The Tree of Heaven is a collection of short stories by Robert W. Chambers, author of The King in Yellow, The Maker of Moons, and The Mystery of Choice. Mostly set in New York with a snowy nocturnal backdrop, the stories are light and humorous romantic tales, several of which feature the weird. Contents "The Carpet of Belshazzar" "The Sign of Venus" "The Case of Mr. Helmer" "The Tree of Dreams" "The Bridal Pair" "Ex Curia" "The Golden Pool" "Out of the Depths" "The Swastika" "The Ghost of Chance" Austin Corbin (July 11, 1827 - June 4, 1896) was a 19th-century American railroad executive and robber baron. He consolidated the rail lines on Long Island bringing them under the profitable umbrella of the Long Island Rail Road. He was the owner of Manhattan Beach, a resort in Brooklyn, New York City, from which he barred Jews. He was also the owner of the Sunnyside Plantation in Chicot County, Arkansas from 1886 to his death in 1896, where he used convict laborers and later brought Italian immigrants to work on the land... Robert William Chambers (May 26, 1865 - December 16, 1933) was an American artist and fiction writer, best known for his book of short stories entitled The King in Yellow, published in 1895.He was born in Brooklyn, New York, to William P. Chambers (1827-1911), a corporate and bankruptcy lawyer, and Caroline Smith Boughton (1842-1913). His parents met when Caroline was twelve years old and William P. was interning with her father, Joseph Boughton, a prominent corporate lawyer. Eventually the two formed the law firm of Chambers and Boughton which continued to prosper even after Joseph's death in 1861. Robert's great-grandfather, William Chambers (birth unknown), a lieutenant in the British Royal Navy, was married to Amelia Saunders, (1765-1822), the great grand daughter of Tobias Saunders, of Westerly, Rhode Island. The couple moved from Westerly, to Greenfield, Massachusetts and then to Galway, New York, where their son, also William Chambers, (1798-1874) was born. The second William graduated from Union College at the age of 18, and then went to a college in Boston, where he studied to be a doctor. Upon graduating, he and his wife, Eliza P. Allen (1793-1880), a direct descendant of Roger Williams, the founder of Providence, Rhode Island were among the first settlers of Broadalbin, New York. His brother was architect Walter Boughton Chambers. Robert was first educated at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute, and then entered the Art Students' League at around the age of twenty, where the artist Charles Dana Gibson was his fellow student. Chambers studied at the École des Beaux-Arts, and at Académie Julian, in Paris from 1886 to 1893, and his work was displayed at the Salon as early as 1889. On his return to New York, he succeeded in selling his illustrations to Life, Truth, and Vogue magazines. Then, for reasons unclear, he devoted his time to writing, producing his first novel, In the Quarter (written in 1887 in Munich). His most famous, and perhaps most meritorious, effort is The King in Yellow, a collection of Art Nouveau short stories published in 1895. This included several famous weird short stories which are connected by the theme of a fictitious drama of the same title, which drives those who read it insane.E. F. Bleiler described The King in Yellow as one of the most important works of American supernatural fiction.It was also strongly admired by H. P. Lovecraft and his circle....