Edited with an Introduction by Italo Calvino

‘Describes imaginary worlds with the most extraordinary precision and beauty’ Gore Vidal, New York Review of Books

From tales of fabulous enchantments and supernatural horror to subtler, more psychological terrors, the best of nineteenth-century fantastic literature is collected here by Italo Calvino. These mysterious and macabre tales include Hoffmann’s nightmarish ‘The Sandman’, Poe’s terrifying ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ and Dickens’ chilling ghost story ‘The Signal-Man’, with relatively unknown works from celebrated writers including Honore de Balzac, Henry James, Sir Walter Scott, Guy de Maupassant and Robert Louis Stevenson, alongside lesser-known contributors. Each tale comes with a fascinating introduction by Italo Calvino.

‘One of the most playful, intelligent and inventive minds in the whole of European fiction’ Philip Hensher, Mail on Sunday