The Terraces of Night

THE TERRACES OF NIGHT, Margery Lawrence's equally rare 'sequel' to her elusive collection NIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE was first published in 1932. It bore the subtitle 'being further Chronicles of the "Club of the Round Table"; but the stories in the second volume dispensed with the dining-club prologues and epilogues, concentrating instead on the strange tales themselves.

Many, if not all, of the twelve stories in THE TERRACES OF NIGHT were originally published as stand-alone pieces in popular magazines of the day, and they vary in tone from the macabre and menacing to the gentle and pastoral. Lawrence shows herself to me a master of the supernatural short story, in tales set in such diverse locations as Africa, rural France, Austria, and the English countryside. Her hauntings - involving such objects as a Russian ikon, a crystal snuff-box, a wayside shrine, and an African curse - are memorable and gripping, and her cast of characters is wide-ranging, from a French concierge discussing a mysterious tenant to a young American girl swept up into events which take her out of her safe and secure little world.

In all ways, THE TERRACES OF NIGHT is a worthy successor to the author's earlier collection of weird tales.