I received a review copy of this book. This is the second volume of three in the impressive Swan River Press collection of O'Brien's speculative works. It covers the years 1855-58 and shows the flowering of the Irish-American author's talent. As with the first volume (see review above) the book begins with a masterly essay by John P. Irish. In 'Bohemian Horrors', Irish gives an overview of the fashionable literary world of mid-19th century New York. O'Brien threw himself into the Bohemian lifestyle, which of course retained its glamour well into the 20th century.
The first story in the volume is aptly entitled 'The Bohemian' and is an interesting twist on a familiar theme - the treasure hunt. The narrator, impoverished and obsessed with wealth, encounters the eponymous character, a louche Englishman called Brann, who promises him riches via startling and questionable methods. Brann is a powerful mesmerist, while the narrator's fiancée has clairvoyant powers. Brann proposes putting her in a trance and ordering her to locate a pirate horde on a small island. This works, but the vast wealth the narrator acquires proves worthless. It's a moral tale, presumably influenced by Poe's 'The Gold Bug', but with a very different tone. Brann makes an interesting anti-hero. All in all, an assured piece of work.
Very different in tone and showing the influence of Poe is 'The Comet and I'. This takes a jokey approach to one of the very frequent comet scares, in which it was assumed by many that a cosmic fireball was going to incinerate the earth - or something along those lines. O'Brien's approach is to offer various suggestions to the comet as which particular areas of New York deserve to be devastated. A nice bit of dark humour and a hint of the way the author would exploit the Victorian fascination with science in future stories.
'The Hasheesh Eater' is even darker and foreshadows a similar theme in O'Brien's most famous story. It's the tale of an American who becomes addicted to the drug in Iraq and then manages to kick the habit. However, in a twist that genuinely left me gobsmacked, he is urged by his future father-in-law to try the drug again as part of an experiment. This story is one of several that showcase O'Brien's skill as a weaver of visionary images - a writer of reveries.
Reveries certainly feature in 'The Crystal Bell' (a man is given an object that supposedly reveals lies and comes to doubt his sweetheart's morals), and 'Duke Humphrey's Dinner' (an impoverished couple imagine a wonderful feast). The best of this particular bunch, though, is 'A Day Dream', in which a man is handed a pistol by a friend and gets the sudden urge to commit murder. This obviously owes something to Poe, especially 'The Imp of the Perverse', but also looks forward to Stevenson and others in the late Victorian Gothic tradition. Evil is within us all, just waiting to be unleashed.
Addiction - whether to a substance or an idea - is a recurring theme. 'Broadway Bedeviled' concerns a doctor who has ruined his career through alcoholism. He is stalked by figures that could be the product of his own delirium in an increasingly frantic chase through New York's seedier neighbourhoods. The story ends in violence and confusion, with perhaps a hint of optimism. Or maybe not.
'Uncle and Nephew' looks forward to the dark humour of Maupassant and the contes cruels of Villiers de l'isle Adam. A doctor specialising in monomania welcomes two men, one of whom is deemed insane. But which one should he be treating? The French setting and general drollery are well handled, and O'Brien again shows himself a keen observer of human nature, even if the situation is more grotesque than realistic.
'The Diamond Lens', however, is obviously the pick of the bunch. This story helped establish O'Brien as a significant literary figure, and it's easy to see why. The story combines popular science - microscopy, in this case - with the new craze for spiritualism. The protagonist is a quasi-Byronic obsessive, willing to resort to the most heinous acts to further his ends.At the heart of it all is the ultimate parasocial relationship, a man obsessed with a beautiful creature inhabiting a droplet of water. Many pulp sci-fi authors would use the idea of a world within the atom or whatever, but few if any could match O'Brien.
All in all, a solid second volume in this collection. It will be interesting to see how the author's work continued to evolve in the few years that remained to him.
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