Elegies and Requiems

'Elegies and Requiems' is the first major collection by this hugely talented writer and contains eighteen stories, nine of which are unique to this volume.

Insole's work explores the mysterious world where a confluence of objects and circumstance awake atavisms which draw the protagonists of his tales into mysteries infinitely greater than themselves.

In 'The Golden Birds of Mariston', an artifact weaves its magic over the population of a once mighty but now moribund city, while in 'Ancestral Rooms' a doll given to a child begins a process of familiarial transformation for its giver.

The make-believe world of childish imagination becomes something else in 'Blackthorn Cottage', whilst in 'The Bellman' the intrusions are infinitely more malignant.

Lovers of authors such as Bruno Schulz, Georges Rodenbach, Arthur Machen and Mark Valentine will find much to admire in Insole's delicately wrought symbolist prose style, whilst lovers of the supernatural will admire the imagination and imagery of a writer who is regarded by many as one of the most interesting authors to emerge in recent years.