Publishing under the pseudonym "Sarban," John W. Wall earned a reputation as an author of stylish neo-Gothic fantasy, primarily from his three short novels or novellas, Ringstones (1951), The Sound of His Horn (1952), and The Doll Maker (1953), which is perhaps his masterpiece. Two of these novellas originally appeared in volumes accompanied by a few short stories. He also enjoyed a brief period of commercial success in the early 1960s through paperback reprints of these novellas. This rather limited canon was enough to create a following for Sarban, with the appeal perhaps increased by the mystery surrounding Wall's identity and his use of the intriguing pseudonym; but his failure to capitalize on his initial success and his lack of sustained publication allowed his reputation to fade.

Until the 1980s Sarban's identity was not widely known except to insiders in publishing and book reviewing. He was born John William Wall in...