Journal Articles and Reviews

For Some On-Line Journal Articles see "Internet Articles"

Achilles, Jochen.  "Fantasy as Psychological Necessity: Sheridan Le Fanu's Fiction."  Costerus, NS 91 (1994): 150-68.

"Le Fanu reorganizes the stock devices of gothic fiction in such a manner that they yield  deep psychological insights."

Altuna, Garcia de Salazar,  "Levels of Representation in Realist Fiction:  Sheridan Le Fanu."  Lestras de Deusto 29.82 (Jan.-Mar. 1999): 109-27.

Anon.  "Carmilla:  Historia de Vampiros."  Contenido 421 (1 July 1998): 59 ff.

A Spanish translation of excerpts from Le Fanu's novella with commentary.

Anon. "The Cock and the Anchor."  The Spectator, 26 April 1845, pp. 400-01.

An unfavorable English review of the book that remarks that little of true Irish character is presented and that few historical events are depicted.

Anon. "The Cock and the Anchor; a Tale of Old Dublin City."  The Critic and Journal of Literature, 3 May 1845, p. 10.

An English review that condemns it for depicting crude and villainous characters and as "offensive to English taste."

Anon.   Review of In a Glass Darkly. Locus 31 (Summer 1993): 66.

Anon. "Literature."  Review of The Cock and Anchor.  The Britannia and Conservative Journal, 24 May 1845, pp. 331-32.

 A negative review that remarks, "we wish that romance-writers would trust to their invention rather than employ themselves in raking up the dark records of the past."

Anon. "Literature." Review of The Cock and Anchor.  The Cork Examiner, 16 May 1845, p. 2.

"On the whole the work is one which we can strongly recommend, for good writing--a just appreciation of Irish character, a fine moral tone, and a fearful interest as regards the tale itself."

Anon. "Literature." Review of The Cock and Anchor.  The Dublin Monitor, 9 May 1845, p. 2.

Notes that the publisher, William Curry, has done "a vast service to the circulating libraries of Ireland, by supplying them with a tale so national, animated, and intense in interest, instead of the draughts of London foam which they take in from March to October."

Anon. "Literature."  Review of The Cock and Anchor.  The Dublin Times, 3 May 1845, pp. 3-4.

The reviewer asserts that "the author is beyond doubt a man of genius, and possesses high qualifications to become a successful novelist."

Anon. "Literature."  Review of The Cock and Anchor.  John Bull, 10 May 1845, p. 295.

A highly negative review that remarks on the unpleasant aspects of the novel, and feels that Le Fanu needs to turn to more pleasant subjects.

Anon.  "Literature." Review of The Cock and Anchor. The Northern Whig  24 April 1845, p. 4.

A very favorable review that notes, however, that there is  "some little improbability" and some "repulsiveness."

Anon. "Literature." Review of The Cock and Anchor.  The English Gentleman, 26 April 1845, p. 13.

A review by an English critic, who notes that "the English reader cannot fail to gather a considerable amount of entertainment."

Anon. "Literature." Review of The Cock and Anchor.  The Freeman's Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser 8 May 1845, p. 3.

Notes that the novel is better than most Irish novels of its day.

Anon. "Literature."  Review of The Cock and Anchor.  The Southern Reporter and Cork Commercial Courier, 10 May 1845, p. 4.

Contends that the novel is well-written, but is not a true historical novel.

Anon. "Literature." Review of The Cock and Anchor.  The Sun, 12 May 1845, p. 3.

Notes that the novel "is not a tale that will amuse, but is one that will afford both interest and instruction." It shows "the gradual progression of crime."

Anon. "Literature: Irish Historical Romance."  Review of The Cock and Anchor.  The Nation, 3 May 1845, p.491.

"The sympathies of the author (a Conservative politician, it is said, of high influence) are thoroughly national; but the work is equally free from flattery and from defamation."

Anon. "Literature:  Notices of New Works." Review of The Cock and Anchor.  The Metropolitan Magazine, XLIII (June 1845): 261.

Notes that Le Fanu's purpose "is a moral one" and that the "book is written with considerable ability, and knowing, as we happen to do, that it is the maiden production of a comparatively young man, it must be considered a highly creditable production."

