Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch - who published much of his fiction under the pseudonym 'Q' - was born in Cornwall in 1863, and the county, its history, and its people were to have a marked influence on his life and writing. After moving to London to pursue a writing career, the author returned to his native county in 1892, and maintained a permanent residence there until his death in 1944.

He established a reputation as a literary critic and editor, and was also a successful novelist: his final, unfinished novel, CASTLE D'OR, was completed by another writer with strong Cornish connections, Daphne Du Maurier. Yet Quiller-Couch was also interested in the unseen and unknown, and this prompted him to turn his hand, time and again, to supernatural stories, which are scattered amongst his collections of short stories.