A Stable for Nightmares

About this issue

This 1896 collection contains eleven supernatural and mystery stories by Irish writer J. Sheridan Le Fanu. "Dickon the Devil," the opening tale, follows a solicitor sent to partition an estate near Lancashire's Pendle Forest. He encounters the dilapidated Barwyke Hall, abandoned for twenty years save for a steward's household, and hears of troubling local legends. The narrator glimpses a wild-eyed vagrant called "Dickon the Devil"—an idiot who refuses to sleep indoors, whose exile from the house coincides mysteriously with the squire's death two decades prior. The volume's other tales address varied supernatural themes: "A Debt of Honor," "Devereux's Dream," "Catherine's Quest," "Haunted," "Pichon and Sons of the Croix Rousse," "The Phantom Fourth," "The Spirit's Whisper," "Dr. Feversham's Story," "The Secret of the Two Plaster Casts," and "What Was It?"—a mix of ghostly visitations, psychological mysteries, and atmospheric horror drawn from Le Fanu's established repertoire.