Anon. "Literary Notice."   Review of The Cock and Anchor.   Belfast News Letter 25 April 1845, p. 4.

A favorable review that notes that  "the work is truly Irish" and that Le Fanu is "a gifted author" and obviously "a countryman."

Anon. "Literary Notices." Review of The Cock and Anchor.  The Glasgow Citizen, or West of Scotland Journal & Advertiser, 10 May 1845, p. 1.

". . . we cordially welcome this national tale as one of great power and promise, and hope we shall soon again meet with the ingenious and able author."

Anon. "Literary World." Review of The Cock and Anchor.  The World, 26 April 1845, p. 8.

The novel is "an honour to Irish literature" and deserves wide circulation.

Anon. "New Publications." Review of The Cock and Anchor. The Kilkenny Moderator, 16 April 1845, p. 3.

A favorable review, which notes that it is written by "a hand not practised in the paths of fiction," but still that Le Fanu's pen is "powerful."

Anon. "Our Library Table."  The Athenaeum, 21 June 1845, p. 609.

A negative English review that condemns the novel for its sensationalism.

Anon. "Review of New Books." The Cock and Anchor.  The Literary Gazette and Journal of the Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, etc. 26 April 1845, p. 264.

A favorable review that notes that the novel "is one of melancholy interest and fatal issue."

Anon. "Reviews." The Cock and Anchor.  The Vindicator, 7 May 1845, p. 4.

"Let the writer of the Cock and Anchor endeavour to acquire more national feeling--to respect the national religion--to give more space to the virtues than the vices of his writings--to make the good more successful than the bad in the development of his plots, and we think his writings will be very useful to his country, and honourable to himself."

Anon. "Reviews." The Cock and Anchor.  The Newry Examiner and Louth Advertiser, 14 May 1845, p. 2.

Criticizes the novel for the many absurdities in its plot.

Anon.  "Start Here:  An Essential Taster of the Gothic Novel:  J. Sheridan Le Fanu."  Metro (15 Jan. 2007).

Short article on the influence of Le Fanu's "Carmilla" on popular culture.

Anon. "Uncle Silas." Library Journal 126 (15 Feb. 2001): 228.

Asbjorn, Jon. A.  "From Nosferatu to Von Carstein:  Shifts in the Portrayal of Vampires."  Australian Folklore 16 (2001):97-106.

Baldwin, Dean. "The Tardy Evolution of the British Short Story."  Studies in Short Fiction 30.1 (1993): 23-  .

Mentions Le Fanu and James Clarence Mangan as seminal types of the short story in Ireland.

Bertrandias, Bernadette.  "Refigure Le Gothique:  Les Textes Hantes de Charlotte Bronte."  Ideologies dans Le Monde Anglo-Saxon 12 (2001): 101-16.

Bigelow, Gordon.  Rev. of Dialogues in the Margin:  A Study of The Dublin University Magazine."  Victorian Studies 44.4 (Summer 2002): 686-88.

Broich, Ulrich.  "Charakterkonstitution und Modelle fur die Erhlarung menshlichen Verhaltens in Englischer und Franzosisher Roman des 19.Jahrhunderts." Poetica 25.3-4 (1993): 338-59.

Burwick, Frederick.  "Romantic Supernaturalism: The Case Study as Gothic Tale."  Wordsworth Circle 34.2 (2003): 73-81.

Studies several medical and psychological works from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that shows how the "case study" of mental illness and hauntings was common throughout the era.  Discusses Le Fanu's "Green Tea" and the other stories of Le Fanu's In a Glass Darkly to show that the case study provided a lengthy discourse on the psychological causes of hauntings.  The "case study" of the doctor "may seem a mirror image of the Gothic tale.  Indeed, it could become such a perfect mirror image that, as in the Dr. Hesselius tales, it could pop right through to the other side, like Alice through the looking glass."

Caeser, Ed, Arifa Akbar, and John Walsh.  "Cult Dracula."  The Independent (London) (18 May 2007).

