, Coir flung himself into the raging waters only to be driven ashore by the surging waves. There he found himself alone, wet and cold in a strange land. The archives, the very pride of Dregnot, were lost except for the jewels of knowledge residing in his own mind. In the dark, Coir heard a strange creaking, and as the morning light dawned, he saw the spinning blades of an old windmill. There he took refuge, and there he has ever remained, near the village of Puttygut, striving to remember and record the lost Archives of Dregnot. Locals sometimes call him Justin Summerville of the Windmill, but to those who know better, he is Coir Cetien, Arch Archivist of Dregnot.
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Machen's decadent fiction is among the most effective of fin de siècle literature, achieving a tenuous balance between fantastic wonder and repellent horror - a sort of "holy terror." This novella, arguably his most famous piece of work, is one of the finest examples of such efforts, momentarily piercing the...
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E. T. A. Hoffmann was one of the greatest figures of the German Romantic movement and a key influence on such great authors as Poe, Baudelaire, Dickens, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Kafka, and even Alfred Hitchcock; he was also well known as a music critic and composer. The story that follows is one of...
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Storytime IV – THE FOLK OF THE MOUNTAIN DOOR by William Morris
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Storytime III – THE WILLOWS by Algernon Blackwood
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