Description

Fantastic Tales by Fitz-James O’Brien

Paperback – Alma Books – November 2025 – 208 pages

In the field of supernatural and fantastic literature, certain names come readily to mind – E.T.A. Hoffmann, Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft – but that of Fitz-James O’Brien has been unjustly overlooked and nearly forgotten since his premature death in 1862, during the American Civil War.

‘The Diamond Lens’, O’Brien’s most famous short story, can be regarded as a forerunner of modern science fiction; ‘What Was It?’ is said to have served as a model for H.G. Wells’s The Invisible Man; and ‘The Wondersmith’ is a marvellous tale of Hoffmannesque invention. Taken together, O’Brien’s stories give him an important place in the development of American fiction and remain as fresh today as when they were first written more than a hundred and fifty years ago.

Contents: ‘The Pot of Tulips’, ‘The Dragon Fang Possessed by the Conjuror Piou-lu’, ‘Seeing the World’, ‘The Diamond Lens’, ‘The Lost Room’, ‘The Wondersmith’, ‘What Was It?