Notes that Le Fanu's "Carmilla" influenced Stoker.  An essay on the re-release of the Hammer Film Production of Dracula (1958) that restores scenes first cut by censors of 1958 as too gory.

Cahill, Ann. "Madness and Eccentricity in Sheridan Le Fanu's The Rose and the Key." The Bram Stoker Society Journal  10 (1998): 17-29.

Le Fanu's novel is similar to other Victorian sensation novels in which women are incarcerated in mental hospitals.  "What these texts have in common, as well as with their eighteenth century counterparts, was the desire to control women, either their behavior or their property, through incarceration."

Cahill, Ann.  "Who is Robert Ardagh?--'The Fortunes of Sir Robert Ardagh' by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu."  Bram Stoker Society Journal 9 (1997): 2-9.

"By giving the reader two versions Le Fanu links the Gothic with the nineteenth century ghost story as it was to become, as well as, more importantly, connecting the local folk tale to a more literary telling of the story."

Cooke, Simon.  "Dangerous Subversives:  The Role of Painters in Sensational Fiction."  Victorians Institute Journal 31 (2003): 157-72.

Studies the characters of painters in Victorian sensation fiction to show how the painters are set apart from society, either as dangerous subversives or critics of the upper classes.  Takes Le Fanu's "Schalken the Painter" as an example of the painter Schalken as the shunned lover of Rose and how he criticizes the wealthy suitor Vanderhausen as evil and subversive and Rose's father as greedy for money--he sells Rose, in effect, to the wealthy and evil Vanderhausen.

Crossan, Greg.  "Proverbs and Proverbial Sayings in J. S. Le Fanu's The Wyvern Mystery." Notes and Queries 52.4 (Dec. 2005): 480-85.

Discusses the profusion of proverbs and proverbial sayings in Le Fanu's The Wyvern Mystery. Notes that Le Fanu no doubt consulted Thomas Fuller's Gnomologia and other works.  Remarks that Le Fanu's novel should be used in the study of proverbs in the nineteenth century.

Dalby, Richard.  "The Horror Stories of J. Sheridan Le Fanu."  Book and Magazine Collector 92 (1991): 46-55.

An overview of Le Fanu's life and works for the book collector;  prices for first editions of Le Famu's works are provided.

Davis, Michael.  "Gothic's Enigmatic Signifier:  The Case of J. Sheridan Le Fanu's 'Carmilla.'"  Gothic Studies 6.2 (Nov. 2004): 223-35.

Studies "Carmilla" in terms of the allegorical signifiers of the enigma that is the vampire.  In attempting to make sense of her experiences, Laura, the narrator, attempts to understand her trauma.  This trauma stems from the transgressive sexuality of the vampire Carmilla, and it presents the enigma that she is to the narrator Laura..

Dirda, Michael.  "A Classic of Terror--and Unsettling Ambiguity."  Washington Post Book World, 1 Feb. 2004, p.15.

A brief, favorable review of Le Fanu's most famous novel, Uncle Silas.  Argues that Le Fanu "reveals how deeply circumstances sometime determine actions, how easily one can be mistaken about anyone's true self."  This ambiguity, this mystery, is at the heart of the novel.

Dirda, Michael.  "Ghost Stories."  Washington Post Book World, 31 Oct. 2004, p. 15.

Le Fanu is mentioned briefly as a master ghost story writer.

Dirda, Michael.  Rev. of  Mr. Justice Harbottle, and Others:  Ghost Stories, 1870-1873.  Ed. Jim Rockhill.  All Hallows No. 40 (Oct. 2005): 183-86.

Dirda's long review of the third in the series of Le Fanu's ghost stories Jim Rockhill has edited, is a perceptive and rather detailed commentary on Le Fanu's work as a whole.  Notes the narrative techniques Le Fanu uses, such as the frame narrative, and the diary or the letter, and point of view  to suggest the multi-layered ghost story narratives Le Fanu weaves.  Notes that Le Fanu was "a committed, if sometimes uncertain, Christian."  Indidpensable volumes for the Le Fanu reader or scholar.

Doniger, Wendy.  "Sympathy for the Vampire."  Nation 261.17 (20 Nov. 1995): 608-12.

