In which the narrator is visited by the Devil of Discontent, who leads him to a fantastical Limbo where all the literary Characters—those creations of printed stories—reside in a vast and curious realm, awaiting their authors. Here, amid the flickering fires of the Furnace of First Edition and a throng of imperfect and independent figures, the nature of literary creation and its peculiar afterlife is wryly and vividly explored.