Ron Breznay’s Masters of Horror: J. Sheridan LeFanu

Posted by Horror Grinder on February 4, 2008

J. Sheridan LeFanu Ron Breznay’s The Old Masters of Horror

[The following is an updated reprint of a column which originally appeared in the December 16, 2004, issue of Hellnotes.]

Joseph Thomas Sheridan LeFanu is called by some the father of the modern ghost story, and he was widely read during the Victorian era. His most notable short story is the vampire tale “Carmilla,” which influenced Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

LeFanu was born into a wealthy family on August 28, 1814, in Dublin, Ireland. His father, as seems to be the case for many early horror writers, was a clergyman, and his great-uncle was the playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan. The following year, his family moved to Phoenix Park, west of Dublin, and in 1826, they moved to Abington in County Limerick. Throughout his life, LeFanu never wandered far from Dublin. He studied law at Trinity College in Dublin and was graduated in 1837. Two years later, he was admitted to the bar, but he never practiced law. Instead, he went into journalism.

He started writing poems as a child and continued writing poetry as an adult, as well as articles and ballads in addition to fiction. His first publication was the short story “The Ghost and the Bonesetter,” which appeared in Dublin University Magazine in 1838, a year after he joined the staff of that periodical. He was the editor from 1856 to 1869, and during this time, the magazine was one of the leading European journals. The magazine subsequently published many of his short stories, which were later collected in The Purcell Papers (1880). In 1861, LeFanu purchased the magazine, and he sold it eight years later. (more…)

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