Fearful Rock and Other Fantasies

Four tales of folk magic and cosmic dread from Manly Wade Wellman's early career, available in one volume for the first time. A man marked with an ancient protective charm confronts evil in the Civil War South. A lost Byron manuscript promises theatrical glory and occult danger. A painting comes alive with hunger. In these novellas and short story, Wellman forged the prototypes of folk horror itself—natural settings infected with the uncanny, witchcraft rooted in genuine tradition, demons that walk familiar ground. His characters carry deep faith and folkloric knowledge into darkness, anticipating the balanced moral vision of his later, better-known work. A writer in formation, testing structures and refining the fusion of folklore, faith, and the unnatural that would define his greatest achievements. "The dean of fantasy writers."—Karl Edward Wagner