From fabulous enchantments and supernatural horrors 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's chilling ghost story The Signal-Man, and relatively unknown works from celebrated writers including Honoré de Balzac, Henry James, Sir Walter Scott, Guy de Maupassant and Robert Louis Stevenson, alongside lesser-known contributors.

Each story comes with a fascinating introduction by Calvino.