The Diamond Lens

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Bibliographic Information

[O'Brien, Fitz-James]. "The Diamond Lens." The Atlantic Monthly. Jan. 1858: 354-367.

Type: magazine ; Genre: short fiction

Abstract

The narrator, a microscopist named Linley, recounts how he nefariously obtained a diamond with which he constructed the "perfect lens." He then describes the microscopic world he discovered in a drop of water using his new instrument. Linley further conveys how he fell in love with a female creature residing in this world, only to be driven mad when she died during the evaporation of the water.

People who Created this Work

O'Brien, Fitz-James

Related Works

"'The Diamond Lens'--A Literary Controversy." New York Times. 26 Feb. 1858: 1. [more about this work]
Cornwell, Neil. "Piracy and Higher Realism: The Strange Case of Fitz-James O'Brien and Vladimir Odoevsky." Vladimir Odoevsky and Romantic Poetics: Collected Essays. Providence: Berghahn Books, 1998. 157-167. [more about this work]: Cornwell discusses the similarities between O'Brien's "Diamond Lens" and Odoevsky's "The Sylph."
Cornwell, Neil. "Gothic and its Origins East and West: Vladimir Odoevsky and Fitz-James O'Brien." Exhibited by Candlelight: Sources and Developments in the Gothic Tradition. Eds. Valeria Tinker-Villani and Peter Davidson, with Jane Stevenson. Amsterdam : Rodopi, 1995. 117-128. [more about this work]: Cornwell discusses the similarities between O'Brien's "Diamond Lens" and Odoevsky's "The Sylph."
"Last Words on the Diamond Lens Controversy." New York Times. 19 Mar. 1858: 2. [more about this work]
"Literary Intelligence: Literary Conflict - Rejoinder." American Publishers' Circular and Literary Gazette. 13 Mar. 1858: 121-122. [more about this work]
"Literary Intelligence: Literary Conflict." American Publishers' Circular and Literary Gazette. 6 Mar. 1858: 111-112. [more about this work]
O'Brien, Fitz-James. "Note from Mr. Fitz-James O'Brien." New York Times. 1 Mar. 1858: 4. [more about this work]
O'Brien, Fitz-James. "The Diamond Lens." Atlantic Tales: A Collection of Stories from the Atlantic Monthly. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1866. 21-49. [more about this work]
O'Brien, Fitz-James. The Golden Ingot: The Diamond Lens: A Terrible Night: What Was It?. New York: Reynolds Pub. Co., 1921. [more about this work]
O'Brien, Fitz-James. The Diamond Lens, with Other Stories. Ed. William Winter. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1885. [more about this work]
Picton, Thomas. "The Diamond Lens Controversy." New York Times. 27 Feb. 1858: 4. [more about this work]
"The Diamond Lens Controversy." New York Times. 5 Mar. 1858: 2. [more about this work]