Often acclaimed as the finest Irish illustrator of all time, Harry Clarke first turned his hand to depicting the works of Edgar Allan Poe around 1914. Poe's work was ideally suited to Clarke, who drew in an intricate style reminiscent of Aubrey Beardsley and was fascinated by the weird and macabre. By 1919 Clarke had produced 24 drawings to accompany a new edition of Poe's Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Nightmares in Decay features full-page reproductions of all 32 of Clarke's Poe illustrations, as well as a lengthy introduction to Clarke by DM Mitchell.