The new terror

About the book

The narrator and Cordélia have expected to marry since childhood, but enforced separation and unexplained arrangements complicate their anticipated happiness. When a remarkable portrait arrives around their wedding, admiration is accompanied by unease about the artist, the image, and what it may disclose or conceal. The narrator's preference for solid practical explanations meets experiences involving personality and perception that he cannot comfortably master. Leroux turns romantic anxiety toward the fantastic, using the account of an intimate relationship to make uncertainty unusually invasive. The 1926 American edition identifies the principal work as also published in England under The Burgled Heart. It includes two additional tales, A Terrible Tale and The Gold Axe, so the volume's contents extend beyond the title narrative.

• Identity and perception
• Jealousy and trust
• Art and the uncanny

Why read it

The portrait gives a familiar anxiety about knowing another person a distinctly fantastic form.

English 1926 Macaulay edition, with A Terrible Tale and The Gold Axe