Reflections in a Glass Darkly Essays on ]

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Reflections in a Glass Darkly Essays on ] Reflections in a Glass Darkly Essays on ]. Sheridan Le Fanu Edited by Gary William Crawford, Jim Rockhill, and Brian J. Showers Hippocampus Press New York Contents Foreword 9 W.J.MCCORMACK Introduction 11 GARY WILLIAM CRAWFORD, JIM ROCKHILL, AND BRIAN J. SHOWERS I. Some Notes on Biography 15, A Memoir of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu 17 ALFRED PERCEVAL GRAVES Anecdotes from Seventy Years of Irish Life 26 W. R. LE FANU Extracts from Wilkie Collins, Le Fanu and Others 37 S. M. ELLIS Portraits of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu 47 JIM ROCKHILL, BRIAN J. SHOWERS, AND DOUGLAS A. ANDERSON A Void Which Cannot Be Filled Up: Obituaries of J. S. Le Fanu 72 BRIAN J. SHOWERS II. General Studies..... 85 M. R. James on J. S. Le Fanu 87 M. R. JAMES A Forgotten Creator of Ghosts—Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Possible Inspirer of the Brontes 95 EDNA KENTON Sheridan Le Fanu 105 E. F. BENSON From The Supernatural in Fiction 108 PETER PENZOLDT An Irish Ghost 127 V. S. PRITCHETT Excerpts from the "Prologue" and "Epilogue" to Madam Crowl's Ghost.132 M. R. JAMES Concerns 7 Doubles, Shadows, Sedan-Chairs, and the Past: The "Ghost Stories" of J. S. Le Fanu 137 PATRICIA COUGHLAN III. Some Special Topics 161 Making Light in the Shadow Box: The Artistry of Le Fanu 163 KEL ROOP Le Fanu's House by the Marketplace 174 WAYNE HALL Sheridan Le Fanu and the Spirit of 1798 189 ALBERT POWER H. P. Lovecraft's Response to the Work of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu ..201 JIM ROCKHILL "A Regular Contributor": Le Fanu's Short Stories, All The Year Round, and the Influence of Dickens 206 SIMON COOKE , A Shared Vision: Le Fanu's In A Glass Darkly and Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr 223 GARY WILLIAM CRAWFORD Dreyer, Vampyr, and Sheridan Le Fanu 232 MARK LE FANU IV. Contemporary Reviews 241 V. Studies of Individual Works 267 "Green Tea": The Archetypal Ghost Story 269 JACK SULLIVAN Introduction to The House by the Church-Yard 287 ELIZABETH BOWEN Three Ghost Stories: "The Judge's House," "An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in an Old House in Aungier Street," and "Mr. Justice Harbottle" 293 CAROL A. SENF Introduction to Uncle Silas 309 M.R.JAMES Conversations in a Shadowed Room: The Blank Spaces in "Green Tea" 313 JOHN LANGAN Introduction to Uncle Silas 333 ELIZABETH BOWEN "Addicted to the Supernatural": Spiritualism and Self-Satire in Le Fanu's All in the Dark 346 STEPHEN CARVER 8 REFLECTIONS IN A GLASS DARKLY In the Name of the Mother: Perverse Maternity in "Carmilla" 363 JARLATH KLLLEEN . Crossing Boundaries, Mixing Genres in The Wyvem Mystery 385 SALLY C. HARRIS "I Resolved To Play the Part of a Good Samaritan": Metafiction in "The Room in the Dragon Volant" 402 WILLIAM HUGHES "The Chiid That Went with the Fairies": The Folk Tale and the Ghost Story .....418 PETER BELL The "Smashed Looking-Glass": Fragmentation and Narrative Perversity, in Willing to Die ; 429 VICTOR SAGE Bibliography . ....447 Sources 456- Biographical Notes 460 Index 467 .
