The Cult of Relics is a novel by Alan M. Kent (author of Proper Job, Charlie Curnow! and Electric Pastyland), presented in a bilingual format, with a Cornish-language translation, Devocyon dhe Greryow, by Nicholas Williams. The story is set in Western Britain in the mid-1990s just after the Gulf War, and tells of three extraordinary people: of the New-Age Traveller Jude Fox, of the American photojournalist Eddie Hopkins, and of the Cornish-born archaeologist Robert Bolitho. The three characters discover a set of connections between them, stretching back to the early seventeenth century. Kent's intriguing story weaves together their disparate lives with that of the mysterious "Stranger", whose preservation of a curious holy relic becomes a focus for their collective need for communion and hope.

Cornwall is a land like no other where a Celtic culture struggles to hold its own against the onslaught of the twenty-first century. The Pengilleys are very much part of that modern life and hardly stop to consider their own roots—until Grandad dies and leaves a chest of dusty papers and an old pot. The ensuing journey to uncover this strange past soon finds the family tied across more than two-hundred years to Jacka, Mary and their three children living in a tiny village on the rugged coast of West Cornwall. The Pengilleys of the late eighteenth century struggled with poverty, dangerous mines and the eradication of their whole way of life by a new language taking hold in their parish—English. Jacka sets about a plan to save his family and cultural heritage but faces challenges which break his heart and nearly cost him his own life. Can his descendants decode the puzzle he left in the Cornish language which, by the twenty-first century, lay beneath the surface—like a hidden city?

When estate agent solicitor’s clerk Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to assist Count Dracula with the purchase of his London house, he discovers more about his client and his castle than he might wish.… Bram Stoker’s classic novel Dracula, originally titled The Un-Dead, was first published in 1897. It has had a pro­found influence on world literature. It has enjoyed enormous popularity since its publication and is singu­larly responsible for spawning an extraordinary vampire subculture in the second half of the twentieth century. Over a thousand novels and hundreds of films feature Dracula or other vampires, not to mention the countless cartoons, comics, and tele­vision programmes which were ultimately inspired by Stoker’s work. This edition includes the short story “Dracula’s Guest”, which was published in 1914 by Stoker’s widow, Florence, who said of the story: “It was originally excised owing to the length of the book, and may prove of interest to the many readers of what is considered my husband’s most remarkable work.”

A Voyage to Arcturus is an intensely inventive work of the imagination, set in a wild and wholly original fantasy world. It proved a seminal influence on J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis (who called it the “real father” of his Space Trilogy), it was one of the first books to be reprinted in the cele­brated Ballantine Adult Fantasy series of the late 1960s, it has been adapted for radio, theatre, and film (in a 1971 version by William Holloway), and it has inspired the work of musicians, composers, and artists. It remains one of the strangest works of twentieth century literature. —Murray Ewing

A woman boards a train in search of a life-changing event, a gunshot victim receives a troubling visitor from the past, a photographer works on an elusive project entitled The Big Book of the Dead. These are some of the threads that weave through this collection of short stories where individuals are confronted by events that overwhelm and enlighten them in turn, leaving each to ponder where things may have gone awry and what, if any, the right course of action might be. These stories, newly translated by Mícheál Ó hAodha, were originally published in Irish as Litir ó mo Mháthair Altrama agus Scéalta Eile (2005).

Writers write because they want other people to know what they have discovered on their journeys. What they discover might be beautiful beyond compre­hension, or terrifying beyond our most terrible nightmares. The Scarlet Petal: Beauty has no choice but to go with the Beast after a card game goes horribly wrong. She will find out a terrible truth about the castle to which she has come—a secret so monstrous that those who try to tell it vanish. The Devil’s Pit: Three young explorers set out into the Amazon rainforest to make names for themselves; but the world will remember the horrors of the valley they journey to, and the monster that lives there—a monster the modern world long thought dead… A Victorian Drama: Marriage is never easy, especially when there are affairs, scandal, and a night of passion at a friend’s ball into the bargain. But who knew that such a lovely night would erupt into a night of horror? Melt not in weeping while she lies sleeping: A forest of thorn has long guarded a secret, and those who enter never return to tell the tale. But a young man travelling in winter might have bitten off more than he can chew when he discovers a cottage at the centre of the forest and its welcoming occupants.

