The Gothic Tales of Sheridan Le Fanu

This collection of eight lesser-known works from Le Fanu (1814–1873), most famous for his ground-breaking homoerotic vampire story Carmilla, showcases the author’s mastery of gothic atmosphere, mystery plots, and ghost stories. Highlights include “Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess,” a suspenseful epistolary mystery about a murder in a locked room; “Schalken the Painter,” a ghost story about a painter’s doomed love in 17th-century Netherlands; and “Madam Crowl’s Ghost,” in which an old woman recounts the story of visiting her aunt’s house as a 13-year-old girl and encountering a ghost. Le Fanu uses his intelligent prose and extraordinary depictions of landscape to create a palpable sense of dread (“The road strikes through a desolate and heathy flat, sloping up distantly at either side into bleak, undulatory hills, in whose monotonous sweep the imagination beholds the heaving of some dark, sluggish sea”). Fans of gothic and supernatural literature will appreciate the reappearance of Le Fanu on their bookshelves. [em](Mar.) [/em]