As well as selecting the stories, James also provided an introductory note, a bibliography and a brief bibliographic introduction to each story in the collection. James, upon whose fiction Le Fanu was a great influence. Three stars out of five.This is a posthumous collection of ghost stories by Sheridan Le Fanu which, at the time of publication, remained uncollected since their original appearance in various Victorian periodicals, most notably the Dublin University Magazine and Charles Dickens’s All the Year Round.
I read this as my spooky Halloween entry for the Fall into Reading Challenge. Over all, a pleasant read as I head into October and Halloween season. And the final twist at the end of the story is nicely done. The descriptions serve the story well and, unlike some of the stories which appear later in the book (but were written earlier), do not go on forever and bore the reader with too much of a good thing. The best of the lot is the title story, "Madam Crowl's Ghost." It is the longest and the best thought out. Meant to make you just a little bit uncomfortable, but not enough to give you the screaming heebie-jeebies and prevent sleep. Some of the stories (for instance, "Dickon the Devil" and "The Vision of Tom Chuff") remind me of ghost stories told around the camp fire or at sleep-overs. Perfect for snuggling under the covers late at night and giving oneself a mild case of the shivers. But for those of us who aren't looking for truly horrific ghost stories, these are just right. This collection of ghost stories, originally written in the mid- to late-1800s is a bit verbose and slightly dated and the work is a bit uneven. When Harriet returns to Oxford to help track down a poison pen in Gaudy Night, she uses research into Le Fanu's writings as a plausible cover for her return to college. I first learned about Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu through Harriet Vane, the detective novelist love interest for Lord Peter Wimsey in Dorothy L Sayers' mystery stories.
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