In a glass darkly

Sheridan Le Fanu

In a Glass Darkly collects together five short stories from gothic horror and mystery writer Sheridan Le Fanu. The book, published in 1872 a year before Le Fanu's death, is named from a passage in Corinthians which speaks of humankind perceiving the world "through a glass darkly." The stories are told from the posthumous writings of an occult detective named Dr Martin Hesselius. In Green Tea a clergyman is being driven mad by an evil demon that takes the ephemeral form of a monkey, but is unseen by others as it burdens the victim's mind with psychological torment. In The Familiar, revised from Le Fanu's The Watcher of 1851, a sea captain is stalked by a dwarf, "The Watcher." Is this strange character from captain's past? In Mr Justice Harbottle a merciless court judge is attacked by vengeful spirits, dreaming he is sentenced to death by a horrific version of himself. The story was...