Prince Zaleski - Tapa blanda

Este volumen recoge los seis cuentos de que se tiene noticia protagonizados por el misterioso principe Zaleski, una de las mas afortunadas creaciones de Shiel, que en algunas ocasiones trabajo en colaboracion con John Gawsworth. Zaleski es un personaje singular entre los detectives literarios: un aristocrata decadentista, de quien se insinua apenas la homosexualidad, que pasa buena parte de su existencia en una habitacion en la penumbra fumando hachis o opio; sin embargo, cuando se le plantea un enigma pone en marcha toda su erudicion y sus excepcionales dotes deductivas y, para sorpresa del lector, llega a conclusiones de una logica aplastante. La edicion se complementa y enriquece con un iluminador estudio introductorio de Brian Stableford y un breve ensayo de R.B. Russell acerca de la colaboracion entre Gawsworth y Shiel.

One of ten children, Matthew Phipps Shiel was born in the West Indies on July 21, 1865. His mother was a mulatto and his father worked as a shopkeeper and as a lay Methodist minister. Shiel received his education at Harrison College in Barbados. Shiel received the most critical acclaim for his sci-ence-fiction novel titled The Purple Cloud. This book, pub-lished in 1901, describes a tragic and brutal world in which most human life has been eliminated by a toxic purple gas. The book became a movie in 1959 after being retitled The World, the Flesh, and the Devil. This dark and controversial film starred Harry Belafonte, Mel Ferrer, and Inger Stevens.