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Two proper English gentlemen grappling with a maniacal disembodied hand that has a mind of its own — what a fun, wacky, macabre romp this story is!

It was first published in 1919 in Volume 1 of The New Decameron, a multi‑volume anthology of early 20th‑century English short fiction modeled explicitly on Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron, the famous 14th‑century cycle of one hundred tales. Its next appearance was in Harvey’s own 1928 collection The Beast with Five Fingers and Other Tales.

The story later served as the basis for the 1946 mystery‑horror film The Beast with Five Fingers, starring a scrumptious Andrea King and the always‑creepy Peter Lorre. But the film’s relation to the text lies mostly in name and basic premise; it steadily abandons the original’s supernatural bent in favor of a more grounded whodunit.

And we would certainly be remiss if we didn’t situate Harvey within the long lineage of disembodied hands . . .

Modern readers will think first of Thing from The Addams Family, Ash’s diabolical severed hand in Evil Dead II, or — if you were a child of the 90s — the gleefully chaotic movie Idle Hands. But Harvey himself was obviously drawing from older tales, such as Irish author J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1863 “An Authentic Narrative of the Ghost of a Hand” or French author Guy de Maupassant’s terrifying 1883 short “La Main” (“The Hand”).

And if these *ahem* handful of mentions aren’t enough to satisfy you, then how about an entire book (!) devoted to the literary motif of severed hands? Dead Hands: Fictions of Agency, Renaissance to Modern, by American scholar Katherine Rowe, traces the familiar Gothic convention of severed hands from early English drama through modern American fiction, mapping the dynamic history of this uncanny device with academic precision and narrative verve.

As for the text itself: because Harvey was English, we have retained his British spellings, though we have updated a handful of archaic hyphenations — good-by becomes goodbye, to-morrow becomes tomorrow, and so on. Our real labor, however, lies in the 55 footnotes we’ve appended throughout the story to provide clarity, context, and commentary where necessary.

All in all, we believe our additions have rendered this story — if we may borrow an English gentlemanly phrase — jolly good!

Cheers!

Heathenry: Thoughts on the Text
“The Beast with Five Fingers“

“One of the best.” —The Los Angeles Times

“Of stories which satisfy our primal appetite for cold shivers along our lumbar regions the best is ‘The Beast with Five Fingers’ by W.F. Harvey, a thing manifestly impossible and absurd in daylight, but a story to be avoided by a person alone in a large house at midnight.” —The New York Herald

“A fantastic, blood-curdling and utterly original horror story.” —Alison Smith, The San Francisco Examiner

“A really admirable ghost story, the gruesome tale of ‘The Beast with Five Fingers.’” —Evening Public Ledger

“Uncanny and repulsive, but absorbing at the same time.” —The Indianapolis News

“‘The Beast with Five Fingers,’ told by Mr. W.F. Harvey, is admirably done, with a vivid sense of reserve force which reminds one of Edgar Allen Poe. The cumulative effect of horror is finely managed.” —The Daily Telegraph

“No one who reads the opening chapter will be content until he has reached the end.” —The Evening Standard

“If, like so many readers, one wants the frankly horrible, it is to be found in ‘The Beast with Five Fingers’ by W.F. Harvey.” —The Observer

“When, however, one is convinced he is reading merely an amusing satire he suddenly finds himself in the grip of a thrilling ghost story on the order of de Maupassant, [who], unlike Poe, is never utterly lawless. He assumes one impossible fact and then proceeds to unfold his story in a thoroughly scientific and convincing fashion. W.F. Harvey has the same terrifying habit of creating something monstrous, but law-abiding; an evil spirit, quite in the German manner. It is to be regretted, however, that only a shrewd person will know when to stop laughing and when to be scared.” —New York Tribune

The Beast with Five Fingers

Heathen Short #5
Published: January 5, 2026
Format: Paperback
Retail: $7.95
ISBN-13: 9798900750057
Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.125 inches
Weight: 3 oz
Cover: Matte Finish
Interior: Black & White on Cream Paper
Pages: 50 (+2 POD)
Language: English
Annotations: 55 Footnotes
Illustrations: 4

• Title Page
• Heathenry Flame
• Honorary Heathen Headshot: W.F. Harvey
• End Title

Categories:

• Fiction /
• Fiction /
• Fiction /