Mike Ashley is an author, anthologist and editor with a specialism for seeking out rare strange stories from the periodicals and magazines of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He is an expert in the fields of weird fiction and classic mystery stories, and a leading authority on the history and development of the occult detection tale.

Algernon Blackwood (1859-1951) was an English author, broadcasting narrator and journalist who published over 230 short stories and 47 books in his lifetime. He was deeply interested in occult and mystic studies, and powers that lie beyond normal human recognition. His regular appearances narrating stories on radio and early television programs garnered him the epithet of 'The Ghost Man'.