The Rose and the Key

The foremost teller of scary stories in his day and a profound influence on both the novelists and filmmakers of the 20th century, Anglo-Irish author JOSEPH THOMAS SHERIDAN LE FANU (1814-1873) has, sadly, fallen out of scholarly and popular favor, and unfairly so. To this day, contemporary readers who happen across his works praise his talent for weaving a tense literary atmosphere tinged by the supernatural and bolstered by hints of ambiguous magic. A splendid instance of the "sensation novel"--a genre that was wildly popular in the Victorian era, with its focus on lurid crime invading previously cheerful, ordinary, and domestic places--this 1871 novel creates a sinister stew that encompasses obsessive love, a domineering mother, a menacing doctor, and a peek inside a lunatic asylum. A classic of Gothic terror, The Rose and the Key still horrifies readers today. With a series of new editions of Le Fanu's works, Cosimo is proud to reintroduce modern book lovers to the writings of the early master of suspense fiction who pioneered the concept of "psychological horror."