Althea Gyles (1867-1949), Irish artist and mystic, though primarily remembered today for the book covers she did for the poet William Butler Yeats and her association with the author and occultist Aleister Crowley, was, in her own right, also a writer of great interest.
The present volume collects together all of her short fiction and a great deal of her poetry, most of which has never before seen publication. In the title novelette, described by one critic as a female retelling of The Picture of Dorian Gray, a heart-broken woman enters into a pact with a black magician to escape the pains of love through soulless, amoral beauty. Two effulgent, Decadent fairy-tales show Gyles' fascination with elemental spirits as well as the human capacity for corruption or redemption. Finally, a wide selection of her poetry displays her visionary spirituality, coloured by theosophy and the cabalistic mysticism of the Golden Dawn.