I recently finished up this collection of out-of-copyright short strange stories. It's part of the British Library Tales of the Weird collection which has been gradually building, releasing a steady trickle of mostly little-known stories in a convenient format. I've read quite a few now and they're a mixed bag, but a pretty good mixed bag, particularly if you're comfortable with the rather dated writing style. It really shows how standard writing styles have shifted over time.
This collection is... interesting, intriguing, I can't honestly say it's particularly good. Most of the stories have obvious weaknesses, not around supernatural events, but around the basic plausibility of human behaviour. In some cases the supernatural events seem wildly disjointed from the foreshadowing.
I enjoy a good bit of ambiguity about what's going on, but sometimes it just feels muddled. There's probably something here one could harvest for roleplaying. Some have a nice Jamesian vibe; a couple felt closer to Robert Chambers. The descriptions and atmosphere are generally solid, but let down by aspects of the plot.What follows is a set of quick reflections on these stories, at least, the ones I made notes about or remember well. The level of detail therefore varies enormously.
