Masquerades : $b Studies in the morbid

"Masquerades" by Shane Leslie is a collection of short stories written in the early 20th century. The pieces are morbid, ironic, and atmospheric, blending religious imagery, Irish Gothic, and decadent psychology to probe temptation, cruelty, obsession, and the uncanny. Early tales feature a harried pope, a London governess adrift in wild Connemara, an ambitious dramatist, and a ruthless Castilian lord, sketching a world where faith, fear, and desire pull sharply against duty.

The opening of the collection moves from a baroque vision of the Vatican to Irish boglands, London garrets, and a besieged Spanish keep. In “The Pope’s Temptation,” an aged pontiff endures nocturnal trials of pride, power, and homesickness, only to be coolly diagnosed by his Grand Inquisitor. “Connemara” follows a sensible English governess into a fox-mad household where the Master’s death draws a haunting visitation of foxes and a ghastly wake. “Inspiration” charts an undertaker’s clerk turned playwright, whose lover sacrifices herself to launch his triumph, only for him to abandon her and then find his genius gone—and her dead. “Balthasar the Cruel” opens on a relentless siege, where a loyal seneschal, starved of options, is blackmailed by his own men for his daughter—and then his wife—in exchange for holding the walls. (This is an automatically generated summary.)