The Lost Stradivarius
The Lost Stradivarius (1895), by J. Meade Falkner, is a short novel of ghosts and the evil that can be invested in an object, in this case an extremely fine Stradivarius violin. After finding the violin of the title in a hidden compartment in his college rooms, the protagonist, a wealthy young heir, becomes increasingly secretive as well as obsessed by a particular piece of music, which seems to have the power to call up the ghost of its previous owner. Roaming from England to Italy, the story involves family love, lordly depravity, and the tragedy of obsession, all conveyed in a "high" serious tone not uncommon in late Victorian literature. Preceding M.R. James's ghost stories by several years, it has been called the novel James might have written, had he written novels.
First Published in 1895 and now released by the British Library as part of their Tales of the Weird series with an introduction by Mike Ashley
Mike Ashley
Mike Ashley is the author and editor of more than 100 books, and is one of the foremost historians of popular fiction. His books include Adventures in The Strand (British Library, 2016), Out of This World, a brief illustrated history of science fiction (British Library, 2011), and The Age of Storytellers: British Popular Fiction Magazines 1880-1950 (British Library, 2005). Most recently he is the author of a multi-volume history of science fiction magazines, published by Liverpool University Press.
British Library Tales of the Weird
The British Library Tales of the Weird series revives and unearths classic strange fiction from the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the form of novels, single-author collections and thematic anthologies, complete with new introductions and fascinating notes by expert editors.
British Library Tales of the Weird consists of seventy-two books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
