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The Beast with Five Fingers & Other Midnight Tales
William Fryer Harvey nació en Yorkshire, Inglaterra, en 1885, y estudió medicina en la universidad de Leeds. Dado que profesaba la fe de los cuáqueros, se dedicó a recorrer el mundo ejerciendo su oficio en los más diversos lugares de la tierra. Durante la Primera Guerra Mundial fue condecorado por rescatar, a riesgo de su vida, al maquinista de un buque de guerra que había quedado atrapado entre gases tóxicos y hierros retorcidos. Aquel gesto altruista le acarreó una dolencia pulmonar que le obligó a retirarse a los cuarenta años. Regresó a Inglaterra y se dedicó a su otra vocación: escribir. Harvey escribió artículos para diversas revistas, al tiempo que publicaba historias de misterio y un sinnúmero de relatos tradicionales de fantasmas. Adquirieron entonces notoriedad sus narraciones de terror psicológico.
La bestia con cinco dedos y otras historias de horror y misterio reúne las mejores historias fantásticas de William F. Harvey, en las que el gusto por la ambientación, la inquietud creciente y los finales abiertos a múltiples interpretaciones, llevan al lector a terminar sus historias sin respiro. Así, «La bestia con cinco dedos», que da título al volumen e inspiró una auténtica película de terror de los años cuarenta interpretada por Peter Lorre, narra la historia de Eustace Borlsover, quien, a la muerte de un anciano tío suyo, recibe por expresa voluntad del difunto la mano cortada de éste. El horror producido por semejante legado no es sino el comienzo de una cadena de imprevisibles acontecimientos. La presente antología incluye, además de la citada, algunas piezas maestras del relato de misterio: «Calor de agosto», «El seguidor», «El reloj», y «Sambo».
La bestia con cinco dedos y otras historias de horror y misterio reúne las mejores historias fantásticas de William F. Harvey, en las que el gusto por la ambientación, la inquietud creciente y los finales abiertos a múltiples interpretaciones, llevan al lector a terminar sus historias sin respiro. Así, «La bestia con cinco dedos», que da título al volumen e inspiró una auténtica película de terror de los años cuarenta interpretada por Peter Lorre, narra la historia de Eustace Borlsover, quien, a la muerte de un anciano tío suyo, recibe por expresa voluntad del difunto la mano cortada de éste. El horror producido por semejante legado no es sino el comienzo de una cadena de imprevisibles acontecimientos. La presente antología incluye, además de la citada, algunas piezas maestras del relato de misterio: «Calor de agosto», «El seguidor», «El reloj», y «Sambo».
- GenresHorror
Hardcover
Published January 1, 1928
About the author
W.F. Harvey
214 books31 followersWilliam Fryer Harvey was an English writer of short stories, most notably in the macabre and horror genres. Among his best-known stories are "August Heat" and "The Beast with Five Fingers", described by horror historian Les Daniels as "minor masterpieces".
Born into a wealthy Quaker family in Yorkshire, he attended the Quaker schools at Bootham in Yorkshire and at Leighton Park in Reading before going on to Balliol College, Oxford. He took a degree in medicine at Leeds. Ill health dogged him, however, and he devoted himself to personal projects such as his first book of short stories, Midnight House (1910).
In World War I he initially joined the Friends' Ambulance Unit, but later served as a surgeon-lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and received the Albert Medal for Lifesaving.[4] Lung damage received during the rescue leading to the award troubled him for the rest of his life, but he continued to write both short stories and his cheerful and good-natured memoir We Were Seven.
Harvey was a practicising Quaker.
Before the war he had shown interest in adult education, on the staff of the Working Men's College, Fircroft, Selly Oak, Birmingham. He returned to Fircroft in 1920, becoming Warden, but by 1925 ill-health forced his retirement. In 1928 he published a second collection of short stories, The Beast with Five Fingers, and in 1933 he published a third, Moods and Tenses. He lived in Switzerland with his wife for much of this time, but nostalgia for his home country caused his return to England. He moved to Letchworth in 1935 and died there in 1937 at the age of 52. After a funeral service at the local Friends Meeting House Harvey was buried in the churchyard of St Mary the Virgin in Old Letchworth.
