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Forthcoming titles

(Book titles are subject to change)

A Royal Engineer in the Low Countries

A Cavalry Surgeon at Waterloo

With the Third Guards during the Peninsular War

The First and Last Campaigns of the Great War

Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Vincent O'Sullivan

Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Algernon Blackwood

Narratives of the Anglo-Zulu War

and many others

The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Henry James: Volume 4

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The Collected Supernatural and Weird Fiction of Henry James: Volume 4
Leonaur Original
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Author(s): Henry James
Date Published: 2009/12
Page Count: 436
Softcover ISBN-13: 978-0-85706-042-6
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-0-85706-046-4

The final volume of Henry James' stories of the bizarre

Henry James was a notable American author who lived and worked in England for forty years of his life—becoming a nationalised British subject shortly before his death. He is especially remembered for his portrayal of Americans abroad and for the creativity and freedom he displayed within his diverse literary perspectives. His novels remain highly regarded and continually read. Among them are Washington Square, The Bostonians, The Ambassadors and others. In any list of James' notable achievements one title frequently appears first—just as in every list of the most highly regarded supernatural fiction a James work is also certain to appear. That story is, of course, the novella, 'The Turn of the Screw'—a tale of creeping supernatural threat, terror, polluted innocence and inevitable tragedy. It is a deserved classic of supernatural fiction and true to the nature of such things subordinates James's other work in the genre almost to obscurity. Predictably a prolific author who had both a talent for and an interest in the fiction of the bizarre and ghostly would be unlikely to venture into its shadowy realms but once. This special Leonaur collection of Henry James' supernatural fiction fills four substantial volumes for modern readers to relish. A veritable literary feast is in store for those who dare to venture within its pages.
Readers will be enthralled by the strange story of transcended time that is 'The Sense of the Past' together with supporting notes. Joining it here are three novelettes, 'The Jolly Corner,' 'The Wheel of Time' and 'Glasses' and two featured short stories 'The Last of the Valerii' and 'The Way it Came'. This Leonaur collection is available in softcover and hardcover with dust jacket. 

One evening, having bidden my god-daughter goodnight, I started on my usual walk to my lodgings in the Corso. Five minutes after leaving the villa-gate I discovered that I had left my eye-glass—an object in constant use—behind me. I immediately remembered that, while painting, I had broken the string which fastened it round my neck, and had hooked it provisionally upon the twig of a flowering-almond which happened to be near me.<br>
Shortly afterwards I had gathered up my things and retired, unmindful of the glass; and now, as I needed it to read the evening paper at the Caffè Greco, there was no alternative but to retrace my steps and detach it from its twig. I easily found it, and lingered awhile to note the curious night-aspect of the spot I had been studying by daylight. The night was magnificent, and full-charged with the breath of the early Roman spring. The moon was rising fast and flinging her silver checkers into the heavy masses of shadow. Watching her at work, I strolled farther and suddenly came in sight of the casino.<br>
Just then the moon, which for a moment had been concealed, touched with a white ray a small marble figure which adorned the pediment of this rather factitious little structure. The way it leaped into prominence suggested that a rarer spectacle was at hand, and that the same influence must be vastly becoming to the imprisoned Juno. The door of the casino was, as usual, locked, but the moonlight flooded the high-placed windows so generously that my curiosity became obstinate and inventive. I dragged a garden-seat round from the portico, placed it on end, and succeeded in climbing to the top of it and bringing myself abreast of one of the windows.<br>
The casement yielded to my pressure, turned on its hinges, and showed me what I had been looking for—a transfiguration. The beautiful image stood bathed in the cold radiance, shining with a purity that made her convincingly divine. If by day her rich paleness suggested faded gold, she now had a complexion like silver slightly dimmed. The effect was almost terrible; beauty so expressive could hardly be inanimate. This was my foremost observation—I leave you to fancy whether my next was less interesting. At some distance from the foot of the statue, just out of the light, I perceived a figure lying flat on he pavement, prostrate apparently with devotion. I can hardly tell you how it completed the impressiveness of the scene. It marked the shining image as a goddess indeed, and seemed to throw a sort of conscious pride into her stony mask.<br>
Of course, in this recumbent worshipper I immediately recognised the Count, and while I lingered there, as if to help me to read the full meaning of his attitude, the moonlight travelled forward and covered his breast and face. Then I saw that his eyes were closed, and that he was either asleep or swooning. Watching him attentively, I perceived his even respirations, and judged there was no reason for alarm. The moonlight blanched his face, which seemed already pale with weariness. He had come into the presence of the Juno in obedience to that fabulous passion of which the symptoms had given us so much to wonder at, and, exhausted either by compliance or resistance, he had sunk down at her feet in a stupid sleep.<br>
The lunar influence soon roused him, however; he muttered something and raised himself, vaguely staring. Then recognising his situation, he rose and stood for some time gazing fixedly at the brilliant image, with an expression which I suspected was not that of wholly unprotesting devotion. He uttered a string of broken words, of which I was unable to catch the meaning, and then, after another pause and a long, melancholy moan, he turned slowly to the door. As rapidly and noiselessly as possible I descended from my post of vigilance and passed behind the casino, and in a moment I heard the sound of the closing lock and of his departing footsteps.
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