August Derleth said M.P. Shiel was ." . . the Grand Viscount of the Grotesque . . . with a] refulgently fanciful imagination and magical command of the English language." Arthur Machen said, "Here is a wilder wonderland than Poe ever dreamt of . . . It is Poe, perhaps, but Poe with an unearthly radiance." As King Felipe, Shiel was purportedly the king of Redonda, a small uninhabited rocky island in the West Indies, situated a short distance northwest of the island of Montserrat, where Shiel was born. Shapes in the Fire is an extraordinary collection of Shiel's work: don't miss it.