Round the Fire Stories

Chapter 2: PREFACE

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About This Book

A collection of short tales fashioned for fireside reading that assemble macabre, mysterious, and uncanny narratives. The pieces shift between framed reminiscences, odd case histories, and compact shocks, often pivoting around enigmatic objects, bizarre crimes, or unsettling coincidences. Atmosphere and brisk plotting drive the stories, which juxtapose rational inquiry with hints of the supernatural and the grotesque. The tone ranges from wry to bleak, emphasizing suspense, moral ambiguity, and sudden revelations that leave explanations partial or disquieting rather than fully resolved.

PREFACE

In a previous volume, “The Green Flag,” I have assembled a number of my stories which deal with warfare or with sport. In the present collection those have been brought together which are concerned with the grotesque and with the terrible—such tales as might well be read “round the fire” upon a winter’s night. This would be my ideal atmosphere for such stories, if an author might choose his time and place as an artist does the light and hanging of his picture. However, if they have the good fortune to give pleasure to any one, at any time or place, their author will be very satisfied.

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE.

Windlesham,

Crowborough.