Recommended publications
  • By Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
    CARMILLA BY JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU Irish Studies James MacKillop, Series Editor Other titles in the Irish series Collaborative Dubliners: Joyce in Dialogue Vicki Mahaffey, ed. Gender and Medicine in Ireland, 1700–1950 Margaret Preston and Margaret Ó hÓgartaigh, eds. Grand Opportunity: The Gaelic Revival and Irish Society, 1893–1910 Timothy G. McMahon Ireland in Focus: Film, Photography, and Popular Culture Eóin Flannery and Michael Griff n, eds. The Irish Bridget: Irish Immigrant Women in Domestic Service in America, 1840–1930 Margaret Lynch-Brennan Irish Theater in America: Essays on Irish Theatrical Diaspora John P. Harrington, ed. Joyce, Imperialism, and Postcolonialism Leonard Orr, ed. Making Ireland Irish: Tourism and National Identity since the Irish Civil War Eric G. E. Zuelow Memory Ireland, Volume 1: History and Modernity, and Volume 2: Diaspora and Memory Practices Oona Frawley, ed. The Midnight Court / Cúirt an Mheán Oíche Brian Merriman; David Marcus, trans.; Brian Ó Conchubhair, ed. Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu A CRITICAL EDITION • edited and with an introduction by Kathleen Costello-Sullivan SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY PRESS Copyright © 2013 by Syracuse University Press Syracuse, New York 13244-5290 All Rights Reserved First Edition 2013 13 14 15 16 17 18 6 5 4 3 2 1 Illustrations courtesy of the Special Collections/Research Center, Syracuse University Library. ∞ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. For a listing of books published and distributed by Syracuse University Press, visit our website at SyracuseUniversityPress.syr.edu.
    [Show full text]
  • Lesbianism and the Uncanny in Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla
    Lesbianism and the Uncanny in Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla Sergio Ramos Torres Trabajo de Fin de Grado en Estudios Ingleses Supervised by Constanza del Río Álvaro Diciembre 2016 Universidad de Zaragoza 0 Contents Introduction 2 1. The vampire in literature and popular culture 5 1.1 Female vampires 10 2. Lesbianism and the uncanny in Carmilla 13 2.1 Contextualisation 13 2.2 Lesbianism and the Uncanny in Carmilla 16 Conclusion 23 Works Cited 25 1 Introduction The figure of the vampire has been present in most cultures, and the meanings and feelings these supernatural creatures represent have been similar across time and space. For human beings they have been a source of fear and superstition, their significance acquiring religious connotations all over the world. The passing of time has modified this ancient horror and the myth has changed little by little, most of the time being softened, giving birth to diverse conceptions and representations that differ a lot from the evil spawn – originating in myth, legend and folklore – that ancient people were afraid of. These creatures have been represented not as part of the human being, but as a nemesis, as the “other”, and as something that is dead but, at the same time, alive, threatening the pure existence of the human by disrupting the carefully constructed borders that civilization has erected between the self and the other, the human and the animal, between life and death. They are, like Rosemary Jackson said, “our relation to death made concrete” (68) and thus, they “disrupt the crucial defining line which separates real life from the unreality of death” (69).
    [Show full text]
  • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, an Initiator of the Psychological Thriller
    MEISART, MICHELE F. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu: An Initiator of the Psychological Thriller. (1973) Directed by: Dr. Arthur W. Dixon. Pp.100. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, an important figure in the world of supernatural literature, was born in Ireland and as a writer could never escape his Irish origin. In his short stories the themes as well as the characters are Irish and in his novels the atmosphere is definitely Irish. The Irish people furnished Le Fanu with a never ending source for the psychological study of characters of his novels. His power of penetration into the human mind was enhanced by his own neurosis and his personal grief (when his wife died he became a recluse). His neurosis and his grief also caused his novels to become more indepth studies of death, murder and retribution. The strength of his stories lies in the fact that they are based on his own experience. The bases for his weirdly horrible tales, specifically the novels Uncle Silas, Checkmate, Wylder's Hand and Willing to Die are the following: one, the reader shares in the hallu- cinations and premonitions of the victim, two, he also shares in the identity of the agent of terror. In supernatural literature Le Fanu is between the gothic period and the modern supernatural fiction. There are elements of both in his own stories. The natural elements, typically gothic, condition the reader psychologically. Le Fanu, deeply learned in Swedenborgianism, believed that "men are constantly surrounded by preternatural powers," represented by vegetation, the moon or a house. These preternatural influences create an effect on the characters in the stories.
    [Show full text]
  • Carmilla Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan
    Carmilla Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan Published: 1871 Categorie(s): Fiction, Romance, Gothic, Horror Source: http://gutenberg.org 1 About 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 Milit- ary School in Phoenix Park, where his father, an Anglican cler- gyman, 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 practised and soon abandoned law for journalism. In 1838 he began contributing stories to the Dublin University Magazine, including his first ghost story, entitled "A Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter" (1839). 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 diffi- cult at this time, as his wife Susanna suffered from increasing neurotic symptoms.
