Tufts & Co. Pocket Essentials A haunting double feature from one of the most unnerving voices in English literature Walter de la Mare, best known for his poetry and psychological ghost stories, crafts a subtle terror that lingers long after the final page. In Out of the Deep , a young man’s return from war leads him into a hallucinatory world of memory, madness, and something darker stirring beneath the surface of his conscience. In Seaton’s Aunt , a boyhood friendship is shadowed by an eerie old woman whose presence warps the very fabric of reality— a story H.P. Lovecraft himself considered a minor masterpiece. This volume collects two of de la Mare’s finest tales of the uncanny— stories that explore the murky thresholds between life and death, memory and delusion, sanity and the unknown. With language as refined as it is sinister, de la Mare offers adult readers something far beyond the typical ghost story: a whispering abyss of dread. Why Read This Edition? Contains two of de la Mare’s most psychologically rich and enigmatic tales - Ideal for readers of Henry James, Arthur Machen, and Shirley Jackson - Introduces modern horror fans to a forgotten craftsman of literate, cerebral terror What Scholars Say: “De la Mare is the poet of the half-seen and the never-to-be-known.” — Robert Aickman , in The Attempted Rescue (1966) “Few writers handle the strange with such silken tact... Seaton’s Aunt in particular is a masterpiece of suggestion.” — Graham Greene , Collected Essays (1969) “Walter de la Mare explored the borderland of dreams and death with an elegance that makes him nearly unique in supernatural fiction.” — Douglas A. Anderson , The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature (2000)