Edited by William Kerrigan, John Rumrich, and Stephen M. Fallon

The legendary author of Paradise Lost and other poems was also a superb and provocative prose writer. Culled from Modern Library's definitive The Complete Poetry and Essential Prose of John Milton, this indispensable collection, authoritatively annotated and updated for this new volume, now includes selections from Milton's Commonplace Book and the complete text of The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates in addition to Milton's letters, pamphlets, political tracts, and essays. Milton tackles...

Nestled among the foothills of eastern Ohio, historic Cambridge sits on a bluff overlooking the meandering Wills Creek. The National Road, the first federally funded interstate road, serves as its main street and has shaped
its identity, character, and economy. The first legal bridge in the Northwest Territory spanned Wills Creek here in 1802, along Ebenezer Zane's narrow trace, which preceded the National Road. In the decades before the Civil War, the city thrived, serving travelers along this important thoroughfare; later Cambridge became a regional center for the coal, glass, and...

Family saga, budding romance, the dawn of the Hollywood star system, a lively murder mystery-all in one swell book. With his twin brother Warren embarked on the last and surprisingly successful leg of his Hollywood career, Wally Kerrigan takes a management job with the production company of his old friend Mary Pickford. Evidence of a secret society of orgiasts named "Voluptuaries" begins to surface, which deeply concerns Mary, since her dissolute brother Jack Pickford appears to among its most satisfied clients. Wally is asked to investigate, and soon finds himself mired in prostitution,...

Wallace Kerrigan is Vice President in charge of commercial loans at the Bank of California in Hollywood. He agrees to finance a low-budget noir thriller in the vein of Alfred Hitchcock's "Spellbound." Its producer, knowing that moviegoers want their new psychological tales to have a veneer of authenticity, has hired a consultant from the Los Angeles Institute of Psychoanalysis. But a killer begins to target members of this troubled, secret-ridden institution. The first victim is a training analyst given to intimidating professional colleagues with his knowledge of embarrassing events from...

"The Passed On," the second tale of the Ghost Killers, is a master class in California Gothic. Newlyweds Mike and Cheyenne Buckman travel to a seaside mansion in Ventura known as Folly's Cove, where a locked staircase ascends to three mysterious rooms. They have been hired by Robert Sarka, the son and heir of Benedek Sarka, an actor whose filmography included roles in numerous classics of modern horror before he left the screen to devote himself to the plays of Christopher Marlowe. Alien dreams steeped in the traditions of sex magic infect the team. A 1946 documentary unleashes a malign...