MEDUSA: A NOVEL...
[Lakewood, CO: Centipede Press, 2010]. Octavo, pictorial boards. First edition (expanded). 200 copies printed. In addition to the novel this editions includes twelve short stories, previously uncollected and an essay ("The Significance of Horror Fiction"). The author's short fiction had been previously published in various U.K. anthologies. New introduction by Colin Wilson. "Visiak is now remembered by macabre enthusiasts for his genuinely original novel MEDUSA (1929). A weird story of a voyage to unknown waters, it earned a dreadful review from the LONDON TIMES when it first appeared, which helped it sink without a trace (the same paper forty years later in Visiak's obituary referred to the book as 'a tour-de-force')" - Sullivan (ed), The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural, p. 444. MEDUSA "is a hard to categorize as Lindsay's A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS (1920). The tale moves gradually, in a slow crescendo, from its beginnings in a normal-seeming nineteenth-century England through adventures at sea and finally into a literal pit of fantasy -- a vast circular hole occupied by the eponymous sea monster which eats sexually aware men alive. The protagonist is a young boy who remains sexually innocent, though haunted by other guilts: he survives while his companions perish." - Clute and Grant (eds), The Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997), p. 987. [Reference: Barron (ed), Fantasy Literature 3-352. Bleiler, The Guide to Supernatural Fiction 1636. Locke, A Spectrum of Fantasy, p. 219. Bleiler (1978), p. 200. Reginald 14688]. A fine copy, no jacket as issued. (35957). Item #35957
Price: $750.00