The Jewelled Hand and Other Tales of Mystery and the Macabre

Totally forgotten today, Australian pulp writer Lionel Sparrow (1867-1936) was a prolific contributor of Gothic and horror tales to late-Victorian Australian newspapers and magazines. For this new volume, editor James Doig has collected 24 rare tales, originally published between 1887 and 1910. The title story, “The Jewelled Hand” (1887), is a Grand Guignol-style horror tale in which the narrator’s obsession over proving whether or not the mind retains consciousness after decapitation leads to a gruesome experiment. In “The Purple Death,” a jealous suitor exacts vengeance on his hated rival by imprisoning him in a room where everything-from the walls and floor to his clothes and food-is purple, a strange and decadent torture intended to drive his victim slowly mad. “The Vengeance of the Dead” is an unusual vampire story in which the narrator’s sisters fall ill and seem to be slowly wasting away, the victims of a dead occultist whose evil spirit prays on the living for sustenance.
With their plots involving madness, torture, and revenge, these 24 stories-reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe, but also redolent of the decadence that was the hallmark of late-Victorian weird fiction-will thrill and delight aficionados of Victorian Gothic and horror.