Editor Bleiler gives us ghost stories and only ghost stories, no gothic mysteries or natural explanations here, by the first great master of the English ghost story. Mostly good, some great, there is one "essay" and an excerpted chapter from The House by the Churchyard. Culled from The Purcell Papers, In a Glass Darkly, and Madame Crowl's Ghost, the bizarre and aimless Haunted Baronet novella is also included.

Despite its purported health benefits, one should moderate the consumption of Green Tea. ( )

This is a creepy, interesting collection of Victorian ghost stories. Actually, some of them I would call horror more than ghost stories. LeFanu did some interesting things with elements now familiar to readers. I guess in his time, he was quite revolutionary. He created quite a chilling atmosphere in his stories.

It appears that he liked to connect his stories, and even re-use elements. Several are set in the same village; several are case histories from a particular doctor who delves into the supernatural; and the better part of one chapter of the novella The Haunted Baronet uses a significant portion of an earlier short story, with little change in plot -- though the names are changed (to protect the innocent?). Two of the stories seem to show the same haunting from two different points of view (one, a horror story mostly about how the haunting got started; another, the experiences of later residents of the haunted house.)

It didn't keep me on the edge of my seat, or cause me to lose sleep (more than I normally miss, anyway), but it was a nice, creepy read for Halloween season. ( )