In a Glass Darkly (1872)

This collection of stories was a quick, fun read. It is framed as if the stories were actually case studies found in the papers of an occult doctor.

"Green Tea" was the most disappointing story. In this instance, the Doctor relayed the incidents in letters to a friend, adding another degree of separation between the reader and the individual experiencing a horrific visitation, resulting in a ho-hum story.

"The Familiar" was sufficiently creepy with excellent pacing & ratcheting of suspense.

"Mr Justice Harbottle" is admirable, even though I personally didn't care for the story.

"The Room in the Dragon Volant" with its elements of an Englishman abroad, a damsel in distress, poison, mysterious disappearances, and (some) predicable plot twists was delightful.

And the collection concludes with "Carmilla", the vampire story that was to greatly influence Bram Stoker, and furthermore, contains quite possibly the first lesbian vampire. ( )

a good collection of stories though not quite as horrifying as I expected. The first one, with the haunting monkey, was the weakest; I thoroughly enjoyed the intrigue of the Dragon Volant, not really knowing where it was leading, and the last one, Carmilla, was quite sensual though it finished too abruptly, as many vampire stories do. ( )

A collection of gothic short stories taken from a "collection" of papers and reports from Dr Martin Hesselius, who had fascination with "metaphysical medicine".
The stories are well written and engaging. ( )

In a Glass Darkly is made up of five short stories (although "Dragon Volant" is long enough to be classified as a novella) that are a mix of ghost stories, horror, mystery and fantastic. Each story is a little stranger than the last which makes for the perfect Halloween-time read especially with the lights dimmed low. The book ends with the short story "Carmilla" about a lesbian vampire who needs more than victims to survive. "Carmilla" appears to have the most success out of all the short stories, prompting other authors to write similar vampire stories with greater success. ( )

In a Glass Darkly is actually a collection of short (and one longish) stories written by Sheridan Le Fanu. The subjects of the stories are hardly related except that they all are improbable. Some are rooted in the supernatural, others in the evil of men's hearts.

The first three stories, Green Tea, The Familiar and Mr. Justice Harbottle, were the most similar. Each dealt with someone plagued with madness though the sources of the madness were debatable. In one case, guilt was suspected though it could have been a ghost. In another story, the culprit may have been too much green tea. These were good solid Victorian stories of the supernatural though none of them were mind-blowing.

The fourth story in the book was the longest and was an adventure story with human villains. The Room in the Dragon Volant was maddening in the way of Victorian stories where the reader is far more sophisticated than the trusting, naive protagonist. From the start of the story, it was obvious what mistakes young Richard made when traveling to France. However, he is also our narrator and so we could assume that everything worked out for him somewhat in the end -- though one starts to worry when the premature burial scene comes around! Yet, by the end of this story, it was my favorite of the book.

The final story, Carmilla was shorter than the previous one but also pretty long for a short story. This was again another kind of story, one that I wasn't expecting after the other four -- a lesbian vampire story. I liked this story until it got toward the end when the situation was pretty obvious but again our oblivious young narrator and protagonist can't put together the clues that are spoken right at her. For some reason, it was a bit more maddening than in the previous story. However, I found it interesting that Carmilla was written in 1872-- twenty-five years before Dracula --and was a major influence on the classic vampire story.

http://webereading.com/2009/10/though-carefully-educated-in-medicine.html ( )