GOSH, this book is pretty.

Murder Ballads is a lithographically printed, limited edition, sewn hardback with colour endpapers (!!!), and if the presentation isn’t enough to entice you into racing over to the Egaeus Press site and pre-ordering it on the spot, then allow me to tantalise you further:

A collection of seventeen dark tales & novellas, in which some of today’s finest weird story writers provide previously unpublished work inspired by traditional murder ballads. The results are sometimes enigmatic, sometimes witty, sometimes desperately grim; just like the songs they often appear to belong outside — either before or after — recorded time, in some malleable epoch of blood-drenched mythology. They channel not only these ballads, but also that certain brand of outmoded publication which once revelled so joyfully in all manner of luridness; publications such as The Newgate Calendar, The Illustrated Police News and of course the Victorian Penny Dreadful.

The Vampyre Trap by Reggie Oliver