Le Fanu was facinated by the occult, and his writings draw on the gothic tradition, Irish folklore and the social and political anxieites of his Anglo-Irish contemporaries. In exploring sometimes inexplicable terrors, his tales focus on the unease of those who encounter the supernatural rather than on the origin or purpose of the visitant. The five stories presented here were collected by Dr Hesselius, a metaphysical doctor, the forerunner of the modern psychiatrist, who is willing to consider the ghosts both as real and as hallucinatory obsessions. The reader's doubtful anxiety mimics that of the protagonist, and each story thus creates the atmosphere of mystery which is the supernatural experience. The stories are Green Tea, The Familiar, Mr Justice Harbottle, The Room in the Dragon Volant, and Carmilla.