    [Show full text]
  • P4nur [PDF] Carmilla (English Edition) Online
    p4nur [PDF] Carmilla (English Edition) Online [p4nur.ebook] Carmilla (English Edition) Pdf Free Par Sheridan Le Fanu ePub | *DOC | audiobook | ebooks | Download PDF Download Now Free Download Here Download eBook Détails sur le produit Rang parmi les ventes : #295279 dans eBooksPublié le: 2014-02-22Sorti le: 2014-02- 22Format: Ebook Kindle | File size: 20.Mb Par Sheridan Le Fanu : Carmilla (English Edition) before purchasing it in order to gage whether or not it would be worth my time, and all praised Carmilla (English Edition): Commentaires clientsCommentaires clients les plus utiles0 internautes sur 0 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile. Great book, less great publishingPar Anne Lesourdloved the book, really. it's probably my favourite vampire story. be careful however, it is quite fragile. the back cover and the spine are empty, which is not so great either. Présentation de l'éditeurThis is an illustraded version and it contains both a text analysis and author's biography.Carmilla is a Gothic novella by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. First published in 1872, it tells the story of a young woman’s susceptibility to the attentions of a female vampire named Carmilla. Also this story predates Bram Stoker’s Dracula by 25 years, and has been adapted many times for cinema. It was first published in the magazine The Dark Blue in late 1871 and early 1872 and then in the author’s collection of short stories In a Glass Darkly in the latter year.There were two illustrators for the story, the work of which appeared in the magazine but does not appear in modern printings of the book.
    [Show full text]
  • Manifestations of the Anglo-Irish Other in JS Le Fanu's
    ATLANTIS Journal of the Spanish Association of Anglo-American Studies 42.2 (December 2020): 233-251 e-issn 1989-6840 DOI: http://doi.org/10.28914/Atlantis-2020-42.2.12 © The Author(s) Content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence Guilt, Greed and Remorse: Manifestations of the Anglo-Irish Other in J. S. Le Fanu’s “Madame Crowl’s Ghost” and “Green Tea” Richard Jorge Fernández Universidad Europea del Atlántico [email protected] Monsters and the idea of monstrosity are central tenets of Gothic fiction. Such figures as vampires and werewolves have been extensively used to represent the menacing Other in an overtly physical way, identifying the colonial Other as the main threat to civilised British society. However, this physically threatening monster evolved, in later manifestations of the genre, into a more psychological, mind-threatening being and, thus, werewolves were left behind in exchange for psychological fear. In Ireland, however, this change implied a further step. Traditional ethnographic divisions have tended towards the dichotomy Anglo-Irish coloniser versus Catholic colonised, and early examples of Irish Gothic fiction displayed the latter as the monstrous Other. However, the nineteenth century witnessed a move forward in the development of the genre in Ireland. This article shows how the change from physical to psychological threat implies a transformation or, rather, a displacement—the monstrous Other ceases to be Catholic to instead become an Anglo-Irish manifestation. To do so, this study considers the later short fictions of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu and analyses how the Dublin-born writer conveys his postcolonial concerns over his own class by depicting them simultaneously as the causers of and sufferers from their own colonial misdeeds.
