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Sheridan Le Fanu was born in Dublin to a noble family. His grandmother Alice Sheridan Le Fanu and her brother, Richard Brinsley Sheridan (J. Sheridan Le Fanu's great-uncle), were both playwrights. His niece, Rhoda Broughton, would become a very successful novelist.
Le Fanu studied law at Trinity College in Dublin and passed the bar 1839. But Le Fanu did not take up the legal profession, instead becoming a journalist. Thenceforth until his death he published stories. From 1861-- 1869, he edited Dublin University Magazine, which also published many of his works in serial form. He owned several periodicals (including the Dublin University Magazine and the Dublin Evening Mail) in his late life. He died in his native Dublin on February 7, 1873.
Le Fanu's plots are well-crafted and vivid, though some find his prose too wordy and his characters frustratingly daft. He specialised in tone and effect rather than shock horror, often following a mystery format. Yet to the delicate sensibility, tales such as the vampire novella CarmillaCarmilla is a vampire novella by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, and perhaps one of the greatest in the genre, despite the overwhelming presence of Bram Stoker's novel, Dracula which was strongly influenced by Carmilla''. Though Carmilla was not the first vampir can be profoundly effective.
Carmilla was to greatly influence Bram StokerAbraham "Bram" Stoker ( November 8, 1847 April 20, 1912) was an Irish writer, best remembered as the author of the influential horror novel Dracula''. Early life He was born on November 8, 1847 in Clontarf in Ireland, a coastal village near Dublin. Until in the writing of DraculaAlternate meaning: Dracula (orchid genus Dracula is a fictional character, arguably the most famous vampire in fiction. He was created by the Irish writer Bram Stoker in his 1897 horror novel of the same name. It is an epistolary novel, that is, told most. A very early work, A Chapter in the History of the Tyrone Family ( 1839), may have influenced Emily BrontėEmily Bront ( July 30, 1818 December 19, 1848) was a British novelist and poet, best remembered for her one novel Wuthering Heights an acknowledged classic of English literature. Emily was born at Thornton in Yorkshire, the younger sister of Charlotte Bro's Wuthering HeightsWuthering Heights is Emily Bronte's only novel. Published in 1847, it has become a classic of English literature, and has given rise to many adaptations, including several films, radio and television dramatisations, and a musical, as well as inspiring a h. He is sometimes said to be the father of the Victorian Irish ghost story. Considering the influence of his work, it is surprising that Le Fanu is not better appreciated.
Other fiction by Le Fanu includes: The Purcell Papers, divided into three volumes; The House by the Churchyard ( 1863Events January-March January 1 Abraham Lincoln delivers the Emancipation Proclamation during the second year of the American Civil War. January 1 The first claim under the Homestead Act is made for a farm in Nebraska January 8 Ground is broken in Sacramen); Wylder's Hand ( 1864); Uncle Silas ( 1864), a mystery novel that is his best-known work; Guy Deverell ( 1865); Haunted Lives ( 1868); The Wyvern Mystery ( 1869); In a Glass Darkly ( 1872), an anthology containing Carmilla, Green Tea, and three other stories; and the posthumously published The Watcher and Other Weird Stories ( 1894), another collection of short stories.