Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #189718 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Customer Reviews

Hauntings and Other Fantastical Tales
The subtlety and depth of Vernon Lee's fantastical stories have long been over-looked and this book should go a long way towards redressing the balance. Often dismissed as a minor writer, Vernon Lee had a wonderfully suggestive style and this collection displays an extensive range of variations on the theme of haunting. In all of the stories, there is a powerful sense of place and this is the keystone when it comes to expressing the ghostly. In Oke of Okehurst there is a tremendous sense of the way the old English house evokes the past and holds its inhabitants within its grip. Other stories are set in Italy, A Wicked voice describes a Venice that reeks of terror and the fictional village in Dionea provides a haunting seascape for the chilling story of a femme fatale. This is a fascinating book for anyone interested in ghost stories and also the history and development of the genre. The book itself is beautifully produced with a suitably mysterious black and white cover and numerous scholarly footnotes conveniently placed at the end of each relevant page. For those interested in going further into the history of Vernon Lee and her place within fin-de-siecle literature, there is a wide range of appendices also included.

Captivating Read
As mentioned in the review above, Vernon Lee is an overlooked Victorian author. Her stories are not only chilling, but provide a facinating insight into Victorian culture, especially gender relations and sexuality. For those thinking of reading this text for academic purposes, I would say that the editors of this text give good footnotes which really enhance the reading of each of the tales. Furthermore, I also found their secondary reading section of immense help.