Visible and Invisible is an entertaining collection of supernatural tales from E. F. Benson. His writing is surprisingly readable, and his stories are both vivid and haunting.

It is a 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. 


Contents    
"And the dead spake----" -- The outcast -- The Horror-horn -- Machaon -- Negotium perambulans -- At the farmhouse -- Inscrutable decrees -- The gardener -- Mr. Tilly's séance -- Mrs. Amworth -- In the tube -- Roderick's story.