Edward Gorey’s Haunted Looking Glass (1959)

A masterful anthology curated and illustrated by the legendary Edward Gorey, this collection gathers twelve classic ghost stories from the Victorian and Edwardian eras, each selected for its particular blend of eerie atmosphere and understated horror. The book serves as both an introduction to the golden age of supernatural fiction and a showcase for Gorey’s distinctive gothic sensibility.

The stories span from Charles Dickens’ psychologically unsettling “The Signal-Man,” in which a railway worker receives spectral warnings of impending disaster, to W.W. Jacobs’ famously chilling “The Monkey’s Paw,” where a seemingly benign artifact brings carefully measured devastation. M.R. James is represented by two of his most effective stories—”Casting the Runes,” a masterpiece of slow-building occult menace, and “The Mezzotint,” in which an antique engraving reveals increasingly disturbing details to its horrified owner.

Gorey’s exquisite pen-and-ink illustrations punctuate the tales with his signature style: elongated figures in Edwardian dress, looming shadows that defy natural laws, and architectural details that suggest crumbling grandeur. His preface sets the tone with characteristically dry wit, insisting that proper ghost stories should maintain decorum even in their horrors.

First published in 1959 and reissued multiple times, this collection stands as a perfect marriage of literary selection and artistic vision. The stories avoid cheap shocks in favor of lingering disquiet, while Gorey’s artwork elevates the reading experience into something approaching a séance.

“A cabinet of curiosities where every story is a delicate, poisonous specimen—and Gorey’s drawings are the velvet lining.”