Wagner the Wehr-Wolf

Having bound Flora Francatelli to the chair in the manner just described the three nuns fell back a few paces and the wretched girl felt the floor giving way under her. A dreadful scream burst from her lips as slowly slowly the chair sank down; while the working of hidden machinery in the roof and the steady monotonous revolution of wheels sounded with ominous din upon her ears. An ice-stream seemed to pour over her soul. Wildly she cast around her eyes; and then more piercing became her shrieks as she found herself gradually descending into what seemed to be a pit or well... --from Chapter XIX: The Descent.--The Chamber of Penitence Fans of horror and students of the history of pulp fiction will be enthralled by this little-remembered early novel of werewolf fantasy a penny dreadful first published in 1846-7 and written by British author GEORGE WILLIAM MACARTHUR REYNOLDS (1814-1879). The veritable Stephen King of his day--his lurid stories were more widely read than Dickens work--Reynolds here gives us the strange exploits of Wagner a 16th-century German peasant who made a pact with the devil for immortality and hence was cursed to become a werewolf on a disturbingly regular basis. With his beautiful but wicked companion Nisida he roams a world of Gothic nightmares of horrifying intrigue murder and strange supernatural doings. Cosimo is proud to present this new edition of a forgotten classic reproduced here in a charming replica of an 1865 edition complete with the original illustrations.