Other characters with the surname Harris appear or are referenced in "The Villager", "The Renegade", "Flower Garden", "A Fine Old Firm" and "Seven Types of Ambiguity."

The collection also contains a short excerpt from the traditional ballad "The Daemon Lover", in which the title character's name is James Harris.

[1] The second, third, and fourth sections are prefaced by quotations from Saducismus Triumphatus, a 17th century book about witchcraft, by Joseph Glanvill.

Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas praised the volume as "a brilliant collection of naturalistic glimpses of a world with terrifying holes in it.

"[2] Reappraising the book in 2011 for The Guardian, Stephanie Cross wrote: The title story might be the one for which Shirley Jackson is famed but, as this volume suggests, it was not entirely typical of her oeuvre.