'Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.' Published in 1886 and widely considered Thomas Hardy's masterpiece, The Mayor of Casterbridge is a profound meditation on fate, guilt and redemption. After selling his wife and child at a country fair in a drunken rage, the proud yet regretful Michael Henchard swears to atone for his actions. Years in the future, now a new man in his sobriety, Henchard is a prosperous merchant and the respected mayor of the village of Casterbridge. But when his past demons begin to haunt him, and a professional rival enters the scene, Henchard's jealousy and pride threaten to unravel everything he has built. A powerful depiction of how one reckless act can shape a lifetime, The Mayor of Casterbridge is a poignant tragedy of love, remorse and lost hope – a story that stays with its readers long past the last word. Thomas Hardy (1840 – 1928) was an English poet and novelist. Heavily influenced by the Romantic and Victorian Realist movements, his writing is characterised by evocative language, rich imagery and innovative narrative structures. Hardy was socially conscious and highly critical of Victorian society, often using his writing to depict the lives of people living in deprived rural areas of England.

In time for this year's Halloween revels comes a horrible array of spectres and sorcerers, ghosts and demons, hags and apparitions. From Homer and Horace via Pope and Poe to Graves and Hardy, Poems Bewitched and Haunted draws on three thousand years of poetic forays into the supernatural. Ovid conjures the witch Medea, Virgil summons Aeneas's wife from the afterlife, Baudelaire lays bare the wiles of the incubus, and Emily Dickinson records two souls conversing in a crypt in poems that call out to be read aloud, whether around the campfire or the Ouija board. Ballads, odes, spells, chants, dialogues, incantations - here is a veritable witch's brew of poems from the spirit world. More than 670,000 copies sold worldwide of our 25 Pocket Poet anthologies.

In time for this year's Halloween revels comes a horrible array of spectres and sorcerers, ghosts and demons, hags and apparitions. From Homer and Horace via Pope and Poe to Graves and Hardy, Poems Bewitched and Haunted draws on three thousand years of poetic forays into the supernatural. Ovid conjures the witch Medea, Virgil summons Aeneas's wife from the afterlife, Baudelaire lays bare the wiles of the incubus, and Emily Dickinson records two souls conversing in a crypt in poems that call out to be read aloud, whether around the campfire or the Ouija board. Ballads, odes, spells, chants, dialogues, incantations - here is a veritable witch's brew of poems from the spirit world. More than 670,000 copies sold worldwide of our 25 Pocket Poet anthologies.

CONTENTS: 01. A Suspicious Gift [Algernon Blackwood] 02. Skeleton Lake: An Episode in Camp [Algernon Blackwood] 03. The Wood of the Dead [Algernon Blackwood] 04. A Baby Tramp [Ambrose Bierce] 05. The Damned Thing [Ambrose Bierce] 06. Dagon [H.P Lovecraft] 07. The Horror of the Heights [Arthur Conan Doyle] 08. The_Descendant [H.P Lovecraft] 09. The Cats of Ulthar [H.P Lovecraft] 10. The Evil Clergyman [H.P Lovecraft] 11. He [H.P Lovecraft] 12.The Book [H.P Lovecraft] 13. In the Vault [H.P Lovecraft] 14. Nyarlathotep [H.P Lovecraft] 15. Death and the Woman [Gertrude Atherton] 16. The Striding Place [Gertrude Atherton] 17. Hop-Frog [Edgar Allan Poe] 18. The Raven [Edgar Allan Poe] 19. The Tell-Tale Heart [Edgar Allan Poe] 20. Shadow [Edgar Allan Poe] 21. The Beast in the Cave [H.P Lovecraft] 22. The Doom That Came to Sarnath [Lovecraft] 23. The Vampire Maid [Hume Nisbet] 24. A Tale of the Ragged Mountains [Poe] 25. The Demon Spell [Hume Nisbet] 26. Out of the Earth [Arthur Machen] 27. The Signal-Man [Charles Dickens] 28. The Colloquy of Monos and Una [Poe] 29. Demons of the Sea [William Hope Hodgson] 30. Glámir [Sabine Baring-Gould] 31. Colonel Halifax's Ghost Story [Sabine Baring-Gould] 32. Tales of Secret Egypt [Sax Rohmer] 33. Some Words with a Mummy [Poe] 34. In the Dark [Edith Nesbit] 35. The Sea Raiders [H. G. Wells] 36. The Baron of Beauguard [Gilbert Parke] 37. The Vampire [Jan Neruda] 38 .A Journey of Little Profit [John Buchan] 39. The Keeper of Cademuir [John Buchan] 40. Dickon the Devil [Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu] 41. The Child That Went With The Fairies [Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu] 42. Wicked Captain Walshawe, Of Wauling [Le Fanu] 43. Two Doctors Montague [Rhodes James] 44. A School Story Montague [Rhodes James] 45. The Diary of Mr. Poynter Montague[ Rhodes James] 46. In the Forest of Villefére by [Robert E. Howard] 47. The Dream Snake [Robert E. Howard] 48. The Thing On the Roof [Robert E. Howard] 49. The Imp of the Perverse [Poe] 50. The Devil in the Belfry [Poe] 51. The Crawling Chaos [Lovecraft] 52. Aunt Joanna [Sabine Baring-Gould] 53. The Outsider [Lovecraft] 54. The Hound [Lovecraft] 55. The Disinterment [Lovecraft] 56. The Horror At Martin's Beach [Lovecraft] 57. The Tree On The Hill [Lovecraft] 58. The Outgoing of The Tide [John Buchan] 59. The Curse of Yig [Lovecraft] 60. The Haunter Of The Dark [Lovecraft] 61. Berenice [Poe] 62. The Angel Of The Odd [Poe] 63. Black Ram [Baring-Gould] 64. The Cask Of Amontillado [Poe] 65. Dracula's Guest [Bram Stoker] 66. The Mother Of Pansies [Baring-Gould] 67. On The Leads [Baring-Gould] 68. McAlister [Baring-Gould] 69. Mustapha [Baring-Gould] 70. The Ghost and the Bone-setter [Le Fanu] 71. The Drunkard's Dream [Le Fanu] 72. The Novel of the White Powder [Arthur Machen] 73. The Merewigs [Baring-Gould] 74. Xélucha [Matthew Phipps Shiel] 75. Solange [ Alexandre Dumas] 76. The Fall of The House of Usher [Poe] 77. The Assignation [Poe] 78. The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade [Poe] 79. Laura Silver Bell [Le Fanu] 80. Descent Into The Maelstrom [Poe] 81. The Power of Darkness [ Edith Nesbit] 82. An Authentic Narrative of A Haunted House [Le Fanu] 83. The Night Wire [H. F. Arnold] 84. The Dualists [Bram Stoker] 85. Stories of Lough Guir [Le Fanu] 86. The Vision of Tom Chuff [Le Fanu] 87. The Three Strangers [Thomas Hardy] 88. Crooken Sands [Bram Stoker] 89.The Cairn of the Headland [Robert E. Howard] 90. The Shining Pyramid [Arthur Machen] 91. Schalken The Painter [Le Fanu] 92. Hellhound Of The Cosmos [Clifford Donald Simak] 93. Ibid [Lovecraft] 94. The Grove Of Ashtaroth [John Buchan] 95. The Moon Bog [Lovecraft] 96. An Account of Some Strange Disturbances [Le Fanu] 97. Ultor De Lacy A Legend of Cappercullen [Le Fanu] 98. The Red Hand [Arthur Machen] Starts at Chapter 98 99. The Inmost Light [Arthur Machen] Starts at Chapter 100