8 h 17 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 8 h 17 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the neighbour everyone admires is the first person you should fear?
In Visible and Invisible, E. F. Benson gathers twelve supernatural tales that let horror creep into ordinary life. An English village, a quiet house and a holiday in the Alps become places of unease. Tea tables and polite talk offer little protection when vampires, haunted places and the restless dead draw near. The dread builds slowly, before anything clearly shows itself.
In Mrs Amworth, a cheerful woman wins her neighbours’ affection, while the scholar Francis Urcombe notices something wrong and weighs whether to trust old stories. The Horror-Horn takes climbers and travellers to an Alpine village beneath a peak with a dark reputation. Elsewhere, unresolved wrongs trouble the living, and familiar places seem to hold traces of what happens within them.
What you’ll discover
- Charm with a shadow Meet Mrs Amworth, whose warmth and energy slowly begin to look less reassuring.
- Dread among the peaks Follow mountain talk toward the Horror-Horn, where a dark reputation unsettles a holiday.
- A conscience under strain Explore tales where crime leaves guilt behind and the dead refuse to rest.
- Places that hold the past Enter houses, gardens and roads where people sense something without being told.
- Quiet words, sharp endings Feel Benson’s calm storytelling tighten its grip as ordinary details gather a disturbing weight.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy fireside ghost stories set in clubs, country houses, and quiet villages will love this collection. Fans of vampires, haunted rooms, and séances will find twelve varied tales.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Curiosity can leave pity behind
- Dread arrives before an explanation
- The unseen can heal or avenge
- Private cruelty waits behind ordinary lives
- Ghosts can frighten or amuse
- Danger wears a familiar face
- Roderick welcomes the borderland
- Evidence leaves room for doubt
- Unfinished lives leave fears and hope
Who’s who
- Sir James HortonA reclusive surgeon and physicist who lives alone on Newsome Terrace and wants to read the speech stored in a dead brain.
- Francis UrcombeA former Cambridge professor of physiology who studies the borderland of science and the occult and grows suspicious of a charming new neighbor in Maxley.
- Roderick CardewA friend with a failing heart who accepts an invitation to Tilling and asks for one particular bedroom, because of what he once saw there.
- Anthony CarlingA cheerful, wealthy man who treats time as a tunnel and tells his friend a story about a man who disappears on the Tube.
- Mr. TillyA fussy spiritualist who is run over on his way to a séance and finds himself able to attend as a spirit.
- John AylsfordA painter trapped in a miserable marriage who walks out on a stormy night with a plan to free himself.
- Professor IngramA physiologist and climber who tells his cousin about a legend and a frightening sight on the Ungeheuerhorn.
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Visible and Invisible
by E. F. Benson · 1923
A surgeon in London drops a needle on a dead soldier's brain and hears a fragment of Tipperary.
Medium level2–5 hours to read2 languages
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In short
What would you hear if a needle could read a dead man's brain the way a gramophone reads a record? In the first tale of Visible and Invisible, a London surgeon named Sir James Horton sets out to find the answer.
Visible and Invisible at a glance
- Reading time
- About 4 h 45 min3 h 45 min fast, 5 h 35 min slow
- Length
- 67,400 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1923by E. F. Benson
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A surgeon builds a gramophone for the dead
And the Dead Spoke opens on Newsome Terrace, a London dead end where nothing seems to happen. In its last house lives Sir James Horton, a retired surgeon and physicist who avoids almost everyone. His housekeeper, Mrs. Gabriel, was once tried for murdering her husband and acquitted.
On the night war is declared in August 1914, Horton shows his friend a frog's heart still beating nine hours after the frog was killed. He argues that the brain keeps a record of speech, like grooves cut in a gramophone disc. He needs only a very fine needle and a trumpet with immense magnifying power.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1923
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 5 h 25 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Benson, E. F. Visible and Invisible. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/visible-and-invisible.
Benson, E. F. (2026). Visible and invisible. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/visible-and-invisible (Original work published 1923)
Benson, E. F. Visible and Invisible. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/visible-and-invisible.
@book{benson2026visible,
author = {Benson, E. F.},
title = {Visible and Invisible},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/visible-and-invisible},
note = {First published 1923}
}
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What is Visible and Invisible about?
It is a collection of twelve ghost stories by E. F. Benson. They cover haunted houses, vampires, séances, a mountain legend, and a dying man's hopes for the afterlife, often through plainly told personal accounts.
What does Negotium perambulans mean?
It is a Latin phrase from Psalm 91, which the tale translates as the pestilence that walketh in darkness. In the story it names a sluglike creature depicted on a church screen and feared by the people of Polearn.
Who is Sir James Horton in the first story?
Horton is a retired surgeon and physicist in London who lives alone on Newsome Terrace. He works on a device to read recorded speech from the brains of the newly dead, and he uses his friend as a witness.
The author
E. F. Benson
1867–1940 · English novelist
Edward Frederic Benson (1867–1940) was an English novelist and short-story writer. He was born at Wellington College in Berkshire and later lived in Rye, Sussex. His books include The Room in the Tower, and Other Stories (1912), Miss Mapp (1922), and Visible and Invisible (1923). He died in London.
More by E. F. Benson
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