A lengthy review of Nina Auerbach's Our Vampires, Ourselves with perceptive comments on vampire fiction that shows that Le Fanu arouses sympathy for the vampire in his novella "Carmilla."

Donnelly, Trisha.  "Column."  Artforum International 42.7 (March 2004): 84-  .

Notes that some artists of the nineteenth century influenced Le Fanu in such stories as "The Familiar" and "Green Tea."

Duguid, Lindsay.  Review of The House by the Churchyard.  Times Literary Supplement, 1 April 1994, p. 23.

In an omnibus review of Irish novels, remarks that Le Fanu's novel is "a best-selling ghost story."

Dueyron-Lafay, Francoise.  "La Metomorphose dan quelues nouvelles fantastiques de J. S.  Le Fanu."  Imaginaires 4 (1999): 103-16.

Dueyron-Lafay, Francoise.  "La Paysage dans quelque oeuvres de J. S. Le Fanu."  Imaginaires 5 (2000): 67-78.

Dueyron-Lafay, Francoise.  "Les Femmes fatales: Sirenes, monstres et criminelles de la fiction victorienne."  Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens 57.14 (April 2003): 55-66.

Eldemann, Theo.  "The Unlucky Joseph Le Fanu."  Journal of Irish Studies, 20.2 (1991): 3-24.

A short biographical and critical study of Le Fanu's grandfather and his failure as a playwright in Ireland.

Fierobe, Claude.  "Histoire Litteraire: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu La Maison pres du Cimetiere."  La Quinzaine Litteraire No. 891 (2005): 10.

Foley, T.P. "A Source for Yeats's 'Terrible Beauty."  Notes and Queries 31.4 (Dec. 1984): 509.

Speculates that Yeats's "Terrible Beauty" is taken from O. Henry's story "A Fog in Santone."  This is countered by Austin Clarke, who says it is taken from Le Fanu.

Frost, Brian J.  "Metamorphoses of the Vampire."  Shadow 3.4 (Aug. 1974): 16-26.

A rather amateurish piece with errors and distortions of fact concerning Le Fanu and his famous vampire "Carmilla."

Gibbons, Luke. "'Some Hysterical Hatred': History, Hysteria and the Literary Revival."  Irish University Review  27.1 (1997): 7-23.

Notes that the hysteria in the Anglo-Irish Gothic works of Le Fanu, Stoker, and Maturin arises from the "spectres from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries."

Girard, Gaid. "Du recit de legende a la nouvelle:  The Child that Went with the Fairies de Sheridan Le Fanu." La Licorne 22 (1992): 29-39.

Girard, Gaid.  "Entre Swedenborg et Henry James: 'Green Tea', de Le Fanu, ou l'echec du detective."  Etudes Irlandaises 31.1 (Spring 2006): 51-68.

Perceptively comments on Le Fanu's Dr. Hesselius, pointing out that his scientific-metaphysical theories are unable to save the Rev. Mr. Jennings.  Girard notes, "In the same manner as the certainties of the governess in The Turn of the Screw, they build a univocal system of thought based on deduction, which is typical of detective fiction, and which ultimately ends up with the death of the ill protected character.  In both stories, narratorial strategies shed a cruel light on the declared knowledge of the detective, suffusing the tale with a distinct uncanny atmosphere."

Gonzalez, Rosa M.  "Sheridan Le Fanu's Uncle Silas (1864): An Irish Story Transposed to an English Setting." Resista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses Apr.-Nov 22-23 (1991): 101-10.

Grigore-Muresan, Madelina.  "La Femme-Vampire chez Mircea Eliade, Theophile Gautier et Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu."  Les Cahiers du Gerf  7 (2000):45-59.

Hammack, Brenda Mann.  "Phantastica:  The Chemically Inspired Intellectual in Occult Fiction."  Mosaic (1 March 2004).

Studies Le Fanu's "Green Tea" and compares the story to many case histories of chemical abuse in creative people in the nineteenth century.  Hammack does not discuss the fine irony and distance from the supernatural in the short story. Instead, she talks about Rev. Jennings's habitual green tea drinking as arising from medical case histories of the era.

