Beasts with Five Fingers: Strange Tales of Disembodied Hands

by Brian J. Showers (Editor)

‘’He looked up at the picture rail, and there was the hand holding on to a hook with three fingers, and slowly scratching the head of the parrot with the fourth.’’ In 1919, W. F. Harvey published ‘The Beast with Five Fingers’, his quintessential tale of the disembodied hand with a murderous mind of its own, and its position as one of weird fiction’s true classics was cemented by the 1946 film adaptation. Seeking to trace the origins of the haunted hand story back into the nineteenth century, and to showcase its influence on writers of weird fiction from the 1920s to the modern day, horror expert Brian J. Showers presents a new collection of classics from the well-thumbed oeuvres of Sheridan Le Fanu and Guy de Maupassant through to miniature masterpieces from the hands of Jean Ray, Mark Valentine and many more. Featuring ghostly hands, hands possessed by demons and unexplained hands where no hands should be, prepare to enter a world of nightmares run amok as the vice-grip of terror takes hold.

Genres: Horror, Short Stories

282 pages, Paperback

Published May 21, 2026

About the author

Brian J. Showers is originally from Madison, Wisconsin. He has written short stories, articles, interviews and reviews for magazines such as Rue Morgue, All Hallows, Ghosts & Scholars: The M.R. James Newsletter, Le Fanu Studies, Supernatural Tales and Wormwood. He also runs The Swan River Press and the editor of The Green Book: Writings on Irish Gothic, Supernatural and Fantastic Literature.

His short story collection, The Bleeding Horse (Mercier Press), won the Children of the Night Award in 2008. He is also the author of Literary Walking Tours of Gothic Dublin (Nonsuch, 2006) and Old Albert — An Epilogue (Ex Occidente, 2011); with Gary W. Crawford and Jim Rockhill he co-edited the Bram Stoker Award-nominated Reflections in a Glass Darkly: Essays on J. Sheridan Le Fanu (Hippocampus Press, 2011).

Having studied Popular Literature at Trinity College, he currently resides on the Emerald Isle, somewhere in the verdant and ghost-haunted wilderness of Dublin City, where he is busy at work on various projects, including his next collection of strange tales.

Reviews

[Tom]

Beasts with Five Fingers: Strange Tales of Disembodied Hands:

•Ghost Stories of the Tiled House - J.S. Fanu (1861)
•The Flayed Hand - Guy de Maupassant (1875)
•The Hand - Guy de Maupassant (1883)
•The Adventure of Lady Wishaw's Hand - Richard Marsh (1898)
•The Ghost Hand - Selma Lagerlof (1898)
•The Blood Fetish - Morley Roberts (1908)
•The Gateway of the Monster - William Hope Hodgson (1910)
•The Beast with Five Fingers - W.F. Harvey (1919)
•The Dead Hand - Seabury Quinn (1926)
•The Hand of Gotz Von Berlichingen - Jean Ray (1943)
•The Terror in Teakwood - Harold Lawlor (1947)
•Like Two White Spiders - Eddy C. Bertin (1971)
•Bird in a Wrought Iron Cage - John Alfred Taylor (1986)
•The Late Post - Mark Valentine (2011)

[p.]

3.5☆

I had a great time with quite a few of those. A bit of an unexpected hit for me, I must admit, so I am glad that I got to reading the collection sooner rather than later. Mentally, it was also a nice break from my longer more recent reads.

Favourite stories: "The Ghost Hand" by Selma Lagerlof, "The Gateway of the Monster" by William Hope Hodgson, "The Beast with Five Fingers" by W.F. Harvey, "The Dead Hand" by Seabury Quinn, "The Hand of Gotz Von Berlichingen" by Jean Ray, "The Terror in Teakwood" by Harold Lawlor

[Michael John Paul McManus]

An absolutely great read. I had never read any of the stories within the pages of this fascinating book, another great volume from The British Library of the Weird. The main story being The Beast with Five Fingers, was of interest as I recall watching the film version years ago starring Peter Lore. All great stories to be sure. 10/10.

[Phillip]

Another wonderful collection from the British Library Weird Tales series.
Like most anthology s there were stories that I liked more than others, but there were no bad or unreadable stories. I had never read anything by any of the authors before, and there are definitely a few that I will be looking up what is available from them.
3.5 Stars