Allen’s original proposed title for this collection was ‘Nightmares’, though it was published as Strange Stories in 1884. In the Introduction Allen speaks of himself as ‘by trade a psychologist and scientific journeyman… Though these stories do not profess to be anything more than mere short sensational tales, I have yet endeavoured to give most of them some slight tinge of scientific or psychological import or meaning’. The collection offers 16 stories, reprinted from various magazines, including The Cornhill and Belgravia. The tales were published under the pseudonym J. Arbuthnot Wilson. Reviews for the collection were generally positive, comparing Allen’s prose to Poe’s own tales in the same genre. For the book publication, Allen received £100 ‘in full payment for the Copyright and all interest in a book of stories . . .’