`the ideal reading...for the hours after midnight' Thus Henry James
described the style of supernatural tale of which Sheridan Le Fanu was a
master. Known in nineteenth-century Dublin as `The Invisible Prince'
because of his reclusive and nocturnal habits, Le Fanu was fascinated by
the occult. His writings draw on the Gothic tradition, elements of
Irish folklore, and even on the social and political anxieties of his
Anglo-Irish contemporaries.
In exploring sometimes inexplicable
terrors, the tales focus on the unease of the haunted men and women who
encounter the supernatural, rather than on the origin or purpose of the
visitant. This makes for spine-chilling reading. The five stories
presented here have been collected by Dr Hesselius, a `metaphysical'
doctor, the forerunner of the modern psychiatrist, who is willing to
consider the ghosts both as real and as hallucinatory obsessions.
The reader's doubtful anxiety mimics that of the protagonist, and each
story thus creates that atmosphere of mystery which is the supernatural
experience.
In a Glass Darkly - J.Sheridan Le Fanu
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£7.99