bound volume stamped in gold letters, The Vampire, His Kith and Kin, by Montague Summers. Leafing through it, he stopped at page 208 and began reading:
"'There is yet another method of abolishing a vampire—that of bottling him. There are certain persons who make a profession of this; and their mode of procedure is as follows: The sorcerer armed with a picture of some saint lies in ambush until he sees the vampire pass, when he pursues him with his ikon; the poor Obour takes refuge in a tree or on the roof of a house, but his persecutor follows him with the talisman, driving him from all shelter in the direction of a bottle specially prepared, in which is placed some of the vampire's favorite food. Having no other resource, he enters the prison, and is immediately fastened down with a cork, on the interior of which is a fragment of the ikon. The bottle is then thrown into the fire, and the vampire disappears for ever.'
"You observed the color of that bottle?" he asked. "I had coated his interior with a mixture of gelatine and chicken's blood, of which all vampires are inordinately fond, if they can not obtain the blood of humans. Eh bien, I hope he enjoyed his last meal, though I did not give him much time to digest it."
"But see here," I persisted, "if you can pen an evil spirit in a bottle—"
"Ah bah, my friend, why continue harping on that single note? At present I am much more interested in releasing good spirits from their bottles." He poured himself a generous potion of cognac, drained it at a single gulp, then refilled his glass. "The first drink was for my great thirst," he told me solemnly. "Now that that has been assuaged, I drink for pleasure." He took a long, appreciative sip, and set the glass down on the coffee table, gazing at it fondly.
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○ ○ ○ ARKHAM HOUSE offers collections of the best fantastic and macabre short stories and novels by Frank Belknap Long, H. P. Lovecraft, August Derleth, Clark Ashton Smith, J. Sheridan LeFanu, Algernon Blackwood, A. E. Coppard, Fritz Leiber, Jr., H. S. Whitehead, Carl Jacobi, Lord Dunsany, Donald Wandrei, William Hope Hodgson, Robert E. Howard, H. R. Wakefield, Ray Bradbury, L. P. Hartley and Cynthia Asquith.
○ ○ ○ Among the most recent books released are GENIUS LOCI AND OTHER TALES, by Clark Ashton Smith ($3.00); NOT LONG FOR THIS WORLD, by August Derleth ($3,00); ROADS, by Seabury Quinn, beautifully illustrated and jacketed by Virgil Finlay ($2.00); THE FOURTH BOOK OF JORKENS, by Lord Dunsany ($3.00); and THE WEB OF EASTER ISLAND, by Donald Wandrei ($3.00).
○ ○ ○ Coming in Spring: ▶ THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOON, a new anthology of science-fiction, edited by August Derleth. Coming later from Arkham House— ▶ SELECTED LETTERS and SOMETHING ABOUT CATS AND OTHER PIECES, by H. P. Lovecraft. ▶ AWAY AND BEYOND, the best science-fiction stories by A. E. Van Vogt. ▶ THE THRONE OF SATURN, the collected short science-fiction of S. Fowler Wright. ▶ GATHER DARKNESS!, a novel by Fritz Leiber,. Jr. ▶ XELUCHA AND OTHERS, by M. P. Shiel. ▶ THE GREEN ROUND, by Arthur Machen; and books by Greye La Spina, Robert Bloch, Stephen Grandon, Seabury Quinn, and many others.
○ ○ ○ Eleven Arkham House books are already out of print and impossible to obtain except at greatly inflated prices. Do not delay your order.
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