In John the Balladeer, Manly Wade Wellman created one of the great characters in all of horror and fantasy literature. Armed with his silver-stringed guitar and an endless trove of folk songs, John travels the backwoods of Appalachia, battling supernatural evil with his own brand of down-home charm and endless resourcefulness. In these tales, John wanders the Southern mountains, encountering hoodoo men and witch women, strange supernatural beasts, malevolent spirits, and even George Washington's ghost.

Edited by horror legend Karl Edward Wagner, this volume contains the complete John the Balladeer stories in their original, unaltered form, as they first appeared in magazines and anthologies between 1951 and 1987. Also featured are a foreword by Wellman's friend and literary executor David Drake and an introduction by Wagner.

Just as J. R. R. Tolkien brilliantly created a modern British myth cycle, so did Manly Wade Wellman give to us an imaginary world of purely American fact, fantasy and song. - Karl Edward Wagner

This is the real thing-a book of haunting fantasies with their roots going down deep into the American folk tradition. - Robert Silverberg

Cover by Ilan Sheady

In John the Balladeer, Manly Wade Wellman created one of the great characters in all of horror and fantasy literature. Armed with his silver-stringed guitar and an endless trove of folk songs, John travels the backwoods of Appalachia, battling supernatural evil with his own brand of down-home charm and endless resourcefulness. In these tales, John wanders the Southern mountains, encountering hoodoo men and witch women, strange supernatural beasts, malevolent spirits, and even George Washington's ghost.

Edited by horror legend Karl Edward Wagner, this volume contains the complete John the Balladeer stories in their original, unaltered form, as they first appeared in magazines and anthologies between 1951 and 1987. Also featured are a foreword by Wellman's friend and literary executor David Drake and an introduction by Wagner.

Just as J. R. R. Tolkien brilliantly created a modern British myth cycle, so did Manly Wade Wellman give to us an imaginary world of purely American fact, fantasy and song. - Karl Edward Wagner

This is the real thing-a book of haunting fantasies with their roots going down deep into the American folk tradition. - Robert Silverberg

Cover by Ilan Sheady

The Rock Bred Evolution in Reverse Devil's Asteroid appeared in the July 1941 issue of Comet. It was not very large, as asteroids go, but about it clung a silvery mist of atmosphere. Deeper flashes through the mist betokened water, and green patches hinted of rich vegetation. The space-patroller circled the little world knowledgeably, like a wasp buzzing around an apple. In the control room, by the forward ports, the Martian skipper addressed his Terrestrial companion. The Golgotha Dancers appeared in the October 1937 issue of Weird Tales. A curious and terrifying story about an artist who sold his soul that he might paint a living picture. Manly Wade Wellman was an American writer best known for his fantasy and horror stories set in the Appalachian Mountains and for drawing on the native folklore of that region.

An entertaining story that plays like 2001 A Space Odyssey in reverse. Martians, an interplanetary cold war, asteroids, and devolution await.

Two tales from renowned fantasy author Many Wade Wellman, winner of both the World Fantasy Award and Edgar Allan Poe Award.

Scientist Oliver Norfleet and his college buddy Spencer DuPogue are called by the Board of Science, to investigate a mysteriously expanding red blight that is growing around the site of a meteor crash. With the help of the daughter of a famous scientist, they soon discover that the blight is not only alive, but that it consumes nearly everything in its path. When their own abilities prove inadequate, they are forced to turn to the greatest scientific minds that history has to offer. Can Norfleet and DuPogue and the Giants from Eternity stop the blight before the entire Earth is consumed? Also includes the novella The Timeless Tomorrow.

The Lost Wellman series is dedicated to bringing back into print the fiction of Manly Wade Wellman that has languished in the pulps, un-reprinted for decades and unavailable to a general readership. Night Shade's earlier series, The Selected Stories of Manly Wade Wellman brought together the weird and supernatural fiction for which he was most famous. This new series demonstrates Wellman's dynamic range of styles and genres - from science fiction, to fantasy, to adventure, to mystery fiction. It will further demonstrate that far from being only a master of the weird and supernatural, Wellman was a compelling master of all the genres he chose to work in.

Under the guidance of Night Shade Books, series editor and Wellman scholar Jeremiah Rickert is working to present a unified, textually accurate set of Wellman's lost work. Other titles in this series include Strangers on the Heights.

This is the story of a region at once representative and unique in the history of Southern culture, which was from its earliest colonial beginnings a focus of strength, intellect, and proud individuality.

Warren County, North Carolina, heart of the Roanoke Region, early built for grace and vigor. It bred people who were great in the affairs of the state and the nation. Resolutely it fought for freedom from England, was a harbor of antebellum grace and vigor, sent its sons into the forefront of Civil War battles, weathered Reconstruction's woes, and strove to sustain its ancient tradition of greatness while keeping step with modernity in the world.

Here are remembered the beginnings in a primitive wilderness, the pioneer region that grew into a rich empire of luxury and intellectualism, the county that weathered disasters and won deserved rewards. The events of its life as a locality, with the men and women who created those events, are here retold. Warren County's special record of mannered culture and robust folkways, its parade of hunters, builders, scholars, statesmen, soldiers, belles and beaux, wits and merrymakers, its progress and change as noted in five different centuries, are set forth from authentic sources.

