William K. (TPB) reviewed A Beleaguered City and Other Stories (World's Classics) on + 47 more book reviews
BC: "Margaret Oliphant (1828-97) is best known today for her "Chronicles of Carlingford" series of novels set amongst the inhabitants of a quiet country town. However, she also wrote some of the best supernatural stories in English and this volume collects one celebrated novel and four ghostly short stories.
'A Beleaguered City', which made the young Robert Louis Stevenson 'cry heartily,' describes what happens in a small French town when the dead return to earth and the materialistic citizens have to confront the 'true meaning of life.' The Scottish-based 'Open Door' is about a restless spirit who threatens the life of a child. In 'Old Lady Mary', a woman comes back from the dead, but finds that 'the place which had been hers knew her no more.' 'The Land of Darkness' is a nightmarish, and surprisingly modern, glimpse of hell, and 'The Library Window', perhaps the most haunting story of all, concerns human efforts to see into the unseen."
'A Beleaguered City', which made the young Robert Louis Stevenson 'cry heartily,' describes what happens in a small French town when the dead return to earth and the materialistic citizens have to confront the 'true meaning of life.' The Scottish-based 'Open Door' is about a restless spirit who threatens the life of a child. In 'Old Lady Mary', a woman comes back from the dead, but finds that 'the place which had been hers knew her no more.' 'The Land of Darkness' is a nightmarish, and surprisingly modern, glimpse of hell, and 'The Library Window', perhaps the most haunting story of all, concerns human efforts to see into the unseen."
