The Cadaver of Gideon Wyck

When Alexander Laing first came upon the sinister tale of Gideon Wyck in 1934, his publisher felt obliged to address the following Note to the Reader: “This story was received from a reputable literary agent, who claims to be as ignorant as we are of the author’s identity…Customary royalties will be reserved for the author’s account, should he wish to reveal himself to the agent with satisfactory proofs of identity.” Now, many years later we repeat the same explanation, for in all the time since that first publication none has come forward to confess to the authorship of so harrowing and demonic a tale. Dick Saunders is the name the author gives himself for the purposes of telling the story. He is a medical student of Dr. Gideon Wyck. Saunders begins to see an explanation for Wyck’s eccentric behavior, but does not find it until after a more final discovery is made in the medical school vault. The cadaver of Gideon Wyck is there, as if awaiting the post-mortem scalpel. It is not in Wyck himself, however, but in his laboratory that his monstrous secret is found. A Maine campus offers a seminar in demonology in this classic horror tale.