Weird Fiction discussion

The 1858 Fitz-James O'Brien story "From Hand to Mouth" has been described by Sam Moskowitz as "the single most striking example of surrealistic fiction to pre-date Alice in Wonderland".

You can read it here:
https://pfaffs.web.lehigh.edu/node/55422

It is a pain to read because it is a scanned book, but I found it worth the time. A badly digitized version is here. I wish someone would create a proper e-book for it.

I wonder whether Cocteau was influenced by it when designing the props for "Beauty and the Beast".

It is a bizarre story. It has dream logic, and meta fiction. Of course, "Surrealism" as a movement didn't exist yet, but I can see why Moskowitz would call it "surreal".

Thanks for the link. It is indeed quite hard on the eyeballs. So I'll have a crack at it another time, on a day when I haven't already spent several hours staring at a screen for work...

I agree. This story really seems ahead of its time in many ways. I am up to page 13 and really enjoying the body parts imagery and dream-like quality of events.