`the ideal reading...for the hours after midnight' Thus Henry James described the style of
supernatural tale of which Sheridan Le Fanu was a master. Known in nineteenth-century Dublin as
`The Invisible Prince' because of his reclusive and nocturnal habits Le Fanu was fascinated by
the occult. His writings draw on the Gothic tradition elements of Irish folklore and even on
the social and political anxieties of his Anglo-Irish contemporaries. In exploring sometimes
inexplicable terrors the tales focus on the unease of the haunted men and women who encounter
the supernatural rather than on the origin or purpose of the visitant. This makes for
spine-chilling reading. The five stories presented here have been collected by Dr Hesselius a
`metaphysical' doctor the forerunner of the modern psychiatrist 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.
