Visible and Invisible

Visible and Invisible is an entertaining collection of supernatural tales from E. F. Benson. His writing is surprisingly readable, and his stories are both vivid and haunting.

It is a collection of ghost stories contains three powerful tales featuring the type of "spectres" that Benson seems to have been most haunted by: large ("Junonian," as he might say), attractive, cheerful, outgoing, middle-aged women. In "The Outcast" she is a reincarnation of Judas, in "Inscrutable Decrees" she is an emotional sadist and a murderer by omission, and in "Mrs. Amworth"--one of the best supernatural tales ever written--she is a conventional but nevertheless terrifying vampire.

There are other good tales here too, particularly "Negotium Perambulans" (featuring a giant slug acting as an instrument of divine vengeance) and "Roderick's Story," that rare tale about a benign haunting that still produces a shiver and the consciousness of a world beyond. 


Contents    
"And the dead spake----" -- The outcast -- The Horror-horn -- Machaon -- Negotium perambulans -- At the farmhouse -- Inscrutable decrees -- The gardener -- Mr. Tilly's séance -- Mrs. Amworth -- In the tube -- Roderick's story.