J. Sheridan Le Fanu

One of the most significant and intriguing Gothic novels of the Victorian period and is enjoyed today as a modern psychological thriller. In UNCLE SILAS (1864) Le Fanu brought up to date Mrs Radcliffe's earlier tales of virtue imprisoned and menaced by unscrupulous schemers. The narrator, Maud Ruthyn, is a 17 year old orphan left in the care of her fearful uncle, Silas. The novel established Le Fanu as a master of horror fiction.

Here are 16 classic ghost stories: "Carmilla" (perhaps the classic vampire thriller), "Green Tea", "The Familiar", "The Haunted Baronet", "Madam Crowl's Ghost", "The Dead Sexton", "An Authentic Narrative of a Haunted House" plus nine others. Half these stories never published before in U.S.

This remarkable collection of stories, first published in 1872, includes Green Tea, The Familiar, Mr. Justice Harbottle, The Room in the Dragon Volant, and Carmilla. The five stories are purported to be cases by Dr. Hesselius, a 'metaphysical' doctor, who is willing to consider the ghosts both as real and as hallucinatory obsessions. The reader's doubtful anxiety mimics that of the protagonist, and each story thus creates that atmosphere of mystery which is the supernatural experience. This new annotated edition includes an introduction, notes on the text, and explanatory notes. NB: The Familiar is a revision of The Watcher; Mr. Justice Harbottle is a revision of An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street.

With a word of warning to those of nervous a disposition, Wordsworth presents this spellbinding collection of chilling Celtic tales of the macabre, all drawn from the rich and varied literary tradition of a culture long enchanted by things supernatural, 'a land where ghosts and ghost-seers are so common'. Featuring the imaginative writing of such towering masters of the genre as Sheridan Le Fanu, Bram Stoker, Patrick Kennedy, Thomas Crofton Croker and George Moore, this volume of ghoulish masterpieces from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is an encapsulation of the arcane lore, magical landscape and fantastic creativity of the Irish. Don't attempt to read these horrifying tales alone in an empty house. Your blood will run cold as the unreal becomes real and the impossible all too possible. Indelible images will possess your imagination and haunt your dreams. Make sure all the lights are on and the doors are bolted.

Green Tea and Other Ghost Stories

FINALIST: The Audie Awards 2016 Audible Originals brings you a brand new audiobook adaptation of J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s classic gothic novella, Carmilla - starring Rose Leslie (Game of Thrones and Downton Abbey), David Tennant (Doctor Who and Broadchurch) and Phoebe Fox (Life in Squares and The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death). One of the very first vampire thrillers, this audio adaptation follows 18-year-old Laura as she recounts the story of her mysterious, intriguing and beautiful house guest Carmilla, who is stranded in the forest after a carriage accident and taken in by Laura’s widowed father. The girls develop a friendship which turns into a passionate meeting of souls. A relationship of vampire and prey, the story is told through Laura’s eyes as she is drawn further into Carmilla’s terrifying world of pleasure and pain. A masterpiece of erotic Gothic horror, Carmilla encompasses mystery, suspense, forbidden lust, violence...and lots of blood.... Carmilla has been dramatised by Robin Brooks, an actor, dramatist and author who has been working as a playwright for over 25 years. Carmilla was directed by Fiona McAlpine of Allegra Productions for Audible Originals. Key cast: Carmilla - Phoebe Fox Laura - Rose Leslie Dr Hesselius - David Tennant Father - James Wilby Runtime: 2 hours, 22 minutes.

