Celtic Scribes: Sheridan Le Fanu

by Ray Cavanaugh

Sheridan Le Fanu was born in Dublin in 1814. Though he was largely of Huguenot origin, his Irish ancestors included none other than playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan. A further cause for pride was the excellent Le Fanu family library, to which young Sheridan treated himself daily, upon completing his homework.

This library would provide a sense of constancy in a childhood which involved a strong measure of upheaval; Le Fanu’s father was a Church of Ireland clergyman who often had to relocate, and whose income was much compromised by peoples’ increasing refusal (or inability) to pay tithes.

Old man Le Fanu ran a tight show, and his religious leanings “bordered on Calvinism”. The family passed themselves off as a financially-sound unit, but behind this veneer of bourgeois comfort lurked enough debt for twenty Calvinist damnations.

When his father died, not only was there no inheritance, but young Le Fanu had to sell off the beloved library in order to cover the lingering debts. Despite such hardship, he kept his chin up and enrolled in law school at TrinityCollege, where he boosted his prospects by becoming Auditor of the College Historical Society.

Upon completing his studies, Le Fanu followed in the tradition of Henry James by ditching a promising legal career for the vicissitudes of a writer’s life. He published a few short stories and then entered marriage with one Susana Bennett.

They set up residence near Dublin’s Grand Canal; the view was terrific but the cost of rent began to impinge on the writer’s creative process, so he moved into his brother-in-law’s house. Though the rent at this venue was an agreeable 22-pounds-per-year, the Le Fanu’s had trouble making payment.

Not only were there several children to feed, but the writer’s wife increasingly fell under the grip of “neurotic symptoms”; the deaths of several relatives had brought about a “crisis of faith”. Her unstable mental state culminated in a 1858 “hysterical attack”, which almost immediately led to her death under “unclear circumstances”.

Distraught over his wife’s passing, Le Fanu stopped writing for several years. However, in 1861 he felt a reawakening and took the lead editorial position at Dublin University Magazine, in which he serialized his novels The House by the Churchyard and Wylder’s Hand.

Le Fanu tried his hand at various themes but made his name with mystery and horror fiction. He revised painstakingly, and some of his well-crafted vampire tales, such as “Carmilla”, are considered classics of the genre.

At the advice of his London publisher, Le Fanu eventually switched his fictional settings to Britain. His tales ultimately returned to Ireland, however, and it was there that he remained until his death in 1873.