Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu (28 August 1814 – 7 February 1873) was an Irish writer of Gothic tales and mystery novels. He was the premier ghost story writer of the nineteenth century and had a seminal influence on the development of this genre in the Victorian era.
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Author Sheridan Le Fanu
Sheridan Le Fanu was born at No. 45 Lower Dominick Steet, Dublin, into a literary family of Huguenot origins. Both his grandmother Alicia Sheridan Le Fanu and his great-uncle Richard Brinsley Sheridan were playwrights. His niece Rhoda Broughton would become a very successful novelist. Within a year of his birth his family moved to the Royal Hibernian Military School in Phoenix Park, where his father, an Anglican clergyman, was the chaplain of the establishment. Phoenix Park and the adjacent village and parish church of Chapelizod were to feature in Le Fanu's later stories.
Le Fanu studied law at Trinity College in Dublin, where he was elected Auditor of the College Historical Society. He was called to the bar in 1839, but he never practiced and soon abandoned law for journalism. In 1838 he began contributing stories to the Dublin University Magazine, including his first ghost story, entitled "The Ghost and the Bone-Setter" (1838). He became owner of several newspapers from 1840, including the Dublin Evening Mail and the Warder.
In 1844 Le Fanu married Susanna Bennett, the daughter of a leading Dublin barrister. In 1847 he supported John Mitchell and Thomas Meagher in their campaign against the indifference of the Government to the Irish Famine. His support cost him the nomination as Tory MP for County Carlow in 1852. His personal life also became difficult at this time, as his wife Susanna suffered from increasing neurotic symptoms. She died in 1858 in unclear circumstances, and anguished excerpts from Le Fanu's diaries suggest that he felt guilt as well as loss. However, it was only after her death that, becoming something of a recluse, he devoted himself full time to writing.
In 1861 he became the editor and proprietor of the Dublin University Magazine and he began exploiting double exposure: serializing in the Dublin University Magazine and then revising for the English market. The House by the Churchyard and Wylder's Hand were both published in this way. After the lukewarm reviews of the former novel, set in the Phoenix Park area of Dublin, Le Fanu signed a contract with Richard Bentley, his London publisher, which specified that future novels be stories "of an English subject and of modern times", a step Bentley thought necessary in order for Le Fanu to satisfy the English audience. Le Fanu succeeded in this aim in 1864, with the publication of Uncle Silas, which he set in Derbyshire. In his very last short stories, however, Le Fanu returned to Irish folklore as an inspiration and encouraged his friend Patrick Kennedy to contribute folklore to the D.U.M. Le Fanu died in his native Dublin on February 7, 1873. Today there is a road in Ballyfermot, near his childhood home in south-west Dublin, named after him.
Writing
Le
Fanu worked in many genres but remains best known for his mystery and
horror fiction. He was a meticulous craftsman, with a penchant for
frequently reworking plots and ideas from his earlier writing in
subsequent pieces of writing (many of his novels are expansions and
refinements of earlier short stories). He specialised in tone and effect
rather than "shock horror", often following a mystery format. Key to
his style was the avoidance of overt supernatural effects: in most of
his major works, the supernatural is strongly implied but a possible
"natural" explanation is left (barely) open. (For instance, the demonic
monkey in "Green Tea" could be a delusion of the story's protagonist,
who is the only person to see it; in "The Familiar", Captain Barton's
death seems to be of supernatural causes, but is not actually witnessed,
and the ghostly owl may just be a real bird.) This approach has proven
important for later horror writers and also for other media (it is
surely an antecedent to the film producer Val Lewton's principle of
indirect horror). Though other writers have since chosen blunter
approaches to supernatural fiction, Le Fanu's best, tales such as the
vampire novella Carmilla, remain some of the most chilling examples of
the genre. Considering the influence of his work – including his
enormous influence on the 20th century's most important ghost story
writer, M.R. James – it is surprising that Le Fanu is not better
appreciated.
His earliest twelve short stories, written between
1838 and 1840 purported to be the literary remains of an 18th century
Catholic priest called Father Purcell. They were published in the Dublin
University Magazine and were later collected as The Purcell Papers
(1880). They include some widely anthologised pieces:
"The Ghost and the Bonesetter" (1838), his first published story.
"The Fortunes of Sir Robert Ardagh" (1838).
"The Last Heir of Castle Connor" (1838).
"Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter" (1839).
"Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess" (1839), which is an early version of his later novel Uncle Silas.
"A Chapter in the History of the Tyrone Family" (1839), which may have influenced Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.
His best-known works, still widely read today, are:
Uncle Silas (1864), a macabre mystery novel and classic of gothic horror, which has been adapted as a terrifying film.
In
a Glass Darkly (1872), a collection of five short stories in the horror
and mystery genres, presented as the posthumous papers of the psychic
investigator Dr Hesselius:
"Green Tea"
"The Familiar"
"Mr
Justice Harbottle" (perhaps better known in its earlier, very different
version, "An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street")
"The Room in the Dragon Volant", not a ghost story but a notable mystery story that includes the theme of premature burial
"Carmilla",
the tale of a lesbian vampire, set in darkest central Europe. This
story was to greatly influence Bram Stoker in the writing of Dracula. It
also served as the basis for several films including Danish director
Carl Theodor Dreyer's singular masterwork Vampyr (1932) and Hammer's The
Vampire Lovers.
Other fiction by Le Fanu includes:
The House
by the Churchyard (1863), later an important source for Joyce's
Finnegans Wake. This story was based in Chapelizod in Dublin where Le
Fanu lived for some time.
Wylder's Hand (1864).
Guy Deverell (1865).
Haunted Lives (1868).
The Wyvern Mystery (1869).
The Rose and the Key (1871).
The Watcher and Other Weird Stories (1894), another collection of short stories, published posthumously.
Madam
Crowl's Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery (1923), uncollected short
stories gathered from their original magazine publications and edited by
M.R. James. The publication of this book led to the revival in interest
in Le Fanu, which has continued to this day.
There is an extensive
critical analysis of Le Fanu's work in Jack Sullivan's book Elegant
Nightmares: The English Ghost Story From Le Fanu to Blackwood (1978) and
a biography Sheridan Le Fanu (third edition 1997) by W. J. Mc Cormack.
Le Fanu, his works, and his family background are explored in Gavin
Selerie's mixed prose/verse text Le Fanu's Ghost (2006).
Source and additional information: Sheridan Le Fanu