In a Glass Darkly

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873) was one of the great masters of Victorian of 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 other worldly phenomena in order to provide the reader with a pleasurable frisson of fear. Le Fanu 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.

ISBN 1840225521   Pages 288 ISBN13 9781840225525 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 204 Publisher Wordsworth Editions Ltd   Published in Herts Imprint Wordsworth Editions Ltd   Series title Tales of Mystery & the Supernatural Format Paperback   Previous ISBN 9781853262654 Publication date 05 Aug 2007   Height (mm) 198 Writer of introduction David Stuart Davies   Width (mm) 129 DEWEY 823.8   Spine width (mm) 15 DEWEY edition DC21   Academic level General

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