Harris, Sally.  "Spiritual Warnings:  The Ghost Stories of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu."  Victorians Institute Journal 31 (2003) 9-39.

Although the exact nature of Le Fanu's belief in God and the supernatural is "ambiguous, it is clear Le Fanu recognized that a spiritual force exists and that denying it is dangerous.  His stories point to this belief."

Heller, Tamar. "Recent Work on Victorian Gothic and Sensation Fiction."  Victorian Literature and Culture 24 (1996): 349-66.

An excellent survey of criticism on the Gothic and the sensation novel with insights into work on Le Fanu that relates it to other writers.

Helsinger, Elizabeth.  "Recent Studies in the Nineteenth Century."  Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900 46 (2006).

Hennelly, Mark M., Jr.  "Framing the Gothic: From Pillar to Post-Structuralism."  College Literature 28.3 (2001):68-87.

An essay on the teaching of Gothic literature that touches on many Gothic works, such as Le Fanu's Uncle Silas.

Hughes, William.  "The Origins and Implications of J.S. Le Fanu's 'Green Tea,'"  Irish Studies Review 13.1 (2005): 45-54.

An excellent source study bringing into play one of the "Ferris texts" in The Dublin University Magazine, "German Ghosts and Ghost-Seers," and Samuel Warrens's The Diary of a Late Physician and the sensational tales in Blackwood's Magazine to show that all these sources coalesce into a Swedenborgian theological tale, a much more profound implication of "Green Tea" and the other stories of In a Glass Darkly than the sources offer.

Jerome, Helen M.  "Double Shot of Celtic Soul."  Book (March 2001): 20-  .

Le Fanu is related to other Irish writers using folklore as their sources.

[Johnstone, Mrs. Christian Isobel]. "New Novels." Tait's Edinburch Magazine, XVI (July 1845): 449-53.

Criticizes the novel for its for its melodrama and sensationalism.

Kegler, Adelheid.  "Below in the Depths:  McDonald's Symbolic Landscape."  North Wind: Journal of George MacDonald Studies 24 (2005): 29-40.

Lapinski, Piya Pal.  "Dickens's Miss Wade and J. S. Le Fanu's 'Carmilla':  The Female Vampire in Little Dorrit."  Dickens Quarterly 11.2 (Aug. 1994):  81-87.

"Parallels between 'Carmilla' and sections of Little Dorrit seems to suggest that Miss Wade's history might have been a source for Le Fanu's vampire tale."

Leal, Amy.  "Unnameable Desires in Le Fanu's 'Carmilla."  Names 55.1 (March 2007): 37-52.

A well-researched study of the use of names and their variants in Le Fanu's famous vampire tale.  From the anagrammatical expression of the vampire's name to the names of the Karnsteins and Carmilla's slayers, Le Fanu presents a Babel-like world in which words, names, and their variants show a kind of subterfuge of fact.  The lesbian identity of Carmilla is submerged behind names and words, as was homosexuality in Victorian England.

Longhorn, David. "M. R. James and the Novels of J. S. Le Fanu."  Ghosts and Scholars 29 (1999): 44-45.

Discusses some of M. R. James's comments on Le Fanu's novels, especially The House by the Churchyard and The Rose and the Key, which were negative remarks;  and notes parallel passages in James's short stories with some of Le Fanu's novels.

Lozes, Jean.  "Aspects du Fantastique Anglo-Irlandais chez Charles Robert Maturin, Gerald Griffin, William Carleton et Sheridan Le Fanu."  Litteratures 26 (1992): 25-40.

Magnum, Theresa.  "Sheridan Le Fanu's Ungovernable Governesses."  Studies in the Novel 29.2 (1997): 214-37.

Studies Le Fanu's Uncle Silas and A Lost Name against the background of journalism about the Victorian governess (and even Victorian governess pornography) to show that Le Fanu's governesses attempt to control the patriarchal household, but are eventually destroyed by the men in power.

Manara, Frank. "Une eau fantastique: Lecture de 'The Haunted Baronet' de Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu."  Etudes Irlandaise 29.2 (Autumn 2004): 121-34.

