This book collects more than a dozen stories by the 19th-century Irish writer Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. None of the individual stories are published here for the first time, and I suspect that most or even all of them are available for free online. The apparatus of this edition is limited to a table of contents, an appended single-paragraph "Note About the Author" and a similarly short self-promotional "Note from the Publisher." Just two of the stories have leading editorial notes (227, 255) with a modicum of bibliographic information, but these notes are unsigned and the collection credits no editor. Publisher Mint Editions instead credits a "Project Manager." The book is a glue-bound hardcover, comfortable in the hand, not ugly, fabricated through a print-on-demand process. I certainly found it more pleasant to read than I would have to scroll through the text on a screen.

The stories are good. More than half of them are set in Ireland, and nearly all of them involve the supernatural. Although the note to "Stories of Lough Guir" says, "It differs from the other stories in this volume in being apparently a record of stories actually told to Le Fanu and not invented by him" (255), many of the other tales have a very strong aroma of the folkloric, especially the ones about menacing fairies and those ghost stories that lack a moralizing agenda. Even the many vivid Gothic fictional tropes concerning old houses and cursed families are typically hedged about with documentary conceits, including imputed sources and variant tellings.

Le Fanu's strong influence on writers like Bram Stoker and M. R. James makes many of his techniques seem familiar to readers of older horror fiction, but he was doing this work earlier and every bit as well. This collection does not include the tales for which he is most famous, but they are a solid assortment nonetheless. ( )

Le Fanu's work is in the public domain and is widely available, both through free literature sites like Project Gutenberg and through other publishers, so this review strictly concerns the actual, physical Mint Edition publication, rather than the merits of Le Fanu overall.

Speaking as a fan, it's nice to have a hardcover collection of Le Fanu's work, and this one is of decent quality, (with some caveats*). That aside, there isn't all that much to recommend about this particular book. It seems to be part of a series of classics reprinted in minimalist hardcover, and a set of them would no doubt look impressive on a bookshelf. Within the book itself, however, there is nothing that really makes this edition stand out - no annotations, no introduction, little insight into the author himself, etc. Essentially, this is a handsome volume of short stories devoid of context. If you're already an established Le Fanu reader, this is likely fine, but I would recommend that those who are new to the author's work begin elsewhere, (perhaps Dover's Best Ghost Stories of J.S. Le Fanu, which includes an introduction, sources, and arguably his most famous story, "Carmilla").

[* This is obviously a matter of personal taste, but I find the covers of this series to be extremely generic and textbook-esque, and would much prefer cover art that actually reflected the books' contents in some way. Also, the page margins are weirdly narrow, especially at the top of the page, and it gives the layout sort of an overstuffed, sloppy look, but again, this is all down to personal aesthetics; your mileage may vary.] ( )

This Early Reviewers work features an author who died nearly 150 years ago so I will focus on the edition. It reminds me of a self-published Amazon book. The type-face is small. No introduction. The very first page isn't glued correctly, and the second is almost a split book block. I have to hold down both sides when reading or else it closes itself--not to mention it opens crookedly. If a publisher is going to market itself as "proud that our books are never manufactured in excess and exist only in the exact quantity they need to be read and enjoyed" it should be proud of its quality, too. Especially with a $19.99 price tag.

This collection of the author's lesser-known short stories is my first encounter with the author.

The stories are as follows:
1. An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street
2. A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family
3. An Authentic Narrative of a Haunted House
4. The Child That Went with the Fairies
5. The Drunkard’s Dream
6. The Fortunes of Sir Robert Ardagh
7. The Murdered Cousin
8. The Mysterious Lodger
9. The Phantom Fourth
10. Sir Dominick’s Bargain: A Legend of Dunoran
11. The Spectre Lovers
12. Squire Toby’s Will: A Ghost Story
13. Stories of Lough Guir
14. Schalken the Painter
15. The Vision of Tom Chuff

The stories can be quite imaginative, featuring keen observations on human nature and twists that I don’t think have been imitated elsewhere. But they are often plagued by plodding prose and an inability to stick the landing. A bunch of them are basically “We stayed at this house, there was this weird guy there, then we left and never saw him again.” It’s as if the author was still figuring out how to write horror, and perhaps he was.

Of all the stories, the one I really liked was “The Murdered Cousin.” It’s a suspenseful and surprising tale of the abuse and gaslighting of women, made possible by the servile roles they are assigned in society. “The Mysterious Lodger” and “Squire Toby’s Will” aren’t bad, either. “The Phantom Fourth” could be the basis of a good horror-comedy film. The rest of the stories range from average to cabbage. ( )

The book offered is a reprint of 15 stories of Le Fanu's originally published in magazines in the 19th century, First some comments about the stories, then about the new collection.

Le Fanu is one of the classic Gothic authors who played with folk stories, ghosts, and the supernatural to fantastic effect. If you enjoy this sort of thing (and I do!), this is a great look at his work. Highly recommended for fans of the genre.

Mint is putting together collections of classic authors, of which this volume is one of their catalog. The book itself is nicely printed, with good text and an attractive cover. As an effort at an attractive book, they've succeeded pretty well. My only wish is that the publisher had included more information about the original publications, as clearly there were differences in the maturity of the writing across the stories. ( )