The White Wyrak

Stefan Grabinski (1887-1936) was a Polish author of fantasy literature and horror stories. He is sometimes referred to as "the Polish Poe" or "the Polish Lovecraft," although his works are often quite surreal or markedly erotic in a way that distinguishes him from both. The comparison is not accidental, however. Grabinski was undoubtedly influenced by Poe, to whom he even dedicated an essay, and in the last years of his life translated under the pseudonym Lovecraft into Polish. His work is imbued with magic, occultism, esotericism and mysticism and contains themes and motifs typical of Poe and Lovecraft - the uncanny, death with its physical characteristics, dark obsessions, the influence of drugs and alcohol on the perception of reality, madness and the blurring of the boundary between dream and reality, parallel worlds, evil spirits and doppelgangers, demonic women reminiscent of Ligeia, Berenice and Morella. Moreover, like Lovecraft, he develops his mythology with a pantheon of supernatural creatures. Unlike his idols, however, Grabinski likes to mix the occult and the demonic with the material, the modern and the technological, to present progress and scientific advancement as something that arouses not only admiration but also fear; for him, supernatural horror often manifests itself in modernity - in electricity, the fire station, the train...

This collection includes selected stories by the Polish fantasist.