Illuminating the dark side of the erotic, these interwoven stories explore obsession, violence, and the thin line between sex and death. Under a Mediterranean sun a man searches for the Temple of Zeus as his wife awaits her stalker; a sex worker at an illegal fetish club contemplates her options; a strike spirals out of control with eerie consequences; and a conflict with noisy neighbours reaches theatrical heights. Driven by lust, greed and revenge, chillingly calm or maddened by rage, Patricia Duncker's characters use every tool at their disposal to get what they want. Unapologetically disturbing and provocative like the B movies that inspired them, Seven Tales of Sex and Death holds up a mirror to humanity at its most flawed, ruthless and seductive.

A Companion to the British and Irish Short Story provides a comprehensive treatment of short fiction writing and chronicles its development in Britain and Ireland from 1880 to the present. Provides a comprehensive treatment of the short story in Britain and Ireland as it developed over the period 1880 to the present Includes essays on topics and genres, as well as on individual texts and authors Comprises chapters on women’s writing, Irish fiction, gay and lesbian writing, and short fiction by immigrants to Britain

Originally published in hardcover in 2002 by Tor.

This is a critical study of many of the leading writers of horror and supernatural fiction since World War II. The primary purpose is to establish a canon of weird literature, and to distinguish the genuinely meritorious writers of the past fifty years from those who have obtained merely transient popular renown. Accordingly, the author regards the complex, subtle work of Shirley Jackson, Ramsey Campbell, Robert Aickman, T.E.D. Klein, and Thomas Ligotti as considerably superior to the best-sellers of Stephen King, Clive Barker, Peter Straub, and Anne Rice. Other writers such as William Peter Blatty, Thomas Tryon, Robert Bloch, and Thomas Harris are also discussed. Taken as a whole, the volume represents a pioneering attempt to chart the development of weird fiction over the past half-century.

Campbell, once again takes the horror genre into new and disturbing territory with this collection of seven stories of sex and death.

One of the most famous literary works of the 20th century, the novella “Death in Venice” embodies themes that preoccupied Thomas Mann (1875–1955) in much of his work; the duality of art and life, the presence of death and disintegration in the midst of existence, the connection between love and suffering, and the conflict between the artist and his inner self. Mann’s handling of these concerns in this story of a middle-aged German writer, torn by his passion for a Polish youth met on holiday in Venice, resulted in a work of great psychological intensity and tragic power.