The Dead of Night

George Oliver Onions (1873–1961) was a significant English novelist who published over forty novels and story collections.

Besides detective fiction, historical fiction and a science fiction novel, New Moon (1918), Onions wrote several collections of ghost stories, of which the best known is Widdershins (1911). It includes the novella The Beckoning Fair One, widely regarded as one of the best in the genre of horror fiction, especially psychological horror.

Onions was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his 1946 novel Poor Man's Tapestry.

David Stuart Davies (1946-2024), General Editor of Wordsworth’s Mystery and Supernatural series, was an editor, novelist, playwright and film historian.