Mariconda, Steven J.  "The Sheridan Le Fanu of Humor." Dead Reckonings No. 1 (Spring 2007): 53-58.

In this review of T.E.D. Klein's Reassuring Tales, notes the humor in Le Fanu, which is compared to that of Klein.

McCann, Andrew.  "Rosa Praed and the Vampire-Aesthete."  Victorian Literature and Culture 35.1 (March 2007): 175-87.

Studies Rosa Praed's popular occult novels influenced by Theosophy.   "Thei rGothicism and their mesmerism, telepathy, dual personality, and the recurring figure of the spiritual "moral vampire."  Notes the influence of Le Fanu's "Carmilla."

McCormack, W. J.  "'Never Put Your Name to an Anonymous Letter':  Serial Reading in the Dublin University Magazine, 1861 to 1869."  The Yearbook of English Studies 26 (1996): 100-15.

A detailed discussion of serial fiction in The Dublin University Magazine that argues that its history, even under Le Fanu, was haphazard.  Also notes that this fact is true of other Victorian magazines.

McLaren, Scott.  " Saving the Monsters? Images of Redemption in the Gothic Tales of George MacDonald."  Christianity and Literature 55.2 (2006): 245-    .

Quotes from Le Fanu's "Green Tea" and relates it to the theological fiction of George MacDonald.

McNally, Raymond T.  "In Search of the Lesbian Vampire:  Barbara von Cilli, Le Fanu's 'Carmilla' and the Dragon Order."  Journal of Dracula Studies 3 (2001): 8-14.

A detailed historical essay on the life of Barbara von Cilli of Austria and attempts to make a connection between Le Fanu's "Carmilla" and the life of von Cilli.  Merely suggests possibilities and forms the way for more research.

Means, James.  "A Note on Le Fanu's Uncle Silas."  Notes and Queries 42 (1995): 196.

Cites an allusion in Uncle Silas to Erasmus Darwin's poem  The Botanic Garden concerning the Eleusinian Mysteries.

Met, Phillipe. "Voix et voies de la femme-vampire: De Gautier a Le Fanu." Bulletin de la Societe Theophile Gautier 21 (1999): 267-77.

Michelis, Angelica.  "'Dirty Mamma': Horror, Vampires, and the Maternal in Late Nineteenth-Century Gothic Fiction."  Critical Survey 15.3 (2003): 5-18.

Studies the doubling in Le Fanu's "Carmilla" and relates this image to the works of Sigmund Freud.  Ultimately, the vampire Carmilla is both a lover and a mother.

Milbank, Alison.  "From the Sublime to the Uncanny: Victorian Gothic and Sensation Fiction."  Costerus, NS 91 (1994):169-79.

An excellent study of the Victorian Gothic that brings to bear Freud's essay on the uncanny to the Victorian Gothic fiction of Wilkie Collins and Sheridan Le Fanu.  Le Fanu's Uncle Silas is presented as the pinnacle of the Victorian Gothic because it moves to the sublime in relation to the uncanny.

Milbank, Alison.  "Milton, Melancholy and the Sublime in the 'Female' Gothic from Radcliffe to Le Fanu."  Women's Writing, 1.2 (1994): 143-60.

Notes the influence of Milton (the theme of the fall) in Le Fanu's Uncle Silas and Wylder's Hand.  Argues that the "suggestion of a transformation of the whole natural order, although only enjoyed by a chosen group, is Le Fanu's way of figuring the sublime.  Death here, the negation of images, itself unrepresentable, stands in for the loss of Eden, and, as in the recognition of her absence in the twilight poem, leads to artistic creativity and the narrative of the tale (Uncle Silas).

Monteiro, Maria Conceicao. "Uncle Silas:  Forms of Desire in the Gothic House." AEBI Jornal: The Brazilian Journal of Irish Studies 5 (June 2003): 299-304.

Mullan, John. "Ha, Reginald!" Review of In a Glass Darkly and The House by the Churchyard.  Times Literary Supplement, 24 Dec. 1993, p. 7.

An omnibus review that notes that Le Fanu's horror tales in In a Glass Darkly "set 'science' against folk-tale in an uncertain contest."  Notes the ghost tale in The House by the Churchyard presents a world where "fearfulness, as often comic as disturbing, comes to life."

