Our Lady of Darkness
World Fantasy Award 1978.
What was the evil
figure that haunted Franz Westen? Was it his imagination, or something
infinitely more frightening, connected somehow with those strange old
books he'd been reading?
For there was much in those books to
connect with the bizarre twilight world of San Francisco in the 1920s,
the world of H.P. Lovecraft, Clark Ashton Smith, Jack London, Dashiell
Hammett and Alistair Crowley.
The more Westen plunged into those
misty reaches of the occult, the more he would uncover things which had
perhaps better lain undisturbed. For Westen, in trying to unravel the
mystery of Our Lady of Darkness, was gambling with his life.
Fritz Leiber
Fritz Reuter Leiber, Jr. (1910–1992) was an American author of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. The son of a pair of Shakespearian actors, Leiber was also an actor, expert chess player, and champion fencer. Born in Chicago in 1910, Leiber spent his youth touring with his parents' theater company. He graduated with honors in philosophy from the University of Chicago in 1932. Leiber married Jonquil Stephens in 1936. In 1938, their son Justin was born. After Jonquil's death in 1969, Fritz Leiber moved to San Francisco, where he died on September 5, 1992.