I racconti qui presentati, "Tè verde", "Il giudice Harbottle" e "Carmilla", appartengono alla raccolta "In a Glass Darkly". Composti in momenti differenti e pubblicati su varie riviste e poi riuniti nel 1872, i singoli racconti, benché diversissime siano le storie ivi riportate, possono essere considerati parti di un’unica narrazione, fatta di oscure risonanze e di sinistri riflessi. Elemento esterno unificante è la figura-cornice del Dottor Hesselius, medico, psicologo, mistico e metafisico tedesco, primo “detective dell’occulto” della letteratura europea. Con questi racconti, Le Fanu ci invita a guardare nello specchio del reale con la consapevolezza che quanto vedremo non sarà la verità, ma una sua ombra confusa, il riflesso baluginante di qualcosa che sfugge al controllo della ragione. "Tè verde" (1869) è la storia del reverendo Jennings che, dopo la lettura di "certi volumi antichi, inconsueti, edizioni tedesche di testi in latino medievale", mentre torna a casa con l’omnibus, vede comparire una misteriosa scimmia, che da quel momento in poi, tra improvvise sparizioni e scoraggianti ricomparse, continuerà a seguirlo fissandolo con languore maligno. "Il giudice Harbottle" (1872) è il funesto racconto della nemesi piombata su Mr Harbottle, uomo malvagio e corrotto, culminante nell’onirica condanna a morte dello stesso da parte del giudice capo Twofold (letteralmente "Doppione"). "Carmilla", infine, il più famoso dei racconti di Le Fanu, narra le astuzie e i languori della vampira Carmilla.

Los cuentos seleccionados para esta compilación pertenecen a lo más selecto de la literatura fantástica y de terror de su momento, y todos nos muestran una interpretación vampírica diferente como epicentro de sus historias. Carmilla, de Sheridan Le Fanu; El Vampiro de John Polidori, La Dama Pálida, de Alexandre Dumas; Un extraño suceso en la vida de Schalken, el pintor, de Sheridan Le Fanu; El Conde Magnus, de M.R. James; La transferencia, de Algernon Blackwood; Porque la sangre es la vida, de Francis Marion Crawford y Berenice, de Edgar Allan Poe, componen estas páginas y nos pintan una visión macabra del amor, de la envidia, la locura y de toda la gama de emociones humanas y otras no tanto.

Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu (28 August 1814 – 7 February 1873) was an Irish writer of Gothic tales and mystery novels. He was the premier ghost story writer of the nineteenth century and had a seminal influence on the development of this genre in the Victorian era.

The letter from the rich cousin came at a low point in the Marston family's finances. The man was as ill-bred and pushing as ever: utterly the model of a noxious relation -- but he was rich, and the Marstons were all but destitute. The family could hardly refuse him. But they would come to rue that letter, and the invitation that followed it; it was the beginning of the end for all of them. Of course it was! Common sense tells us not to take on . . . THE EVIL GUEST(Jacketless library hardcover.)

"A short . . . but most masterly story, [with] The Room in the Dragon Volant, he touched the springs of terror and suspense, as perhaps no other writer of fiction in the language has been able to do. His fine scholarship, poetic sense, and strong, yet delicate handling of language and of incident give these tales a place quite apart among works of sensational fiction. --THE CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE "The immobilized consciousness of young Beckett in 'The Room in the Dragon Volant' should be read as the counterpart of a lascivious and protean immortality in 'Carmilla'." -- J.W. McCormack

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu is best known today as one of the Victorian period s leading exponents of supernatural fiction, and was described by M.R. James as standing absolutely in the first rank as a writer of ghost stories. The House by the Churchyard is perhaps his best novel in this genre. Set in the village of Chapelizod, near Dublin, in the 1760s the story opens with the accidental disinterment of an old skull in the churchyard, and an eerie late-night funeral. This discovery relates to murders, both recent and historical whose repercussions disrupt the complacent pace of village affairs and change the lives of many of its notable characters forever. Charm and chilling darkness abound in equal measure in one of the greatest novels of a Victorian master of mystery.

In an isolated castle deep in the Austrian forest, Laura leads a solitary life with only her ailing father for company. Until one moonlit night, a horse-drawn carriage crashes into view, carrying an unexpected guest – the beautiful Carmilla. So begins a feverish friendship between Laura and her mysterious, entrancing companion. But as Carmilla becomes increasingly strange and volatile, prone to eerie nocturnal wanderings, Laura finds herself tormented by nightmares and growing weaker by the day… Pre-dating Dracula by twenty-six years, Carmilla is the original vampire story, steeped in sexual tension and gothic romance.