4/5 stars

What's it about? The inimitable Edith Wharton collects these tales written “for the fun of the shudder” (a thought from a character in the story “Afterward”). Spooky and impeccable.

How’d I find it? How I love (almost all) of Wharton’s books, including her short fiction.

Who will enjoy this book? This book is a cross of two other outstanding NYRB story collections, Shadows of Carcosa and Daphne du Maurier’s Don’t Look Now.

What stood out? The gentle frights recall the horror I read as a child and come complete with some little moral, such as the dog’s revenge against a cruel master in “Kerfol.” Wharton’s tales center on haunted places and haunted people, so she does what she does best: conjure interiors.

Which line made me feel something? From “Mr. Jones”: “Her previous plans and ambitions—except such as might fit in with living there—had fallen from her like a discarded garment, and things she had hardly thought about, or had shrugged away with the hasty subversiveness of youth, were already laying quiet hands on her; all the lives from which her life had issued, with what they bore of example or admonishment.” My goodness, Edith.