Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu (; 28 August 1814 – 7 February 1873) was an Irish writer of Gothic literature, journalist and newspaper proprietor. Le Fanu is considered by literary critics to be among the greatest ghost story writers of the Victorian era, as several of his works were central to the development of the genre.Sullivan, Jack, "Le Fanu, Sheridan". In Sullivan, ed., The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural (1986). New York: Viking. pp. 257–62. He was the author of Gothic short stories and macabre poems, novels such as Uncle Silas (1864), and the collection of five stories In a Glass Darkly (1872), in which the novella Carmilla (1872) is significant as a foundational work of vampire literature.
Born into a family of writers, Le Fanu began writing poetry at the age of fifteen, using his father's personal library to educate himself. Due to severe financial constraints, his family were forced to sell the library and its books to settle some of their debts following the death of his father. In 1838, he began writing stories for the Dublin University Magazine to make money, which included his first ghost story, The Ghost and the Bone-Setter (1838). It was during this period that Le Fanu decided to focus on the ghost story genre, despite continuing to also write short stories and commentaries across other genres, and by 1840 he had become the owner of several local newspapers. Thirteen of his lesser-known Gothic short stories were published posthumously in The Purcell Papers (1880).
He also wrote The House by the Churchyard (1863), which became one of his best-known novels. Initially, his work fell into neglect following his death, and it was the efforts of later writers, such as Elizabeth Bowen and M. R. James, that brought the public's attention back to his novels. M. R. James, in particular, greatly admired his works and described Le Fanu as "absolutely in the first rank as a writer of ghost stories".Briggs, Julia (July 1986). "James, M(ontague) R(hodes)". In Sullivan, Jack, ed. The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural. USA, New York: Viking. pp. 233–35.
Le Fanu became a key figure in the dark romanticism movement during the 19th century, and had a major influence on later vampire and horror fictions such as Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897), among others. While several of his short stories, fictional novels, novellas, and horror pieces proved popular in his lifetime, he remains a central figure in vampire fiction largely due to the significance of Carmilla. Since his death, the novella has become one of the most influential works of vampire literature, having been adapted for films, operas, video games, Halloween plays, comics, songs, cartoons, and other media.
Early life Le Fanu was born on 28 August 1814 in Dominick Street Lower, Dublin, to Thomas Le Fanu, the curate of St Mary's, and Emma Lucretia Le Fanu (; died 1861). The second of three siblings of a middle-class Irish Protestant family of Huguenot descent, Le Fanu was the elder brother of the civil engineer William Richard. Both his grandmother Alicia Sheridan Le Fanu and his great-uncle Richard Brinsley Sheridan were playwrights. His mother was also a writer, producing a biography of Charles Orpen.
Within a year of his birth, his family moved to the Royal Hibernian Military School in the Phoenix Park, where his father, a Church of Ireland clergyman, was appointed to the chaplaincy of the establishment. The Phoenix Park and the adjacent village and parish church of Chapelizod would appear in Le Fanu's later stories.
In 1826, the family moved to Abington, County Limerick, where Le Fanu's father Thomas took up his second rectorship in Ireland. Although he had a tutor, who, according to his brother William, taught them nothing and was finally dismissed in disgrace, Le Fanu used his father's library to educate himself. By the age of fifteen, Joseph was writing poetry which he shared with his mother and siblings but never with his father. His father was a stern Protestant churchman of the Church of Ireland.
In 1832, the disorders of the Tithe War (1831–36) affected the Abington region, reflecting the Catholic majority's resentments toward mandatory tithes for the upkeep of the Church of Ireland, which had few members. The following year the family moved back temporarily to Dublin, to Williamstown Avenue in the southern suburb of Blackrock,Williamstown Castle, now Blackrock College https://www.youwho.ie/williamstown.html where Thomas was to work on a Government commission.
Later life Literary scholar Edmund Downey described Le Fanu as someone who left little behind in terms of personal writings or records, which made it difficult for biographers to create a full picture of his life outside of his published works. As such, many biographical details have had to be put together using references to him made in the writings of his contemporary family and friends, or from notes Le Fanu's son had written during his father's lifetime.
Throughout Sheridan Le Fanu's early life, his father's work as a rector and church Dean was the primary source of income for the family, by way of tithes and, eventually, government payments for clergy. On the elder Le Fanu's death in 1845, he had very little left to leave to his sons, and the family had to sell his library to pay off some of his debts. His widow went to stay with the younger son, William.
