Barnabas, Quentin and the Crystal Coffin: Volume 19

Barnabas, Quentin and the Crystal Coffin (July 1970)

Heiress Betty Ward is worried about her twin sister, who has eloped with Jeremy Frene. She follows them from Paris to Frene estate at Collinwood--but arrives too late!

Her twin is dead, victim of a mysterious illness. Her body has been sealed in a crystal coffin and kept in a darkened room. Jeremy swears that because her ghost returns to the castle each night, he refuses to bury the coffin.

Betty is convinced her sister's death was not a natural one. Jeremy's aunt opposed the marriage. Her ally against the couple seems to have been Quentin Collins, a suspected werewolf.

Betty turns to Barnabas Collins for help, despite the rumors that he is a vampire. But she does not realize that by doing so, she has placed herself in mortal danger... This story is an homage to Edgar Allan Poe's 1844 short story, The Premature Burial, a text also used in the television series for inspiration.

Marilyn Ross is the pseudonym for William Edward Daniel "W.E.D." Ross (November 16, 1912 - November 1, 1995) was a Canadian actor, playwright and bestselling writer of more than 300 novels in a variety of genres. He was known for the speed of his writing and was by some estimates the most prolific Canadian author ever, though he did not take up fiction until middle age.

He wrote popular romances and gothic fiction as W. E. D. Ross and Dan Ross and under a variety of mostly female pseudonyms. As Marilyn Ross, he wrote popular gothic fiction including a series of novels about the tormented vampire, Barnabas Collins, based on the American TV series Dark Shadows (1966-71). His second wife, Marilyn, served as first reader of his works, and "Marilyn Ross" was one of his favorite pseudonyms.