Uncanny Tales

Mary Louisa MolesworthProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.3

Word count: 249K words
Chapters: 25

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Uncanny Tales by Mrs. MolesworthAuthor: Molesworth, Mrs., 1839-1921,Language: English, Class: PR: Language and Literatures: English literature, Release Date: Mar 21, 2011

Editor's review

Uncanny Tales by Mrs. Molesworth is a collection of short strange tales in the Victorian English style. Though best known for children's literature and domestic fiction, here she turns to the supernatural and psychological suspense, skilled at planting unease within everyday settings so that the uncanny seeps slowly out of calm household life. Its strength lies not in gore but in atmosphere and suggestion, making it suited to readers who enjoy slow-burn ghost stories and value prose and psychological detail. As a free Project Gutenberg edition it is short, suitable as supplementary reading for courses on the Victorian Gothic tradition and the short story, and for reading in segments at bedtime. Note that the pacing is slow and the horror accumulates rather than shocks; readers seeking intense thrills may find it underwhelming.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers who enjoy Victorian English literature and the Gothic tradition
Those who prefer psychological suspense and atmospheric ghost stories to gore
Literature students who want short pieces for close-reading practice in English
Teachers seeking short texts for courses on the Gothic or weird tale

Not a good fit for

Readers seeking fast-paced, high-intensity horror
Beginners whose English reading is not yet fluent and who need easy texts
Casual readers impatient with nineteenth-century narrative style

Reading tips

Read each tale as a standalone story, pausing after each to savor the atmosphere and foreshadowing.
Pay attention to details in everyday domestic settings, which are often the source of the uncanny.
Read alongside background on the Victorian ghost-story tradition to understand its narrative conventions.
Read passages aloud in the original English to appreciate the author's choices of tone and suggestion.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Are the stories in this book very scary?

It is closer to Victorian psychological suspense and atmospheric strange tales, relying on suggestion and unease in everyday settings rather than direct violence or shocks. Readers who like slow-burn, understated horror will appreciate it more; those seeking intense thrills may find it tame.

What is Mrs. Molesworth known for?

The materials only identify her as an English author active from 1839 to 1921 and this book as Uncanny Tales. By public-domain common knowledge she is known for children's literature and domestic fiction; this book belongs to her supernatural short fiction, which helps explain her familiar handling of domestic settings and a child's perspective.

Is this the complete short-story collection or a selection?

The materials indicate this is the Project Gutenberg electronic edition of Uncanny Tales, the text under that title. It is not described as an anthology or selection, but the electronic edition has no modern editorial introduction; the exact contents should be checked against the actual electronic text.

Comments

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About the author

Mary Louisa Molesworth Author · British · 1839–1921

Mrs. Molesworth (1839–1921), born Mary Louisa Molesworth, was an English writer of children's literature in the Victorian era. She was born in Rotterdam in 1839 and died in London in 1921, and was a prolific author; this site holds 57 of her works. Her representative books include The Cuckoo Clock, The Tapestry Room: A Child's Romance, Four Ghost Stories, The Carved Lions, Grandmother Dear: A Book for Boys and Girls, Christmas-Tree Land, and The Palace in the Garden. Her works are often classed as inspirational coming-of-age stories, usually centering on children and unfolding in settings where domestic life and fantasy intertwine. Her warm, delicate style combines imagination with a sense of everyday reality, and she has been called "the Jane Austen of the nursery." Public information is limited, but the sheer number of her works shows her lasting influence on child readers of her time.