THE PRINCESS OF ALL LANDS

Nine stories of the supernatural by one of the few practitioners of the genre who can write anything resembling precise and discreet English prose. In his hands stageworn situations become useful and classic props: the malefic clan awaiting the busybody bureaucrat in the isolated farmhouse (""Behind the Stumps""), the rotting mansion housing the shell of the wicked old lord (""Balgrummo's Hell""), the deserted house full of cryptic messages and evocations (""There's a Long, Long Trail a-Winding""), the unexpected pub looming up out of the fog (""Saviourgate""). Kirk is not to all likings; it is possible to find his stories mere sequences of skilled posturings and essentially hollow effects. But he does deliver his own brand of goods--not only in the usual learned flourishes and sideswipes at contemporary barbarism, but in the grace and confidence with which he steps through the mournful churchyard, the Roman palace, the dark saloon cellar.