By FireLight: A Guide to Speculative Fiction Before 1900

Denise Longrie presents 100 short reviews of old-timey ghost stories (the type of tale you’d listen to at night with your friends “by firelight”). She introduces the author of each piece, often including a little-known factoid about their life (did you know H.G. Wells had a fling with pioneering birth control activist Margaret Sanger? I didn’t either until I read this book!). Then she sets up the basic plot of each story and presents a few spoiler-free “thoughts.” Some of these tales are very well known (i.e., Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Black Cat” and Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”). Others are lesser known works by famous authors such as Jules Verne and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. But most of the stories Ms. Longrie unearthed for this collection came as complete surprises to me (like bumps in the night that made me wonder, “What the heck was that?”). Anyone who has a taste for classic gothic and sci-fi literature should pick up a copy of this anthology, and let Madame Denise guide you through these dearly departed stories of yore like a medium calling up spirits at a séance!