In 1888 Henry James wrote 'There was the customary novel by Mr Le Fanu for the bedside; the ideal reading in a country house for the hours after midnight'. Madam Crowl's Ghost & Other Stories are tales selected from Le Fanu's stories which mostly appeared in The Dublin University Magazine and other periodicals, and their haunting, sinister qualities still have an enormous appeal for the modern reader. The great M.R. James, who collected and introduces the stories in this book, considered that Le Fanu 'stands absolutely in the first rank as a writer of ghost stories.