This volume includes stories, poetry, and essays by Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), the Scottish novelist who worked extensively in the Gothic vein. Aside from writing such celebrated stories as "The Tapestried Chamber" and "Wandering Willie's Tale," Scott translated spectral poems by Goethe ("The Erl-King") and G. A. Bürger ("William and Helen," "The Wild Huntsman"), as well as writing weird poems based on Scottish legendry.

Perhaps most significant of all, Scott emerged as one of the earliest and most penetrating critics of the Gothic movement. His reviews of Maturin's Fatal Revenge and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein are included here, as well as a long essay on the weird work of E. T. A. Hoffmann and several chapters on Gothic writers from his Lives of the Novelists (1825). Altogether, Scott's prose and poetic work represents a landmark in the development of Gothic horror.

The Classics of Gothic Horror series seeks to reprint novels and stories from the leading writers of weird fiction over the past two centuries or more. Ever since the Gothic novels of the late 18th century, many writers have contributed to the development and enrichment of weird fiction as a literary genre, and their work has now been assembled in comprehensive, textually accurate editions by S. T. Joshi, a leading authority on weird fiction.