In a Glass Darkly
Ratings10
Average rating3.9
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 revised from 1853's An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street. In The Room in the Dragon Volant, a notable mystery which includes a premature burial theme, an innocent young Englishman in France tries to rescue a mysterious countess from her unbearable situation. Lastly, Carmilla tells the tale of a lesbian vampire. It was a huge influence on Bram Stoker's writing of Dracula and the basis for the films Vampyr in 1932 and The Vampire Lovers in 1970.
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Maybe a bit closer to 3.5 stars. This was entertaining enough, although I feel like Edgar Allan Poe had better ghost stories from this period.
The first two stories, “The Green Tea” and “The Familiar”, had very similar themes and in fact made me wonder whether it was a progenitor to describing schizophrenia, what with the central figure in each story suffering from persecution mania, hearing voices and seeing entities. This was more so in “The Green Tea”, where the protagonist's persecutor is invisible to everyone else, not the case in “The Familiar”. Even the third story, “The Justice of Harbottle”, felt a bit to do with hallucinations driven by a guilty conscience.
The last two stories were markedly different, and therefore more interesting. “The Room in the Dragon Volant” read more like a thriller and a mystery rather than a ghost story per se. Kinda felt almost a bit like The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe or even in some parts like The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. The most famous story in the collection has got to be “Carmilla”, however, which is well known for having inspired Bram Stoker when he was writing Dracula. It deals with a vampire legend and shares a lot of similarities to Stoker's later work. Being a short story, it's also got a lot less suspense. What struck me the most about “Carmilla” was how much same-sex undercurrents it seemed to have, whether intended or not by Le Fanu. I know the standards for displays of affection between women back then were quite different, but I do believe the extent to which it happens here is beyond the norm, which was also remarked upon numerous times by the protagonist herself.
Overall worth reading if you're into Gothic horrors, but imo I don't think any of these will really haunt me for long.
Overall a great read—some of the stories actually had me a little spooked when I found myself out alone late at night, which is quite the accomplishment. As I've been focusing on the GRE lately, I also couldn't help but notice the significant amount of GRE vocab in these stories, so it's an excellent read for anyone studying for the verbal! Carmilla is, of course, certainly the best short story in the collection, but the others hold their own perfectly well and should not be overlooked.