    [Show full text]
  • Ballyfermot Memories
    Ballyfermot Memories A selection of stories and anecdotes and poetry of Ballyfermot compiled by THE BALLYFERMOT HERITAGE SOCIETY Copyright and Acknowledgements Contents Preface Talking and recording people about their memories of growing up in Ballyfermot and the surrounding areas down the years, As they recalled their lovely memories it became very apparent how these memories were very precious to them and should be recorded not only for their own children and grandchildren but for generations to come. Also it is a great help to students studying their local history. The Ballyfermot Heritage Group would like to thank all who have shared their Precious Memories to this book. Ken Larkin 30th November 2014 Any opinions expressed within the individual memories are those of the individual contributor. Ballyfermot heritage Group accept no responsibility for any of the opinions so expressed HERITAGE GROUP Vincent McManus William O Flaherty Joe Coleman Matt Long John Deering Tom Murphy Jenny Hendricks Patrick Belmont Tom Murphy Ken Larkin The Ballyfermot Heritage group also remembering Thomas Davis, and Jackie McMahon R.I.P who contributed so much to Ballyfermot and the Ballyfermot Heritage Group over many years/ — BALLYFER M O T M E M ORIE S — My Ballyer Childhood Memories Siobhain Kennedy, Ballyfermot Road Happy are the days that I can recall Like when your Mother hugged you right after a fall To be petted and pampered by more than a few When the world revolved just around you To think of the old games we used to play Most of them not around
    [Show full text]
  • Sheridan Le Fanu: Master of the Occult, the Uncanny and the Ominous
    SHERIDAN LE FANU: MASTER OF THE OCCULT, THE UNCANNY AND THE OMINOUS Patricia Shaw University of Oviedo As is suggested by its title l, the airn of the present study is to analyse and comment on the supernatural elements to be found in the work of an author who, in the opinion of many authorised critics, is undoubtedly the best ghost story writer the British Isles have ever produced - the Anglo-Irish novelist and short-story writer, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. For although he does not today enjoy the popularity which he obviously deserves2, and this may well be due to the fact that the ghost story in which he excelled, is no longer, as a literary genre, very highly considered, his work has long been appreciated by a select group of critics, and, above all, of novelists, and, in particular, of novelists specialising in areas of literary imagination akin to his. These include, for example, Arthur Conan Doyle who, in fact, appropriated the basic plot of Le Fanu's most distinguished novel of suspense and mystery, Uncle Silas, for his own novel, The Firm of Girdlestone, 1890, and Brarn Stoker who undoubtedly wrote his Dracula "as a kind of seque1 to Le Fanu's powerful and innovational vampire story, . Stoker likewise borrowed an episode involving a large and repulsive rat which appears in his The Judge's House from a similar episode in the Irishman's Some Strange Disturbapces in Aungier Street. The distinguished and scholarly Dorothy Sayers, one of England's most outstanding writers of detective fiction, and one of the earliest theoreticians of the genre, was maintaining in 192S4 that the detective story would never survive unless it got back to where it began in the hands of Wilkie Collins and Le Fanu, whose works were novels of manners, not mere crossword puzzles, and, in fact, when writing her semi-autobiographical detective novel, Gaudy Night, had her scholarly heroine engaged in research precisely on Le Fanu, just as she herself, Dorothy Sayers, had done research on Collins.
    [Show full text]
  • Sheridan Le Fanu's “Carmilla”
    Mediterranean Journal of Humanities mjh.akdeniz.edu.tr II/2, 2012, 143-149 Sheridan Le Fanu’s “Carmilla”: A Different Vampire Story Sheridan Le Fanu’nun “Carmilla” eseri: Farklı bir Vampir Hikayesi Sezer Sabriye İKİZ Abstract: The story “Carmilla” was written by the Irish writer Sheridan Le Fanu in 1872. It is within a collection of stories published under the title, “In a Glass Darkly”. Carmilla is the only vampire story in this book and it has been accepted as one of the most important works of vampire fiction. Le Fanu’s story paved the road for Dracula and other vampire stories. It is assumed that he was inspired by Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “Cristabel” (1816). This story is about a relationship between a young woman, Laura who lives in a remote castle in Austria and a stranger, Carmilla who comes to stay for three months. Later we learn that Carmilla is a vampire and all the girls in the surrounding area and Laura become ill because of her visits at night. Le Fanu creates a vampire story by combining traditional gothic elements and Irish folklore. With this, he aims at questioning Victorian sexual politics. This paper will analyse the story’s traditional gothic and folklore elements and how Le Fanu subverts Victorian sexual politics through a vampire story. Keywords: Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla, Irish folklore, victorian sexual politics Özet: Carmilla, İrlandalı yazar Sheridan Le Fanu’nun 1872 de yazdığı uzun hikayesidir. “In a Glass Darkly” isimli bir hikaye koleksiyonu içinde yer alır. Bu kitaptaki tek vampir hikayesidir ve vampir yazınının en önemli eserleri arasında kabul edilir.