A Voyage to Arcturus is an intensely inventive work of the imagination, set in a wild and wholly original fantasy world. It proved a seminal influence on J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis (who called it the “real father” of his Space Trilogy), it was one of the first books to be reprinted in the cele­brated Ballantine Adult Fantasy series of the late 1960s, it has been adapted for radio, theatre, and film (in a 1971 version by William Holloway), and it has inspired the work of musicians, composers, and artists. It remains one of the strangest works of twentieth century literature. —Murray Ewing

The Mighty Woman’s Adventures Abroad is Mícheál Ó hAodha’s English translation of Eachtra na Mná Móire thar Lear, Art de Creag’s first novel in Irish, a hilariously sardonic take on Irish life and the humanity more generally. It is also a witty and darkly humorous exploration of a range of fictional types and characters who made up the Irish language movement. .

Jean Deforte has found a caterpillar but lost his little sister. It’s a difficult year; Father is dying and Mother has sent him to an English school. Nobody likes Jean because he is half French. The girls are laughing. The teachers are on his back. The bullies are waiting in the hallways. Unluckily for Jean, there are worse things than bullies… There are vacant black holes in the corners of his mind. There are darker things that would gladly fill them. Jean is about to discover that his school is more foreign than he could possibly imagine. Jean’s quest to find her becomes a personal journey. A journey to the door of the Seventh Silence. A rite of passage, a symbolic expedition through Hades, the struggle between good and evil, the collision of appearance and reality. There is something here of Dante Alighieri, Mervyn Peake, Lewis Carroll. Add a little Franz Kafka and Philip K. Dick, and you will have guessed that this is not a book for children—unless, like Jean, they are very brave.

When Tom Shepherd returns to the Swiss mountain from where his wife disappeared while skiing five years previously, he has no idea what dark forces are about to be released. The picturesque charm of the ski resort masks a black history of dreadful deeds hidden but not forgotten, waiting to be unearthed. But the mountain that looms over the little town like a grim guardian holds an even more ancient secret. The time has come for its power to be unleashed once more. The consequences will be terrible.

When estate agent solicitor’s clerk Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to assist Count Dracula with the purchase of his London house, he discovers more about his client and his castle than he might wish.… Bram Stoker’s classic novel Dracula, originally titled The Un-Dead, was first published in 1897. It has had a pro­found influence on world literature. It has enjoyed enormous popularity since its publication and is singu­larly responsible for spawning an extraordinary vampire subculture in the second half of the twentieth century. Over a thousand novels and hundreds of films feature Dracula or other vampires, not to mention the countless cartoons, comics, and tele­vision programmes which were ultimately inspired by Stoker’s work. This edition includes the short story “Dracula’s Guest”, which was published in 1914 by Stoker’s widow, Florence, who said of the story: “It was originally excised owing to the length of the book, and may prove of interest to the many readers of what is considered my husband’s most remarkable work.”

Strange goings on in Powl Duv, a sleepy village in Kerry, Ireland, where the one-man Kerry Detective Agency (KDA) gets bogged down in one mystery after another. And what sort of place is the mysterious Powl Duv anyway? It seems to exist in a time warp. --- "My Head is Missing" is a delightful romp; on one page it’s Alexander McCall Smith, turn a page – and this is a page-turner for sure – and we’re in Carlos Castenada territory, or the land of Flann O’Brien, or all three together if such unlikely company is at all imaginable.

Elizabeth-a girl in the Gran Chaco-tells about her life in a diary. Having been born in Russia, she tells about the founding and the building of her village in the Chaco of Paraguay, with all the inherent difficulties in a wilderness settlement and growing up in conservative provincialism, with the conflicting priorities typical of a Mennonite society of long standing-societal norms on the one hand, and Christian commandments and rules on the other. The political world at the time motivated her flight from Russia, and continued to play a decisive role during the Second World War with its widespread fallout and reper­cussions. Peter P. Klassen was born 1926 in the Mennonite village of Chortitz on the Dnieper. Together with his parents, they fled Russia via Moscow, arriving in Germany in 1929, and departing from there to settle in Paraguay in 1931. He and his parents pioneered in the founding and development of the Fernheim Settlement in the Chaco; it was here that he attended public and high school. Klassen subsequently continued graduate work in Germany and in Switzerland. In addition to his profession as a teacher and his work in pedagogical training, he was the editor of the Mennonite German paper Menno Blatt for decades. Moreover he wrote a series of historical books, too numerous to mention, on the Mennonites in Paraguay and Brazil.

A Nosegay odorous and not onerous: thirty delightfully brief and varied stories, urban, domestic, rural, or extra-terres­trial, in style quirky or jocoserious, set in places as disparate as England, Europe, Africa, and America, in eras ranging from ancient and medieval to modern and futuristic, encompassing science fiction, romance, fantasy, and history, all drawn from a well as deep and treacly as the Dormouse’s in Wonderland. Brian S. Lee is a teacher and academic, long resident in a leafy suburb of Cape Town, near the fynbos-covered slopes of Table Mountain, between the cold Atlantic and warm Indian Oceans.

