Grim Tales

A portrait hidden behind a dusty panel shows the new owner of the house exactly as he is—only dressed as a cavalier. Then the woman painted beside it steps out of her ebony frame.

In E. Nesbit’s Victorian Chelsea, a former Fleet Street hack inherits a house and a comfortable income from Aunt Dorcas, and looks forward to a settled life with Mildred. But the woman in the mysterious portrait has eyes he can hardly turn away from; when he begs her to come down, the room darkens, the frame is empty, and a soft, human hand touches him. In these uncanny tales, the ordinary comforts of home may conceal a deeply unsettling invitation. What has he called into his house—and what will it ask of him?

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