In A Glass Darkly – Le Fanu Joseph Sheridan (2007)

With an Introduction by David Stuart Davies. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873) was one of the great masters of Victorian mystery and horror fiction, and can be regarded as the father of the modern ghost story. In a Glass Darkly (1872), one of his most celebrated volumes, purports to be the casebook of Dr Hesselius, a pioneer psychologist. These five tales represent some of Le Fanu's most accomplished work, which rises above the staid conventions of the age. Although drawing on Gothic conventions - the book features both ghosts and vampires - Le Fanu redefined the parameters of supernatural fiction. He had little interest in the crude depiction of otherworldly phenomena in order to provide the reader with a pleasurable frisson of fear. Le Fanu's concern rather lay in the examination of the results of supernatural experience on the psyche of his protagonist; in this, he paved the way for the work of Henry James and M. R. James. This volume is an indispensable cornerstone of modern horror and remains one of the finest collections of unsettling fiction in the language.