Strayers from Sheol

Strayers of Sheol is a collection of ten haunting tales penned by the masterful H.R. Wakefield. Each story delves into the realm of the supernatural, where the boundaries between the living and the dead blur in chilling ways. Within these pages, you will encounter the infamous The Triumph of Death, where a sadistic old woman's torment knows no bounds, utilizing a house haunted by malevolent ancestors as her instrument of cruelty. From eerie encounters with doppelgangers to spine-tingling radio explorations of Ghost Hunters, Wakefield's narratives weave intricate webs of suspense and terror.

In 'Farewell to all Those', the introduction to his 1961 collection STRAYERS FROM SHEOL, H. R. Wakefield stated 'I've written my last ghost story', continuing with the bleak sentence 'I believe ghost story writing to be a dying art.' However, he concluded his introduction on a more cheerful note, urging readers not to be too sure that 'none of the old magic endures'; and the fourteen stories collected in the original edition of the book show Wakefield to have been still very much at the top of his form. Indeed, STRAYERS FROM SHEOL opens with one of the author's finest and most frightening tales, the classic The Triumph of Death.

It was originally released in 1961 and was the second collection of the author's stories to be published by Arkham House. It was published in an edition of 2,070 copies. Following Wakefield's death in 1964, a further four of his stories were published in various Arkham House anthologies edited by August Derleth, who had long been a champion of Wakefield's writing.