The Short Fiction of J. Sheridan Le Fanu

Gathered here is the shorter supernatural work of one of the great Victorian masters of dread. Le Fanu preferred suggestion to spectacle, and these tales build their horror through slow guilt, frayed nerves, and the sense that something has quietly gone wrong with the world. The collection draws on his celebrated In a Glass Darkly sequence, including ‘Green Tea,’ in which a clergyman is hounded by a spectral monkey, ‘The Familiar,’ ‘Mr. Justice Harbottle,’ and the vampire story ‘Carmilla,’ which appeared a full quarter century before Dracula. Several are framed as case notes from the occult physician Dr. Martin Hesselius. Precise, unsettling, and deeply influential on later writers such as M. R. James. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available to download.