The Watcher and other Weird Stories. With Twenty-One Illustrations by Brinsley Sheridan Le Fanu. London: Downey, [1894]. First Edition. Pp vi, 271 + adverts. Original pictorial cloth depicting owl against a full moon on upper cover and a bat against a motif of silver stars and skulls on lower cover. A nice bright copy.

Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873) was born in Dublin and worked in many genres but remains best known for his mystery and Gothic horror fiction. He was the premier ghost story writer of the nineteenth century and had a seminal influence on the development of this genre in the Victorian era.

Published posthumously ‘The Watcher’ is a classic collection of six of his short stories. Featuring some of Le Fanu’s lesser-known but potent weird fiction, alongside variants of his signature themes—haunted pasts, doppelgängers, and spectral vengeance.

A visually arresting and thematically dark artifact of 19th-century weird fiction. Illustrated by the author’s son & notable for its striking original binding evoking the eerie atmosphere of the stories within.