Set in the indeterminate past, these sensually charged stories are concerned with obsessive love, often given a macabre or supernatural twist.
Throughout the following stories and sketches — scantily in part, and, it is feared, obscurely, through symbolism — there may be traced the inception, growth, strength, awaywardness and maturity of its physical manhood, culminating in self-knowledge and abnegation.
Hidden Witchery was published in 1898 an edition of 450 copies by Leonard Smithers, with illustrations by Will G. Mein.
A review in The Outlook commented: "'Nigel Tourneur,' the author of 'Hidden Witchery' (Smithers), the latest contribution to symbolistic literature, is a Scot, and a literary critic of advanced and independent views.
He calls 'Hidden Witchery' a 'tentative' book, and there seems little doubt that the writer's undoubted power will sooner or later find a very different artistic outlet.