Visible and Invisible - Benson, E F

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Résumé :

Benson's second 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. (Bill Kerwin)