First published in 1898, The War of the Worlds is considered to be the first “alien invasion” tales, and has been one of the most influential science fiction novels ever written. It has been adapted for radio, stage, and screen, and has inspired and influenced many works of fiction, including comics and graphic novels. Alongside The Time Machine, The Invisible Man, and The Island of Dr Moreau, Wells’ The War of the Worlds stands out as perhaps his most popular work.

Rider Haggard wrote this novel in a few days shortly after his success with King Solomon's Mines, and in it he again uses his African experiences and his familiarity with old legends. But there is a greater and more frightening depth in this book. In the story the three men from Cambridge endure shipwreck, fever, and cannibals as they search for She, the object and end of their adventure, bequeathed to them two thousand years previously. She is the incarnation of one of the most powerful and most ambiguous figures in Western consciousness: a woman who is at the same time a seductress and a figure of terror.

"My empire is an empire of the imagination." Those words are spoken by Ayesha, the central figure of this book and the queen of a central African tribe. Her soubriquet She-who-must-be-obeyed alludes to her deathless beauty and her magical powers. But taken together those two utterances bear witness to the powerful hold the author, Henry Rider Haggard, has had on his readers over the years.

Evertype presents Lafcadio Hearn's classic tales of ghosts, spirits, and the darker side of the natural world with 20 new linotypes by Mathew Staunton. --- "A legend in Ireland and in Japan where his descendants thrive to this day, Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904) was himself drawn to legends, his imagination ignited initially by tales of the Celtic Otherworld and later fuelled by stories of Voodoo magic in Louisiana, an imagination that had its full flowering in far-away Japan where his restless spirit found peace. If you have any few hairs at all on your head, these venerable tales will have them standing up in wonder." -- Gabriel Rosenstock

Pride and Prejudice is the best known of Jane Austen’s six novels, and was first published in 1813. It is highly regarded for the acute description of its characters and because of its ironic style. The novel tells about the relation­ship which ensues when Elizabeth Bennet meets Mr Darcy. There are many notable characters in the novel, in particular beautiful and affectionate Jane, Elizabeth’s older sister; Mrs Bennet, their foolish mother; and their wild and unruly younger sister Lydia. The other memorable actors in the story include gentle and amiable Mr Bingley; Mr Wickam, the plausible scoundrel; William Collins, the ridiculous clergyman; and his appalling patronness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh.

A horrifying tale of terror that will bewilder and amaze its readers. Forget the light renditions of it that you have seen in films and gather your courage to venture into the psycho logical terror of Jekyll and Hyde. It is in London that the novel is supposedly set, but every page is drenched in the mysterious atmosphere of Edinburgh—where Robert Louis Stevenson was born. Is it a Freudian fable, a morality parable, or a sexual allegory? Its up to you to decide.

Five short stories inspired by the American writer H. P. Lovecraft, creator and acknowledged master of the genre of Cosmic Horror. S. Albert Kivinen was the pioneer who introduced Love craft to Finnish readers of fantasy. He spent many years lecturing on philosophical theories in Helsinki University, and his research was focused mostly on ontology. Panu Petteri Höglund spent many years making an intensive study of native speakers of Irish until he could tell stories in a style of Irish that had the right flavour. This collection is a translation of his second book of short stories written in Irish.

The author and his two friends, George and Harris, agree that they have been working too hard and that their health in consequence is suffering. The three young men decide therefore to take a boating holiday on the Thames, starting at Kingston and ending in Oxford. They also take Montmorency, their pet terrier with them. The book recounts their adventures and mishaps on the trip and is punctuated by numerous hilarious passages about, for example, being trapped in Hampton Court Maze, the unreliabilty of barometers and the problems involved in learning to play the bagpipes. Three Men in a Boat was first published in 1889 and has never been out of print since-a remarkable testimony to its popularity.

It was in 1880 and 1881 that Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Treasure Island, which was begun at Braemar, Scotland, where his father aided him with suggestions from his own seafaring experiences. It was finished in the course of his second visit to Davos in the winter of 1881–1882. Treasure Island, which appeared when the author was thirty-one, was his first long romance, and it brought to him his first taste of popular success, when the story was published in book form. It was in October 1881, that this story began to appear as a serial in an English magazine called Young Folks. The title then was The Sea Cook, or Treasure Island, but when published in book form in May 1883, the name was simply Treasure Island, a name which has taken its place among the titles of far older classics. This edition contains the superb illustrations of Louis Rhead, which were first published in 1915. The Cornish translation is by Nicholas Williams, who also translated Louis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland into Cornish and into Irish.

