 His French wife Denise also appears in most of the tales.Two stories ("Balsamo's Mirror" and "Far Babylon") feature characters recognizable as real-life authors H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, though neither is actually named.In two of the stories ("Darius" and "The Huns") de Camp reuses the characters of Henri Michod, Virgil Hathaway and Charlie Catfish, who originally appeared in his early stories "The Hardwood Pile" (1940) and "The Reluctant Shaman" (1947), set in the fictional town of Gahato in upstate New York.