Beast with Five Fingers

? ?the hand was writhing in agonized contortions, squirming and wriggling upon the nail like a worm upon a hook. ?We?ll keep it there until it dies,? he said. ?May I burn in hell, if I ever open the door of that safe again.? The brilliant and scary ?The Beast with Five Fingers?, is the first entry in this mammoth collection of strange and chilling short stories by W. F. Harvey, an unjustly neglected author of supernatural tales. This unique volume demonstrates clearly that Harvey is one of the masters of the genre. Along with such classics as ?August Heat?, which concerns two strangers whose individual fates become inextricably entwined in a nightmare scenario and the gruesome school yarn, ?The Dabblers?, you will find such minor masterpieces of the uncanny as ?The Man Who Hated Aspidistras?, ?Sarah Bennet?s Possession?, ?The Habeas Corpus Club? and many more stories which refreshingly avoid the clich? while at the same time creating that wonderfully eerie sense of fear. AUTHOR William Fryer Harvey (1885?1937) was an English writer of short stories, most notably in the mystery and horror genres Born into a wealthy Quaker family in Yorkshire, England, he took a degree in medicine from Leeds University, but ill health dogged him and he devoted himself to personal projects such as his first book of short stories, Midnight House. During World War I, he joined a Friends' Ambulance Unit, later serving as a surgeon-lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and received the Albert Medal for Lifesaving. Lung damage received during the rescue that resulted in this award was to trouble him for the rest of his life, but he continued to write both short stories and his cheerful and good natured memoir, We Were Seven. Harvey died at the age of 52. The release of the movie The Beast with Five Fingers (1946), directed by Robert Florey, starring Peter Lorre, and based on a story of his, caused a resurgence of interest in Harvey's work.