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Title: In a Glass Darkly (Oxford World's Classics) by Sheridan Le Fanu, Robert Tracy, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu ISBN: 0-19-283947-0 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: September, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (3 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Great stories!
Comment: I disagree with the previous reviewer. I thought "The Room at the Dragon Volant" was one of the better stories. It was a little longer than it could have been, and yes, you figured out very quickly what was going on, but that didn't negate my enjoyment of it. (In fact, in most of the stories you have an idea of what's going to happen before it happens--like the end of "The Watcher.") You can enjoy it if you put yourself in the place of the (admittedly dorky) protagonist and read it as straight adventure.
"Carmilla" is a classic. I'd be amazed if it didn't provoke an outcry for its frank lesbian content. It must have been shocking at that time.
Rating: 3
Summary: 3 truly chilling tales; 1 eerie rite-of-passage; 1 real bore
Comment: While the likes of Dickens and George Eliot were pretending to be God, diagnosing the ills of society and showing us how to live better, despised sensationalists like Sheridan le Fanu were busy creating modern literature. 'In a Glass Darkly' is a perfect example of this, with its unreliable narrators, fractured narratives, mysteries, ambiguities, terrors, obsession with failures of the mind and body, and disruptive sexualities. There is one story here which is told at five - five! - removes from the original experience, a Chinese whisper a long way from the dogmatic certainties of Dickens. A collection of five stories, linked as the posthoumous papers of a seriously flawed proto-psychologist, the first three are the best, brief, compressed masterpieces of atmosphere and genuine terror: le Fanu may not be a great writer, but some of his visual coups are incomparable, the nightmare visions of 'Lord Justice Harbottle' being particularly vivid. The final tale, 'Carmilla', the collections' most famous, is an extraordinary coming of age tale, in which burgeoning sexuality and fear of the vampiric unknown are inextricably linked in a work of an overt lesbianism unthinkable for its time. The longest story, 'The Room at the Dragon Volant', is barely readable, interminably dragged out, full of deadening padding - there are some excellent scenes, such as the masked ball, but the hero is an unbearably self-regarding idiot, and the 'twist' is obvious to everyone but him after the first couple of pages, that the rest is just a tedious, suspenseless waiting for his dim enlightenment (which, admittedly, is brilliantly done). The introduction by Robert Tracy provdes some good insights into le Fanu's work as expression of national and colonial fears, but, perversely, he seems less interested in the tales' powerful sexual and gender drives.
Rating: 5
Summary: Simply A Must Have - Here's Why...
Comment: In A Glass Darkly is comprised of 5 lengthy short stories that are loosely woven together by the figure of Dr. Martin Hesselius, a "psychic doctor." Three of the five stories, "Green Tea," "Justice Harbottle," and "Carmilla," are classics of the Victorian ghost story genre, and are frequently anthologized. In my opinion, it is best to read them as they originally appeared, along with "The Watcher," and "A Room in the Dragon Volant," because Le Fanu had his reasons for ordering these five tales the way he did. This Oxford edition is better than the cheaper Wordsworth edition, and has great end notes. Also, Robert Tracy's introduction to Le Fanu is very accurate and well said. In conclusion, if you haven't read the first story, "Green Tea," then you don't know the full depths of Victorian horror fiction, and in my opinion, to get the fullest effects of "Green Tea," read "In A Glass Darkly" all the way through. You will not be disappointed--but you will get the shivers!
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Title: Uncle Silas: A Tale of Bartram-Hugh (Penguin Classics) by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Victor Sage ISBN: 0140437460 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 05 June, 2001 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: The Wyvern Mystery by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu ISBN: 0750906871 Publisher: Sutton Publishing Pub. Date: September, 2000 List Price(USD): $10.95 |
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Title: Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin, Douglas Grant, Chris Baldick ISBN: 0192835920 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: September, 1998 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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Title: The Vampyre: And Other Tales of the Macabre by John Polidori, Robert Morrison, Chris Baldick ISBN: 0192838946 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: February, 2001 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins ISBN: 055321263X Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 01 April, 1985 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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