Across my desk: Bar the Doors

Now here's a feature I haven't utilized in a while.

Some time ago I blogged about the H.G. Wells short story "Pollock and the Porroh Man," a jungle tale set in Sierra Leone on the subject of native witchcraft and revenge - perhaps the first story of its type? It's certainly a story of its time but made for a good radio adaptation on Escape.

Recently a copy of the Alfred Hitchcock short fiction collection Bar the Doors crossed my desk. Not only did the book republish the Wells story but on the back cover for some reason it depicts a map of the story's location:

Now, the map is pretty much useless - there is no point in the story where you are benefited from knowing how one location relates to another. It's enough to know that Sierra Leone is in Africa, frankly. And yet, simplistic as the image is, it was such an unexpected discovery that I find I kind of like it. Shows me for a sucker, eh? You've just got to slap 'Sierra Leone' on something and there I am...