Roman Catholics and other Christians mark All Souls' Day, a day of prayer and rememberance for the faithfully deceased, on November 2. By offering prayers, intercessions, alms, and cemetery visits, people can acquire indulgences for the miserable souls in purgatory.Hugh Walpole (1884-1941) was one of the most popular and prolific English authors of his time, best known for his historical novels and children's novels. But it was in the realm of the macabre and the supernatural that Walpole was at his best, and this collection of sixteen tales contains many of his best, including the classic werewolf tale "Tarnhelm"; the often anthologized 'The Little Ghost'; "La neve", a chilling story of revenge from beyond the grave; and perhaps the highlight of the collection, "The Silver Mask", which one reviewer called "a masterpiece, a classic example of how a tale can be truly terrifying and spooky without ghosts and with the slightest hint of the supernatural."The sixteen stories in Walpole's book all achieve a high level of quality, and they are all differentiated by the distinctive literary excellence that may be expected in his writing.
English writer Sir Hugh Seymour Walpole, lived from 13 March 1884 to 1 June 1941. Following the publication of The Wooden Horse in 1909, Walpole wrote a lot, finishing at least one book year. The eldest of the Rev. Somerset Walpole's three children, Walpole was born in Auckland, New Zealand. Mildred Helen, née Barham, was his wife (1854-1925). His first piece was published in 1905; he began studying history at Emmanuel College in Cambridge in 1903. He accepted a position as a lay missioner with the Mersey Mission to Seamen in Liverpool upon his graduation from Cambridge in 1906. He obtained employment in 1908 as a French instructor at Epsom College and a book critic for The Standard. Walpole was a passionate music fan, so when he heard a new tenor at the Proms in 1920, he was quite moved and went in search of him. Lauritz Melchior became one of his closest friends, and Walpole contributed significantly to the singer's burgeoning career. Diabetes was detrimental to his health. In May 1941, after participating in a protracted march and giving a speech at the start of Keswick's fundraising "War Weapons Week," he overexerted himself and passed away at Brackenburn from a heart attack at the age of 57. He is interred at Keswick's St. John's graveyard.