Kate breathes a sigh of relief when she’s dumped at her best friend’s wedding. Faced with moving back home, she takes a job with a cottage on the remote island of Auchenmor. Kate’s told Auchenmor is too small for secrets, but prickly new boss Roderick is keeping something to himself. When his ex-girlfriend comes back on the scene, their budding friendship comes to an abrupt end—and Kate finds out Fiona’s got a sinister motive for coming back to the island she hates. Can she be stopped before it’s too late, and will the island find its way into Kate’s heart?

Sherlock Holmes appeared for the first time in A Study in Scarlet in the year 1887. The stories about Sherlock Holmes became so popular that after a while Conan Doyle believed they were drawing attention away from his other writings. He killed off Sherlock Holmes in the story “The Final Problem”, but his readers demanded that the detective should be resurrected. The Hound of the Baskervilles is a story of a monstrous dog that terrifies Sir Charles Baskerville, a Devonshire landowner, to death. Many of the local people believe that it is not an earthly animal, but rather a supernatural hell-hound. Sherlock Holmes is able to establish the real nature of the hound and to ensure that Henry Baskerville, Sir Charles’s nephew and heir is not harmed by it. Many commentators consider that The Hound of the Baskervilles is the best of the Sherlock Holmes stories.

Although the author (with many previous unique Snarkian works under his belt) describes "Snarkmaster" as the final work in a trilogy, it stands alone quite distinctly as a unique, gripping tale of a power struggle between good and evil, concluding with the development of an unusual intermediate state. Most of the story takes place prior to the traditional Snark voyage (described in verse in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark), but becomes inextricably linked with it-unless it isn't... The literary structure of "Snarkmaster" reveals some influence of Carroll's "Sylvie and Bruno" tales, as the characters (including the great Charles Dodgson himself) experience dream states and the appearance of at least one fairy. The comprehensive glossary and painstakingly hand-detailed maps of each of the islands in the archipelago may not be essential to follow the story, but they certainly enhance it. The meticulously hand-inked illustrations emphasize some of the important aspects of the story and provide a tropical ambiance for the text. While not necessarily a prerequisite, knowledge of Carroll's original poem is likely to make Snarkmaster more enjoyable for most readers.

A dark, humorous parody of The Hunting of the Snark concerning what followed the Baker’s vanishing and the Crew’s continued hunt for a snark on Snark Island. Alison Tannenbaum wrote the poetry in Snarkasbord: A Crewsome Choice and also wrote notes on Byron W. Sewell’s illustrations for it. An introduction and Gardnerian-style notes have been written by August A. Imholtz, Jr in his inimitable style. This edition marks the first public publication of the poems “The Booking”, “The Recrewting”, and “The Sailing”—the three “Missing Fits” composed by Charlie Lovett. These were originally written for a secret English Snarkian Society, and were mentioned by Selwyn Goodacre in his “The Listing of the Snark” in Martin Gardner’s final version of The Annotated Hunting of the Snark. Hitherto, they have only ever been seen by the members or guests of the Society. In addition to his wonderful illustrations, Byron W. Sewell has contributed an original short story, “Forks and Soap”, which tells what happened to the Baker from the viewpoint of the Boojum. Like Lovett’s parodies, this short story has never before been seen by the public; it was issued in a very limited number to his Carrollian friends.

What if time were to grind slowly to a standstill? What if dreams are not what you think they are? Is our future already behind us? Are fairground attractions exactly what they claim to be? Should we listen to fortune-tellers? Could it be that the end of time is merely… the end of time? The stories in this collection ask all sorts of questions. Some of them also give answers. They’re not always comforting, and not necessarily the answers you might have been expecting. Indeed, the unexpected is what you’re likely to get. Frank Roger's stories cover a wide range of material, including and transcending the entire spectrum of fantastic literature. Some may detect an influence of Philip K. Dick’s dark satires, of J. G. Ballard’s poetic surrealism, perhaps even a dash of Jorge Luis Borges’ intricate puzzles and labyrinths, lingering in readers’ memories longer than anticipated. But in the end you will have to chart your own course through this maddening landscape constructed by a few scores of short stories. We hope you will make it safely to the exit. Wherever the exit happens to be. If there is one at all.

In the first of these two crime fiction tales, R.I.P. (Restless in Pieces), modern grave­-robbers steal the bones of Charles Dodgson (also known as Lewis Carroll), expecting to hold them for ransom. But they also dis­cover a rare first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonder­land as well as one of Dodgson’s missing Diaries in the casket. This sets off a series of events, both deadly and comical, across England, Wales, and North Korea. Inspector Ian Spectre of Scotland Yard is brought in to solve the case, assisted by none other than Dodgson’s ghost. The second tale, The Oxfordic Oracle, is set in Victorian Oxford. Inspector Spectre goes undercover to investigate numerous reported strange events during the meetings of the Oxford Phantasmalogical Society, where an actress prophesies under the influence of ethene gas escaping into the basement of the building. Charles Dodgson also makes a first time appearance at the Society meeting, which gets out of hand as too much ethene escapes and every­one begins to pro­phesy nonsense which becomes the inspiration for some of the famous poems in Carroll’s Sylvie and Bruno books.

Watch out… the Beast is about! This new story for young readers is based on the mysterious legend of the Beast of Bodmin Moor. The acclaimed Cornish writer Alan M. Kent tells the charming tale of how a big cat came to wander the wild landscape of Cornwall. Filled with delight and wonder, this is a tale to enrich the imagination and stay long in the memory. The illustrations are by Gabrielle Cailes, an artist who knows Cornwall intimately. With wonderful spirit, colour, and energy, they capture the detail of the story and its thrilling sense of place. The story is presented bilingually with a vibrant modern translation into Cornish by Neil Kennedy.

It was in 1880 and 1881 that Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Treasure Island, which was begun at Braemar, Scotland, where his father aided him with suggestions from his own seafaring experiences. It was finished in the course of his second visit to Davos in the winter of 1881–1882. Treasure Island, which appeared when the author was thirty-one, was his first long romance, and it brought to him his first taste of popular success, when the story was published in book form. It was in October 1881, that this story began to appear as a serial in an English magazine called Young Folks. The title then was The Sea Cook, or Treasure Island, but when published in book form in May 1883, the name was simply Treasure Island, a name which has taken its place among the titles of far older classics. This edition contains the superb illustrations of Louis Rhead, which were first published in 1915. The Cornish translation is by Nicholas Williams, who also translated Louis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland into Cornish and into Irish.

The Cult of Relics is a new novel by Alan M. Kent (author of Proper Job, Charlie Curnow! and Electric Pastyland), presented in a bilingual format, with a Cornish-language translation, Devocyon dhe Greryow, by Nicholas Williams. The story is set in Western Britain in the mid-1990s just after the Gulf War, and tells of three extraordinary people: of the New-Age Traveller Jude Fox, of the American photojournalist Eddie Hopkins, and of the Cornish-born archaeologist Robert Bolitho.

The Cult of Relics yw novel nowyth dhyworth Alan M. Kent (auctour a Proper Job, Charlie Curnow! hag a Electric Pastyland), hag yma va dyllys gans trailyans Kernowek Nicholas Williams, Devoycyon dhe Greryow. An whedhel-ma a gebmer le i’n West a Vreten Veur in cres an bledhydnyow mil, naw cans, peswar ugans ha deg, termyn cot warlergh Bresel an Morbleg. Yth eson ny ow metya ino gans try ferson, meur a les: Jûd Fox, Viajyores a’n Oos Nowyth; Eddie Hopkins, an fôtojornalyst Amerycan; ha’n hendhyscansyth dhia Gernow, Robert Bolitho.

1883: On a doomed volcanic island in the southern Pacific, a group of American castaways commit the body of an enigmatic genius to the deep, along with the secrets of an extraordinary life…

2014: The Deep Watch environmental ship Aurora mysteriously sinks with all hands in remote Antarctic waters and a subsequent oceanic sequence of strange sightings, antique gold bars and damaged ships blazes a trail around the world. Separate investigations by journalist Barrington Hobbes and Naval Intelligence officer Donall Lindsay lead both towards extreme danger on land and sea, a worldwide ecological conspiracy … and an avenging legend!

For many, this book has been a source of fascination, surely one of the most influential novels ever written, an inspiration for such scientists and discoverers as engineer Simon Lake, oceanographer William Beebe, polar traveler Sir Ernest Shackleton. Likewise Dr Robert D. Ballard, finder of the sunken Titanic, confesses that this was his favourite book as a teenager, and Cousteau himself, most renowned of marine explorers, called it his shipboard bible. The present translation is a faithful yet communicative rendering of the original French texts published in Paris by J. Hetzel et Cie.—the hardcover first edition issued in the autumn of 1871, collated with the softcover editions of the First and Second Parts issued separately in the autumn of 1869 and the summer of 1870. Although prior English versions have often been heavily abridged, this new translation is complete to the smallest substantive detail.