The setting of The Black Fox is an English cathedral close of the eighteen seventies. Here Thorocton is a Canon--an ambitious scholar and orientalist who despises one of his colleagues and fears another. When Canon Simpkins wins preferement over him his resentment is so great that partly to resolve his hatred he looks up an ancient Arabic formula for destroying one's enemy. What follows his brief ritualistic act gives this story its name and dark pattern. how a superior force, available to the pure in heart, counteracts the murderous black magic