Written With My Left Hand

Perhaps best known for two much-admired tales, the evocative ghost story �Whessoe� and the grimly humorous horror tour-de-force �Curious Adventure of Mr Bond�, Nugent Barker (1888-1955) remains something of an enigma. Although rated highly by contemporaries: the 1929 edition of Edward J. O�Brien�s anthology The Best British Stories is dedicated to Barker: little is known of his life, and these twenty-one tales, first collected in 1950, are thought to represent the sum total of Barker�s literary output. As Douglas Anderson notes in his Foreword, Barker ranks alongside fellow twentieth-century exponents of the strange story, Walter de la Mare and John Metcalfe. But what makes Barker unique as a writer is the originality and diversity of his imagination. The stories collected here range widely, from the Poe-esque Parisian sophistication of �The Strange Disappearance of Monsieur Charbo�, to the sly and strangely touching Sussex folk-wisdom of �Stanley Hutchinson�; from the dislocated, dreamlike horror of �One, Two, Buckle My Shoe� to the idyllic, time-travelling nostalgia of �The Thorn�. These powerfully-written stories, long out of print, deserve to be much better known. They will be relished by all those who appreciate the very best classic supernatural literature.