"What a haunting inescapable riddle life was." A classic ghost story, Walter de la Mare's The Return follows the exceedingly ordinary Arthur Lawford and his possession by none other than an eighteenth-century pirate! While wandering the local graveyard on behalf of his wife, whom he can sense wishes him out of the house for a bit, Lawford comes across the grave of Nicholas Sabathier and experiences a nasty shock that feels something like a heart attack. But when he wakes back up in the graveyard the next morning, he returns home, goes to his bedroom, and turns to the mirror only to see that a dead Frenchman is staring back at him from the looking glass. And that dead Frenchman is exactly who Sheila Lawford sees when she looks at her husband. Lawford must convince his wife, the vicar, the doctor, and anyone else he comes across that he is in fact ordinary Arthur before they can even begin to work to rid him of this ghost. “The Return” is a haunting portrayal of domestic drama, ghostly possession, and unrequited love that fits firmly among de la Mare's finest Gothic tales.
