Presented here for the first time in English, in translations by Brian Stableford, the current volume contains two novels of the occult by Gilbert-Augustin Thierry (1843-1915), which were originally published in serial form in the Revue des deux mondes.

The first, The Blonde Tress (1888), addresses the question of the fundamental morality of a metaphysical system by which individuals are doomed by fate to expiate sins that they have not committed. It introduces an extra twist-taken from the Old Testament-in which people are not even required to compensate for alleged misdeeds of their own immortal soul but for sins committed by their forefathers.

The second novel, The Mask (1894), is an important and intriguing contribution to the late nineteenth-century boom in fantasies featuring Egyptian mummies. Its intense interest in the psychology of reincarnation gives it an extra dimension of complication that differentiates it markedly from the majority of the thrillers and "karmic romances" employing the same motif that followed hot on its heels, and it is certainly entitled to be considered the most interesting work exploring the theme produced before the Great War.