num_pages: 288
description: This collection of 15 linked short stories narrated in the first person is sandwiched in between the narrator's foreword and a conclusion narrated in the third person by another character. All the stories are supernatural and though most are of only average quality a few do stand out (especially the last) and the collection as a whole merits attention as a notable contribution to the sub-genre of the occult detective story because it traces the sudden beginnings of the narrator's psychic experiences their development in a certain direction their vivid and horrific culmination and then their sudden and mysterious disappearance. The book in fact is shaped more like an episodic novel than a story collection. The hero and narrator of these stories is J. W. Vivian a consulting physician in an industrial northern city of England. Most of the doctor's adventures occur in connection with baffling medical cases that are referred to him. Another interesting aspect of the plots is that many arise from criminal actions (including murder). Perhaps Miller's most original variation on the motif is that the hero is eventually defeated by a powerful evil spirit and while recuperating from an injury falls in love marries and loses (with a sigh of relief) his uncanny gift.
language: English
title: The Phantoms of a Physician
publisher: Grayson & Grayson, London