    [Show full text]
  • J. S. Le Fanu, Gothic, and the Irish Periodical Elizabeth Tilley
    Provided by the author(s) and NUI Galway in accordance with publisher policies. Please cite the published version when available. Title J.S. LeFanu, Gothic, and the Irish Periodical Author(s) Tilley, Elizabeth Publication Date 2014 Elizabeth Tilley (2014) 'J.S. LeFanu, Gothic, and the Irish Publication Periodical' In: Tina Morin and Niall Gillespie(Eds.). Irish Information Gothics: Genres, Forms, Modes, and Traditions, 1760-1890. London : Palgrave. Publisher Palgrave Link to publisher's http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137366641 version Item record http://hdl.handle.net/10379/5483 DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/9781137366658 Downloaded 2021-09-25T14:39:59Z Some rights reserved. For more information, please see the item record link above. This file is to be used only for a purpose specified by Palgrave Macmillan, such as checking proofs, preparing an index, reviewing, endorsing or planning coursework/other institutional needs. You may store and print the file and share it with others helping you with the specified purpose, but under no circumstances may the file be distributed or otherwise made accessible to any other third parties without the express prior permission of Palgrave Macmillan. Please contact [email protected] if you have any queries regarding use of the file. PROOF 7 J. S. Le Fanu, Gothic, and the Irish Periodical Elizabeth Tilley Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu bought the Dublin University Magazine (DUM) in 1861, and controlled its content until he sold his interest in 1869. He had been associated with the journal since the 1830s, and was a sea- soned writer of both short fiction and serial novels.
    [Show full text]
  • The Monstrous Women of Dracula and Carmilla
    University of Arkansas, Fayetteville ScholarWorks@UARK Theses and Dissertations 5-2016 “Deliberate Voluptuousness”: The onsM trous Women of Dracula and Carmilla Judith Bell University of Arkansas, Fayetteville Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, Literature in English, British Isles Commons, Visual Studies Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Bell, Judith, "“Deliberate Voluptuousness”: The onM strous Women of Dracula and Carmilla" (2016). Theses and Dissertations. 1570. http://scholarworks.uark.edu/etd/1570 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. “Deliberate Voluptuousness”: The Monstrous Women of Dracula and Carmilla A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in English Judith Bell John Brown University Bachelor of Arts in English, 2013 May 2016 University of Arkansas This thesis is approved for recommendation to the Graduate Council. ____________________________________ Dr. Robin Roberts Thesis Director ____________________________________ ____________________________________ Dr. Lissette Szwydky Dr. Robert Cochran Committee Member Committee Member Abstract Vampire women play a culturally significant role in films and literature by revealing the extent to which deviation from socially accepted behavior is tolerated. In this thesis, I compare the vampire women of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla to their depictions in recent adaptations. In Stoker’s Dracula, the vampire sisters are representative of the shortcomings of 19th century gender roles, especially in regard to women’s communities.
    [Show full text]
  • Page 2 Dazzling Ghostland: Sheridan Le Fanu's Phantasmagoria David
    Page 2 Dazzling Ghostland: Sheridan Le Fanu’s Phantasmagoria David Annwn As the third chapter of Sheridan LeFanu’s Uncle Silas (1865), cuts to the fourth, there occurs a most remarkable moment in 19th century literature of horror. Maud Ruthyn, the youthful protagonist, is thinking over her encounters with members of the Swedenborgian religious sect: Two or three of them crossed in the course of my early life, like magic lantern figures, the disk of my very circumscribed observation.(1) She is dwelling on her recent encounter with Mr Bryerly, a Swedenborgian and thinking of her walk with him past her mother’s sylvan tomb and his consoling words regarding the afterlife. Leaning on my hand, I was now looking upon that solemn wood, white and shadowy in the moonlight, where, for a long time after that ramble with the visionary, I fancied the gate of death, hidden only by a strange glamour, and the dazzling land of ghosts, were situate;(2) For a moment, in Maud’s lulled consciousness, it is as though the border between life and death has become permeable, subject to comings and goings. At the turn of the page and chapter, we jump to: ON A SUDDEN, on the grass before me, stood an odd figure—a very tall woman in grey draperies, nearly white under the moon, courtesying extraordinarily low, and rather fantastically. I stared in something like a horror upon the large and rather hollow features which I did not know, smiling very unpleasantly on me; and the moment it was plain that I saw her, the grey woman began gobbling and cackling shrilly—I could not distinctly hear what through the window—and gesticulating oddly with her long hands and arms.(3) Does our consciousness, as readers, move in upon the vision here or does this tall image seem to rise out of the land of the dead towards us? Perhaps both simultaneously, because this moment is a nexus of conflicting spatial urges and affronts to these.
    [Show full text]