In a Glass Darkly

Five cases from the papers of Dr Martin Hesselius, physician of the mind, in Le Fanu's complete 1872 collection: Green Tea, in which a clergyman is followed by a monkey nobody else can see; The Familiar, in which a retired naval captain is dogged through Dublin by a small, silent watcher; Mr Justice Harbottle, in which a hanging judge is summoned before a court of his own; The Room in the Dragon Volant, a young Englishman's intrigue in Paris after Waterloo; and Carmilla, the vampire story that came a quarter of a century before Dracula and has never been bettered. Le Fanu was known in Dublin as the Invisible Prince for the seclusion of his last years, writing at night in bed. Interiors, docks and lamplit streets by Hammershøi and Grimshaw run through these pages, 55 plates that hold the quiet, watching mood of the cases.