Trapped by the strength of the public adoration of his character Sherlock Holmes, Conan-Doyle was desperate to write other works not involving the sleuth. The Tales of Terror and Mystery have all the recognisable qualities that made Conan-Doyle’s work so popular, the attention to gruesome detail the meticulous logic and the intricate and wittily bemusing plotting, yet they are free of the constraints put on Conan-Doyle by Mr Holmes.

These stories let loose the adventurous side of the rational and logical mind that many associate with Conan-Doyle - the side that pulled him away from his medical studies as a young man to the Arctic Circle on a whaling ship and more importantly the side that led him to a firm belief that grew throughout his life in the occult and the spiritual.