Although the tales in this collection are dated, they do comprise the definitive origins of unsettling fiction.
The stories are listed as case studies of a Dr Hesselsius who was in fact the inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Van Helsing.
My favourite story was the Novella The Room at the Dragon Volant. It isn’t a horror story but it is a suffocating descent into a trap that the protagonist blindly wanders into for the love of a mysterious woman. Probably one of the original ‘con’ stories and quite a clever mystery.
Carmilla, the final story in the collection was a little contrived—the protagonist lives in a castle in the woods, but it is however quite creepy and being one of the earliest Vampire stories, it was an inspiration, again, to Bram Stoker.
If you enjoy the Gothic style of horror then this is definitely worth a read.
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