Tartarus Press

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Some Strange Disturbances

Selected Ghostly Tales

 

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

 

Edited by Jim Rockhill

 

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873) was one of the masters of Victorian supernatural fiction, who continues to captivate and chill the reader today. Blending psychological unease with spectral dread, Le Fanu’s tales probe the shadows that lurk just beyond the light of your lamp, where reason falters in the shadows and the uncanny takes hold.

 

This volume gathers some of Le Fanu’s most celebrated works, including ‘Schalken the Painter’, a tale of art and obsession; ‘The Watcher’, in which sinister forces prey on guilt and vulnerability; and ‘Some Strange Disturbances in an Old House in Aungier-Street’, a tale of haunting steeped in menace. In ‘Green Tea’, perhaps Le Fanu’s most unsettling story, a clergyman’s mind unravels under the gaze of a demonic monkey, while ‘The Haunted Baronet’ evokes an ancestral curse. Among others, the collection includes ‘Carmilla’, the pioneering vampire novella that prefigured Bram Stoker’s Dracula, weaving together seduction and terror.

 

At once atmospheric and psycho-logically insightful, Le Fanu’s ghost stories are not mere entertainments, but explorations of fear, conscience, and the uncanny forces that taint human experience. This is an essential showcase of the talents of one of the great Gothic storytellers.

 

Contents: ‘Introduction’, ‘The Fortunes of Sir Robert Ardagh’, ‘Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter’, ‘The Watcher’, ‘Some Strange Disturbances in an Old House in Aungier-Street’, ‘Ghost Stories of the Tiled House’, ‘Ultor de Lacy’, ‘Wicked Captain Walshawe, of Wauling’, ‘Squire Toby’s Will’, ‘Green Tea’, ‘The Child That Went With the Fairies’, ‘The Haunted Baronet’, ‘Carmilla’, ‘Mr Justice Harbottle’

 

Review:

"Some of the scariest stories of the 19th century." Michael Dirda, Washington Post