The Mysterious Lodger: Further Strange Disturbances – Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (Tartarus Press)

Description

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873) was one of the masters of Victorian supernatural fiction, and he 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.

Following the publication of Some Strange Disturbances, this com­pan­ion volume gathers the remainder of Le Fanu’s most celebrated works, including his miniature Gothic novel ‘Spalatro’, and an additional Gothic gem, ‘Borrhomeo the Astrologer’. But Le Fanu was equally effective in shorter fiction, and we are able to present the linked tales in ‘Ghost Stories of Chapelizod’ as well as ‘Stories of Lough Guir’.

By turns eerie, melancholic, and profoundly disturbing, these stories showcase a writer at the height of his imaginative powers. Whether exploring haunted landscapes or troubled minds, Le Fanu draws us inexorably into realms where the past refuses to rest and the unseen presses ever closer to the living.

Contents: ‘Introduction’, ‘The Ghost and the Bone-Setter’, ‘The Drunkard’s Dream’, ‘Spalatro’, ‘The Mysterious Lodger’, ‘Ghost Stories of Chapelizod’, ‘The Village Bully’,   ‘The Sexton’s Adventure’, ‘The Spectre Lovers’, ‘Borrhomeo the Astrologer’, ‘The White Cat of Drumgunniol’, ‘Stories of Lough Guir’, ‘Madam Crowl’s Ghost’, ‘The Dead Sexton’, ‘Sir Dominick’s Bargain’, ‘Dickon the Devil’, ‘Laura Silver Bell’, Appendix: An Authentic Narrative of a Haunted House’.