Roads is a short novel by author Seabury Quinn

Seabury Quinn

Seabury Grandin Quinn was an American pulp magazine author, most famous for his stories of the occult detective Jules de Grandin, published in Weird Tales.-Biography:...

. It was published by Arkham House

Arkham House

Arkham House is a publishing house specializing in weird fiction founded in Sauk City, Wisconsin in 1939 by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei to preserve in hardcover the best fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. The company's name is derived from Lovecraft's fictional New England city, Arkham. Arkham House...

 in 1948

1948 in literature

The year 1948 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:* The Pulitzer Prize for the Novel is renamed the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction....

 in an edition of 2,137 copies. It was Arkham House's first illustrated book and the author's first hardcover.

The story, in an unrevised edition, originally appeared in the January 1938 issue of Weird Tales

Weird Tales

Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. It ceased its original run in September 1954, after 279 issues, but has since been revived. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J. C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre....

magazine.

Roads is a Christmas

Christmas

Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

 story that traces the origins of Santa Claus

Santa Claus

Santa Claus is a folklore figure in various cultures who distributes gifts to children, normally on Christmas Eve. Each name is a variation of Saint Nicholas, but refers to Santa Claus...

 from the beginning of the Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

era.

The story is split into three parts:

• "The Road to Bethlehem"
• "The Road to Calvary"
• "The Long, Long Road"

Roads was reissued in 2005 by Red Jacket Press, as a fully authorized facsimile reproduction of the original Arkham House edition.