Horror Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan: Ghostly Tales, Vols. 1-5. 09 June 2008.

[mechteach]

J.S. Le Fanu's writing is clearly a product of its time, but his stories can often become quite genuinely spooky. Both LeFanu and Wilkie Collins were cited as influences by Dorothy Sayers. The character Harriet Vane worked on a study of Le Fanu in Sayer's Gaudy Night, and in her comments in The Art of the Mystery Story: A Collection of Critical Essays, Sayers states:

"that if the detective story was to live and develop it must get back to where it began in the hands of Collins and Le Fanu, and become once more a novel of manners instead of a pure crossword puzzle"

and

"he (Le Fanu) has the gist of investing the most mechanical of plots with an atmosphere of almost unbearable horror."

The zip file contains a separate file for each volume. The contents of the volumes are:

Vol. 1:

• Schalken the Painter(1851)
• An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street (1853)

Vol. 2:

• An Authentic Narrative of a Haunted House (1862)
• Ultor De Lacy: A Legend of Cappercullen (1861)

Vol. 3:

• The Haunted Baronet (1871)

Vol. 4:

• Ghost Stories of Chapelizod (1851)
• The Drunkard's Dream (1838)
• The Ghost and the Bone-setter (1838)
• The Mysterious Lodger (1850)

Vol. 5:

• Laura Silver Bell (1872)
• Wicked Captain Walshawe of Wauling (1869)
• The Child that Went with the Fairies (1870)
• Stories of Lough Guir (1870)
  • The Magician Earl
  • Moll Rial's Adventure
  • The Banshee
  • The Governess's Dream
  • The Earl's Hall
• The Vision of Tom Chuff (1870)
• Dickon the Devil (1872)

Feel free to post/PM me with corrections (of course), but I'll be away from a computer for a few weeks, so it may take me a while to get back to you.

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[Lobolover]

Is "Schalken the Painter" a good one?

[mechteach]

Originally Posted by Lobolover

Is "Schalken the Painter" a good one?

I think so! It's tone is pretty creepy, though some of the conventions of the story seem quite odd to modern sensibilities.