F W Bain

An Essence of the Dusk F W Bain

"An Essence of the Dusk," by F. W. Bain contains three stories: A Haunted Beauty, A Total Eclipse and A Fatal Kiss, from the American author and long-time resident of India, who wrote stories-which he claimed were translated from Sanskrit-that received enthusiastic praise from Mr. E. V. Lucas (the author of the life of Charles Lamb, and the editor of the works of Lamb).

Lucas says:

"Mr. Bain's "An Essence of the Dusk" I find delightful, partly for its own wistfulness and beauty, but even more for the impetus it gave me to return to its six predecessors, earn of which I have since read again, in their true order, beginning with A Digit of the Moon. The last is, I think, perhaps the least of the series; but its companions are its only rivals.

There is a tenderness, a richness of color, a warmth of passion, and an elemental understanding of men and women in these books which one does not as a rule look for in English literature or associate with Scotch professors of mathematics. The series seems to me to place Mr. Bain on an eminence isolated and unique; and I think that some of the prose in the introductions, where he writes frankly in his own person, ranks with the best of our time. But no words that I can write can fittingly express the fascination which these books have for me."