Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu byl předním irským autorem gotických povídek a detektivních románů 19. století. Jeho dílo je klíčové pro rozvoj žánru duchařských příběhů ve viktoriánské éře. Kritici jej označovali za jednoho z nejlepších autorů v tomto ranku, který mistrně proplétá napětí, atmosféru a nadpřirozené prvky. Jeho inovativní přístup k vyprávění ovlivnil generace spisovatelů hororu a tajemna.
A nobleman strikes an agreement he will soon regret. A drunk man receives a startling vision of life after death. A struggling painter's apprentice falls in love with his master's niece, only to see her given in marriage to an older, wealthier man. Mysterious and Horrific Stories is a collection of Gothic tales by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.
In Styria, we, though by no means magnificent people, inhabit a castle, or schloss. A small income, in that part of the world, goes a great way. Eight or nine hundred a year does wonders. Scantily enough ours would have answered among wealthy people at home. My father is English, and I bear an English name, although I never saw England. But here, in this lonely and primitive place, where everything is so marvelously cheap, I really don't see how ever so much more money would at all materially add to our comforts, or even luxuries.My father was in the Austrian service, and retired upon a pension and his patrimony, and purchased this feudal residence, and the small estate on which it stands, a bargain.Nothing can be more picturesque or solitary.
Reprint of the original, first published in 1865.