I planned for this to be about windows only, but sometimes found
myself searching for things like “mirror mystery” instead of “window
mystery” and not even realizing it at first. Maybe it’s just me, but I
think, at some level, our brains see mirrors as windows, so I decided to
go with it. My interest in the use of windows and mirrors in the genres
of mystery and weird fiction quickly grew to include film, art, and
everything else under the light of the sun.
There’s a Nancy Drew books called The Hidden Window Mystery
(Grosset & Dunlap, 1957) by Carolyn Keen, and Poe’s short story, The
House of Usher, in which the windows of a mansion resemble eyes.
Check out the great illustration on The Haunted Museum site of stage
magician John Henry Pepper used mirrors to make “spirits” appear.
I am especially happy to have found this “work in progress” by H. J.
Krysmanski, Ingrid Lohmann, and Colin MacCabe called Windows:
History of a Metaphor. For one thing, it is a very thorough look at
mirrors from different angles (pun intended). For another thing, it
bears out my idea that a mirror can be seen as a type of window, as
evidenced by Chapter Seven of the book, Through the Looking Glass:
Virtual Reality in Victorian England.” I enjoyed not only that chapter,
but the entire Windows: History of a Metaphor.
myself searching for things like “mirror mystery” instead of “window
mystery” and not even realizing it at first. Maybe it’s just me, but I
think, at some level, our brains see mirrors as windows, so I decided to
go with it. My interest in the use of windows and mirrors in the genres
of mystery and weird fiction quickly grew to include film, art, and
everything else under the light of the sun.
There’s a Nancy Drew books called The Hidden Window Mystery
(Grosset & Dunlap, 1957) by Carolyn Keen, and Poe’s short story, The
House of Usher, in which the windows of a mansion resemble eyes.
Check out the great illustration on The Haunted Museum site of stage
magician John Henry Pepper used mirrors to make “spirits” appear.
I am especially happy to have found this “work in progress” by H. J.
Krysmanski, Ingrid Lohmann, and Colin MacCabe called Windows:
History of a Metaphor. For one thing, it is a very thorough look at
mirrors from different angles (pun intended). For another thing, it
bears out my idea that a mirror can be seen as a type of window, as
evidenced by Chapter Seven of the book, Through the Looking Glass:
Virtual Reality in Victorian England.” I enjoyed not only that chapter,
but the entire Windows: History of a Metaphor.