The release of the film The Beast with Five Fingers (1946), directed by Robert Florey and starring Peter Lorre, inspired by what was perhaps his most famous and praised short story, caused a resurgence of interest in Harvey's work. In 1951 a posthumous fourth collection of his stories, The Arm of Mrs Egan and Other Stories, appeared, including a set of twelve stories left in manuscript at the time of his death, headed "Twelve Strange Cases".
In 2009 Wordsworth Editions printed an omnibus volume of Harvey's stories, titled The Beast with Five Fingers, in its Tales of Mystery and the Supernatural series (ISBN 978-1-84022-179-4). The volume contains 45 stories and an introduction by David Stuart Davies.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._F....]
Born into a wealthy Quaker family in Yorkshire, he attended the Quaker schools at Bootham in Yorkshire and at Leighton Park in Reading before going on to Balliol College, Oxford. He took a degree in medicine at Leeds. Ill health dogged him, however, and he devoted himself to personal projects such as his first book of short stories, Midnight House (1910).
In World War I he initially joined the Friends' Ambulance Unit, but later served as a surgeon-lieutenant in the Royal Navy, and received the Albert Medal for Lifesaving.[4] Lung damage received during the rescue leading to the award troubled him for the rest of his life, but he continued to write both short stories and his cheerful and good-natured memoir We Were Seven.
Harvey was a practicising Quaker.
Before the war he had shown interest in adult education, on the staff of the Working Men's College, Fircroft, Selly Oak, Birmingham. He returned to Fircroft in 1920, becoming Warden, but by 1925 ill-health forced his retirement. In 1928 he published a second collection of short stories, The Beast with Five Fingers, and in 1933 he published a third, Moods and Tenses. He lived in Switzerland with his wife for much of this time, but nostalgia for his home country caused his return to England. He moved to Letchworth in 1935 and died there in 1937 at the age of 52. After a funeral service at the local Friends Meeting House Harvey was buried in the churchyard of St Mary the Virgin in Old Letchworth.
The release of the film The Beast with Five Fingers (1946), directed by Robert Florey and starring Peter Lorre, inspired by what was perhaps his most famous and praised short story, caused a resurgence of interest in Harvey's work. In 1951 a posthumous fourth collection of his stories, The Arm of Mrs Egan and Other Stories, appeared, including a set of twelve stories left in manuscript at the time of his death, headed "Twelve Strange Cases".
In 2009 Wordsworth Editions printed an omnibus volume of Harvey's stories, titled The Beast with Five Fingers, in its Tales of Mystery and the Supernatural series (ISBN 978-1-84022-179-4). The volume contains 45 stories and an introduction by David Stuart Davies.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._F....]
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 10, 2012
The short story "The Beast With Five Fingers" literally scared me when I first read it. I was in high school on summer vacation. I stayed all night reading books. After I read this I was paranoid that a hand was coming through the window at night to get me.
March 28, 2021
Un'antologia di racconti brevi dell'orrore e del mistero, opera di un Inglese di età edoardiana, oggi praticamente dimenticato... per evidenti motivi. La narrazione in prima persona da finto aneddoto o diario non sempre è avvincente, il ritmo di diversi racconti è costruito male, la differenza di sensibilità fa sentire come banali trovate che per i tempi potevano essere acute. Vale la pena leggerli solo se ci si vuole tuffare nella narrativa di consumo di qualità media di un secolo fa.
November 17, 2024
Overall I've really enjoyed popping in and out of this collection of mostly cozy/antique supernatural tales. Note: Some are general fiction, and some are narrated by a female nurse. I would probably rate these 3.5 overall.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews