Friday, October 30, 2015

Tales of Terror; or, The Mysteries of Magic

Henry St. Clair - Tales of Terror; or, The Mysteries of Magic (1833)

Open Library direct link (both volumes in one file)
Open Library main page

Supernatural stories supposedly "translated from the Chinese, Turkish, and German".  Titles include "The Mysterious Bell", "The Gored Huntsman", "The Cavern of Death" and "The Magic Dice, An Awful Narrative".  There's no indication that this reprints an 1833 book - it was reissued in 1856 as Evening Tales for the Winter.

Can't find anything about the author but he's probably the same Henry St. Clair who in 1840 compiled The United States Criminal Calendar, or An Awful Warning to the Youth of America: Being an Account of the Most Horrid Murders, Piraces, Highway Robberies, &c (available at The HathiTrust).  There might be some connection to the American pulp horror writer Henry St. Clair Whitehead (1882-1932) but that speculation is based purely on the name.