"Although the wombat is real and the dragon is not, nobody knows what a wombat looks like and everyone knows what a dragon looks like."Not a novel, not a book of short stories, Adventures in Unhistory is a book of the fantastic-a compendium of magisterial examinations of Mermaids, Mandrakes, and Mammoths; Dragons, Werewolves, and Unicorns; the Phoenix and the Roc; about places such as Sicily, Siberia, and the Moon; about heroic, sinister, and legendary persons such as Sindbad, and Aleister Crowley, and Prester John; and-revealed at last-the Secret of Hyperborea.

Professor Vlad Smith is on a terrifying quest, one that will take him from the halls of our most hallowed institutions to the most run-down of old houses in blighted neighborhoods. A mysterious committee, shredded yellowed newspapers, a daguerrotype of a Confederate soldier, a headless corpse and a corpseless head.... These are the clues which Smith must piece together to save his sanity and his daughter, and uncover the terrible secret of the Boss in the Wall. What a scary story, like a modern Dracula but completely original in its concept and chillingly realistic in its narration. Avram Davidson was one of the finest writers the fantasy field has had, endlessly inventive and uniquely vivid. Grania Davis has completed this work, which he left unfinished, in a way that does him proud. - Poul Anderson The Boss in the Wall is a last powerful and major work by a major and powerful author. - Gregory Benford It is hard to imagine the genre that could encompass him; it is even more difficult to imagine fantasy or science fiction without him. - The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction