The Case Against Satan

By the 20th century, the centuries-old Roman Catholic exorcism ritual for combatting demonic possession was all but dead, eviscerated by the ascent of modern science and rationalism. But Ray Russell's 1962 novel, The Case Against Satan, set the stage for a proliferation of exorcisms on page, screen, and even bizarrely, in real life. 
 
Just a few weeks ago, Susan Garth was "a very good girl, a clean-talking sweet little girl" of high school age. But that was before she started having "fits"-a sudden aversion to churches and a newfound fondness for vulgarity. If not madness, then the answer must be demonic possession, for which there is only one response: exorcism.

[Sardonicus is] perhaps the finest example of the modern gothic ever written

Russell links postpulp literature and the Grand Grand Guignol tradition with the modern sensibilities of America in the 1960s... a fascinating combination of the liberal and the heretic

RAY RUSSELL was born in 1924 in Chicago, Illinois, and served in the United States Air Force during World War II in the South Pacific. After the war, he attended the Chicago Conservatory of Music and eventually joined the editorial staff at Playboy, where he published such writers as Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, Richard Matheson, Jack Finney, Robert Bloch, and Charles Beaumont. His best-known work, 'Sardonicus', was called by Stephen King 'perhaps the finest example of the modern Gothic ever written'. He died in Los Angeles in 1999.

Ray Russell

Russell links postpulp literature and the Grand Guignol tradition with the modern sensibilities of America in the 1960s . . . [He is] a fascinating combination of the liberal and the heretic.

A sleek, compelling tale of diabolical possession that prefigures Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby

[A] sincere and subtle tale of ultimate evil that feels less dated than many of the works it inspired.

With gripping clarity and incisive wit, Russell weaves a suspenseful plot that's more of an intellectual thriller than a horror yarn . . . The Case Against Satan retains its harrowing, relevant edge.

Haunted Castles is the definitive, complete collection of Ray Russell's masterful Gothic horror stories, including the famously terrifying novella trio of "Sardonicus," "Sanguinarius," and "Sagittarius." The characters that sprawl through Haunted Castles are frightful to the core: the heartless monster holding two lovers in limbo; the beautiful dame journeying down a damned road toward depravity (with the help of an evil gypsy); the man who must wear his fatal crimes on his face in the form of an awful smile. Engrossing, grotesque, and completely entrancing, Russell's Gothic tales are the best kind of dreadful.

Ray Russell

Praise for Haunted Castles

Russell links postpulp literature and the Grand Guignol tradition with the modern sensibilities of America in the 1960s . . . [He is] a fascinating combination of the liberal and the heretic.

A sleek, compelling tale of diabolical possession that prefigures Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby

[A] sincere and subtle tale of ultimate evil that feels less dated than many of the works it inspired.

Russell links postpulp literature and the Grand Guignol tradition with the modern sensibilities of America in the 1960s . . . [He is] a fascinating combination of the liberal and the heretic.

A sleek, compelling tale of diabolical possession that prefigures Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby

[A] sincere and subtle tale of ultimate evil that feels less dated than many of the works it inspired.

Russell links postpulp literature and the Grand Guignol tradition with the modern sensibilities of America in the 1960s . . . [He is] a fascinating combination of the liberal and the heretic.

A sleek, compelling tale of diabolical possession that prefigures Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby

[A] sincere and subtle tale of ultimate evil that feels less dated than many of the works it inspired.

Books by Ray Russell

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