A macabre evocation of obsessive love beyond the grave; a nobleman possessed by the soul of a servant girl; a man's mysterious phobia of the letter 'U'; and the unexpected gift of everlasting life becoming a dreaded, endless curse. These are just some of the themes contained in this collection of Tarchetti's shorter fiction. The first Gothic tales published in the Italian language, Tarchetti's strange stories recall those of the supreme writers of the genre, Edgar Allan Poe, E.T.A. Hoffmann and Mary Shelley.