The first Gothic tales published in the Italian language, Tarchetti's eerie stories recall those of the supreme writers of the genre—Edgar Allan Poe, E. T. A. Hoffmann, and Mary Shelley
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.