Drolls From Shadowland

Metadata

Gutenberg ID

25307

Title

Drolls From Shadowland

Language

en

Book source

Project Gutenberg

Description max 80 words

A collection of supernatural tales by J. H. Pearce, blending Cornish folklore with Victorian gothic horror. Stories explore themes of greed, redemption, and the consequences of sin through encounters with shadow creatures, ghostly journeys, and moral trials in a world where the boundary between the living and the dead is perilously thin.

Summary up to 500 words

In *Drolls From Shadowland*, J. H. Pearce weaves a collection of eerie vignettes set against the industrial backdrop of Cornwall, exploring the dark intersection of poverty, supernatural forces, and moral reckoning. The opening tale follows a desperate miner named Joel, whose hatred for his poverty drives him to a cavern where he encounters a grotesque shadow creature. This entity offers to turn Joel's shed blood into gold, a temptation he eagerly accepts. However, the bargain comes at a terrible cost; the creature eventually claims Joel's soul, trapping a tiny yellow flame within its grasp as the miner dies amidst a pile of his own coining blood. Another narrative transports a weary theatergoer, Preston, on an unexpected river journey. Exhausted and haunted by his past neglect of his wife and child, he drifts down the stream, where his memories manifest as ghostly visions. The journey forces him to confront his sins, culminating in a profound shift in his values as he realizes the weight of his wrongdoings. Pearce also presents a father who, after losing his son Silas to drowning, makes a heartbreaking bargain with a seal. The animal, unable to rest without being christened, trades its life for Silas's soul, which the father breathes into the creature before plunging into the sea himself. In a fable-like story, a young man abandons the mythical Fields of Amaranth for the comfort of human connection, rejecting the allure of an empty paradise. Conversely, another tale features a maiden who steals a lover's soul using a crystal ball, leaving him to wander the woods until he learns to live without one. Through these varied plots, Pearce crafts a cohesive atmosphere of melancholy, suggesting that true peace lies not in supernatural rewards or the avoidance of human limitation, but in accepting one's flaws and the inevitable consequences of one's choices.

LLM editorial rating

4.2/5

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2026-07-05 16:12 UTC

Categories

• Fantasy
• Regional Fiction