Sheridan Le Fanu studied law at Trinity College Dublin, where he was elected Auditor of the College Historical Society, and graduated in 1836. Under a system peculiar to Ireland he did not have to live in Dublin to attend lectures, but could study at home and take examinations at the university when necessary. He was called to the bar in 1839, but he never practised 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 the owner of several newspapers from 1840, including the Dublin Evening Mail and the Warder.
On 18 December 1844, Le Fanu married Susan Bennett, the daughter of a leading Dublin barrister, George Bennett, and granddaughter of John Bennett, a justice of the Court of King's Bench. Susan Bennett's niece, Rhoda Broughton, would grow up to be a famed novelist in her own right. Future Home Rule League MP Isaac Butt was a witness. The couple then travelled to his parents' home in Abington for Christmas. They took a house in Warrington Place near the Grand Canal in Dublin. Their first child, Eleanor, was born in 1845, followed by Emma in 1846, Thomas in 1847 and George in 1854.
In 1847 Le Fanu supported John Mitchel and Thomas Francis Meagher in their campaign against the indifference of the government to the Irish Famine. Others involved in the campaign included Samuel Ferguson and Isaac Butt. Butt wrote a forty-page analysis of the national disaster for the Dublin University Magazine in 1847.McCormack 1997, p. 101. His support cost him the nomination as Tory MP for County Carlow in 1852.
Following her father's death in 1851, Susan and Joseph moved into her parent's former home in Merrion Square. This was the start of a very difficult period for the Le Fanu's as Susan mental health suffered after the death of her father. She had a crisis of faith and attended religious services at the nearby St. Stephen's Church. She also discussed religion with William, Le Fanu's younger brother, as Le Fanu had apparently stopped attending services. She suffered from anxiety after the deaths of several close relatives, including her father two years before, which may have led to marital problems.McCormack 1997, pp. 125–128.
In April 1858, she suffered an "hysterical attack" and died the following day in unclear circumstances. She was buried in the Bennett family vault in Mount Jerome Cemetery beside her father and brothers. The anguish of Le Fanu's diaries suggests that he felt guilt as well as loss. From then on he did not write any fiction until the death of his mother in 1861. He turned to his cousin Lady Gifford for advice and encouragement, and she remained a close correspondent until her death at the end of the decade.
In 1861, Le Fanu became the editor and proprietor of the Dublin University Magazine, and he began to take advantage of double publication, first serialising in the Dublin University Magazine, then revising for the English market. He published both The House by the Churchyard and Wylder's Hand in this way. After 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 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 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.
Death
Le Fanu died of a heart attack in his native Dublin on 7 February 1873, at the age of 58. According to Russell Kirk, in his essay "A Cautionary Note on the Ghostly Tale" in The Surly Sullen Bell, Le Fanu "is believed to have literally died of fright"; but Kirk does not give the circumstances.Russell Kirk. The Surly Sullen Bell. NY: Fleet Publishing Corporation, 1962, p. 240
There is a road and a park in Ballyfermot, near his childhood home in southwest Dublin, named after him.
Work
Le Fanu worked in many genres but remains best known for his horror fiction. He was a meticulous craftsman and frequently reworked plots and ideas from his earlier writing in subsequent pieces. Many of his novels, for example, are expansions and refinements of earlier short stories. He specialised in tone and effect rather than "shock horror" and liked to leave important details unexplained and mysterious. He avoided overt supernatural effects: in most of his major works, the supernatural is strongly implied but a "natural" explanation is also possible.
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 supernatural but is not actually witnessed, and the ghostly owl may be a real bird. This technique influenced later horror artists, both in print and on film (see, for example, the film producer Val Lewton's principle of "indirect horror").
Though other writers have since chosen less subtle techniques, Le Fanu's finest tales, such as the vampire novella Carmilla and the short story "Schalken the Painter", remain some of the most powerful in the genre. He had an enormous influence on one of the 20th century's most important ghost story writers, M. R. James, and although his work fell out of favour in the early part of the 20th century, towards the end of the century interest in his work increased and remains comparatively strong.
The Purcell Papers His earliest twelve short stories, written between 1838 and 1840, purport 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).The Purcell Papers (1880) Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, Richard Bentley and Son, London They are mostly set in Ireland, and are characterized as ranging from the genuinely spooky to spoofing the spooky. Oher themes include historical romance centering on the deposed Catholic aristocracy of Ireland. Some of the stories still often appear in anthologies: The Ghost and the Bonesetter (January 1838), his first-published, jocular story