The timeless tomorrow, a classical book, has been considered important throughout the human history, and so that this work is never forgotten we at Alpha Editions have made efforts in its preservation by republishing this book in a modern format for present and future generations. This whole book has been reformatted, retyped and designed. These books are not made of scanned copies of their original work and hence the text is clear and readable.

Sam Ward was yearning for adventure when a Cherokee man arrived from a distant village with a tale of a monstrous hairy creature threatening his land. The formerly peaceful beast went rogue upon the death of its mate, and the chief of the Twilight People sent Otter to ask for help. Sam's quest quickly turns dangerous with new challenges and new enemies, but using their wits, skills, and courage, Sam and Otter finally face Giluhda, last of the living mammoths.

An entertaining story that plays like 2001 A Space Odyssey in reverse. Martians, an interplanetary cold war, asteroids, and devolution await.

What chance had the castaway Earthman and his crossbow-weaponed Amazons against the mighty Frogmasters of the Veiled Planet?

Manly Wade Wellman wrote science fiction and fantasy stories in such pulps as Astounding Stories, Startling Stories, Unknown and Strange Stories, but he is best remembered as one of the most popular contributors to the legendary Weird Tales.

What chance had the castaway Earthman and his crossbow-weaponed Amazons against the mighty Frogmasters of the Veiled Planet?

Manly Wade Wellman wrote science fiction and fantasy stories in such pulps as Astounding Stories, Startling Stories, Unknown and Strange Stories, but he is best remembered as one of the most popular contributors to the legendary Weird Tales.

Violent dealth is amazingly apt to remind us of vigorous life; these ten stories of classic North Carolina murders which occurred between 1808 and 1914 represent a much neglected part of the exciting history of the state. Victims include a Confederate general, a lovely orphan girl, a pathetic little boy, and a highly offensive political boss. The motives are the usual ones -- gain, revenge, elimination, and jealousy.

The plaintive history and untimely death of Naomi Wise -- poor 'Omi they called her in Randolph County over five generations ago -- strikingly counterparts Dreiser's An American Tragedy; Ida Bell Warren, the veritable Lady Macbeth of Forsyth County; the arsenic poisoner of old Fayetteville; the kidnapping of Kenneth Beasley near the site of the Lost Colony; the almost perfect crime, the murder of the hated Reconstruction Senator Chicken Stephens of Caswell County, which in spite of the efforts of Claude G. Bowers and others went unsolved for years; the mad jealousy of Frankie Silver of Burke County which ended with bitter justice at the end of the law's noosed rope, the first woman hanged in the state -- these and other lively stories of famous North Carolina murders make fascinating reading.

The stories, told with authority and inviting informality, employ material from newspapers, court records, letters, family collections, and numerous works of local history. They evoke a feeling for a past time and place as well as for the untidy events themselves.

They're a group of rebels in the far future trying to save mankind. Join them as they travel through both space and time tying to defeat a fascist government that wants to control time itself. The Rebels are seeking a better future, but will they find it or will they create a future that's even worse than what they're trying to prevent? An exciting ride through time! You won't soon forget the stunning conclusion.

They're a group of rebels in the far future trying to save mankind. Join them as they travel through both space and time tying to defeat a fascist government that wants to control time itself. The Rebels are seeking a better future, but will they find it or will they create a future that's even worse than what they're trying to prevent? An exciting ride through time! You won't soon forget the stunning conclusion.

Hold on, there! came a sharp challenge from the stairs behind and below me. What are you doing? And what's that picture doing? It was one of the Museum's guards. I was going to ask somebody that same question, I told him as austerely as I could manage. What about this picture? I thought there was a Böcklin hanging here. The guard relaxed. Oh, I beg your pardon, sir. I thought you were somebody else--the man who brought that thing. He nodded at the picture. Personally, I think it's plain beastly. And the Museum has accepted it at last? I asked. He shook his head. Oh, no, sir. I, too, came close. There was no plate beneath the painting. But in the lower left-hand corner of the canvas were sprawling capitals, pale paint on the dark, spelling out the word GOLGOTHA. Beneath these, in small, barely readable script: I sold my soul that I might paint a living picture.

Hold on, there! came a sharp challenge from the stairs behind and below me. What are you doing? And what's that picture doing? It was one of the Museum's guards. I was going to ask somebody that same question, I told him as austerely as I could manage. What about this picture? I thought there was a Böcklin hanging here. The guard relaxed. Oh, I beg your pardon, sir. I thought you were somebody else--the man who brought that thing. He nodded at the picture. Personally, I think it's plain beastly. And the Museum has accepted it at last? I asked. He shook his head. Oh, no, sir. I, too, came close. There was no plate beneath the painting. But in the lower left-hand corner of the canvas were sprawling capitals, pale paint on the dark, spelling out the word GOLGOTHA. Beneath these, in small, barely readable script: I sold my soul that I might paint a living picture.

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.