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The Diamond Lens

Fitz James O'Brien

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Book Excerpt: 
. . .r through a brass tube and a piece of glass, were anxious that I should choose a profession. It was their desire that I should enter the counting-house of my uncle, Ethan Blake, a prosperous merchant, who carried on business in New York. This suggestion I decisively combated. I had no taste for trade; I should only make a failure; in short, I refused to become a merchant.

But it was necessary for me to select some pursuit. My parents were staid New England people, who insisted on the necessity of labor; and therefore, although, thanks to the bequest of my poor Aunt Agatha, I should, on coming of age, inherit a small fortune sufficient to place me above want, it was decided that, instead of waiting for this, I should act the nobler part, and employ the intervening years in rendering myself independent.

After much cogitation I complied with the wishes of my family, and selected a profession. I determined to study medicine at the New York Academy. This dis. . . Read More

Community Reviews

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I have a bit of a hard time rating this one because I just feel... vaguely neutral about it? I can't decide if I enjoyed it or not.

I like the concept and the writing style was enjoyable but the story just didn't catch me the way I wanted it to.

From the murder a) he decided on within like three lines

3.25⭐

This is the story of a narrator, Mr. Linley who is so obsessed with his own desire and quasi-scientific aims to create the perfect microscope that the entire world of the story centers on his obsession.

Rereading this for my class, I am struck again by the balance of the Gothic and the scientific in O'Brien's story. This is the first known published tale in which another world is perceived through a microscope, and O'Brien does great justice to the sense of wonder and longing this sight evokes. It'

The Diamond Lens is a story that had an interesting idea, but it failed to wow me in the way I had hoped. I couldn’t help but compare this story with the work of Poe. Not only did this come from the same era, but there were many elements in this one that reminded me of Poe’s work. A bit of obsession

L'ho preso principalmente per "What was it?" Il quale sembrava essere un gran racconto.
Lo é, ma per tematiche e atmosfera preferiró sempre "L'Horla" di Maupassant il quale tratta per me in maniera migliore un espediente soprannaturale identico.
Gli altri sono racconti che vanno dal discreto all' otti

Found this to be a nice short read. Useful context for the potential reader - this is right at the beginning of science fiction as a genre, and there are some weird little artifacts in the work as a result. For some readers this probably diminishes the work, but I found it sort of fun. The book sort

Brilliantly written short story about achieving ones ambition at any cost.

'What care I if I waded to the portal to this wonder through another's blood'

When the narrator finally meets Animula, the way that is is presented makes me think of this as the earliest example (1858) of Toonophilia. The microscopic being of light he falls in love with may as well be Jessica Rabbit or Sailor Moon. The other side of the microscope lens is as an incalculable g

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