OhEnna, Liam. "Scribhneeoiri Cluiteacha an Uafais: Bram Stoker agus Sheridan Le Fanu."  Feasta 52.2 (Feb. 1999): 12-14.

Pardoe, Rosemary.  "Review of In a Glass Darkly, ed. Robert Tracy."  Ghosts and Scholars 16 (1993): 38.

Praises this edition of Le Fanu's most important collection for Robert Tracy's sound scholarship and commentary and for showing why M.R. James was so drawn to Le Fanu's work.

Pellini, Pierluigi. "Il tema del Quatro Animato nella Letteratura del Secondo Ottocento."  Belfagor 56.1 (2001): 11-33.

Power, Albert. "Bram Stoker and the Tradition of Irish Supernatural Literature."  The Bram Stoker Society Journal 3 (1991): 3-27.

Discusses Le Fanu, Maturin, and Stoker as the leading exponents of the Irish supernatural tale.  Argues that Le Fanu's work is more deeply rooted in his Irishness than Maturin or Stoker.

Power, Albert.  "Le Fanu's The House by the Churchyard and the Influence of Richard Brinsley Sheridan."  Wormwood No. 9 (Autumn 2007): 32-43.

A good study of the novel, which argues that its theatricality is inspired by the works of Le Fanu's ancestor, Richard Brinsley Sheridan.  But unlike Sheridan, the long passages of darkness, mystery, murder, and the supernatural are truly Le Fanu's own.  Studies the complex interactions of the characters and notes how gossip, also found in Sheridan, appropriately conveys Le Fanu's sensitivity to character.  Says that Le Fanu never repeated this superb mix of comedy, romance, murder, mystery, and supernatural horror in later works.

Power, Albert.  "Sheridan Le Fanu and the Spirit of 1798."  The Bram Stoker Society Journal 11 (1999): 3-13.

A good article about Le Fanu's poem "Shamus OBrien" that discusses his sympathy for the Irish rebels, even though he never wrote anything like it again.  The anxiety of the insular Anglo-Irish eventually dominated his work.

Quigley, Patrick.  "Le Fanu, an Appreciation."  Shadow 3.4 (Aug. 1974): 33-39.

An unfortunate piece filled with distortions of fact and errors.  Carries over S.M. Ellis's views of Le Fanu from his book of 1931 and is not a reliable source.  An amusing typographical error is the village name "Chapelizoid' for 'Chapelizod."

Reibner, Simone.  "Zur Psychodynamik der Paranoia in Ausgewahstlen von Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu."  System Ubw: Zeitschrift fur Klassiche Psychoanalyse (Frieburg) 22.1 (2004): 43-53.

Ridenhour, Jamieson.  "'A Terrible Beauty: 'Carmilla' as Aisling."  Cleave:  A Journal of Literary Criticism 1.2 (2002): 56-63.

Roden, Barbara.  "Re: Vampyres." Journal of the Arthur Conan Doyle Society 4 (1993): 104-13.

Compares and contrasts Stoker's and Le Fanu's vampires with other "psychic" vampires.  In the tales by Arthur Conan Doyle and others, there is no blood or gore.  Notes that Conan Doyle, in lifting the plot of Le Fanu's Uncle Silas in The Firm of Girdlestone, he improved on Le Fanu.

Russell, Sharon A.  "The Influence of Dracula on the Lesbian Vampire Film."  Journal of Dracula Studies 1 (1999): 28-32.

Russo, Jean Paul.  "Isle of the Dead:  A Classical Topos in J. Fenimore Cooper and Sheridan Le Fanu."  Letterature de America:  Rivista Trimestrale 24.101 (2004): 53-101.

Studies Roy Ward Baker's film version of "Carmilla," The Vampire Lovers and shows how the point of view of the film is shifted to male characters, thus making the film close to Bram Stoker's novel Dracula in which male vampire hunters destroy another male vampire who corrupts their women.

Ryan, Laura T. "In Search of Dublin's Literary Heroes." The Post-Standard (27 Aug, 2006).

Briefly mentions Le Fanu in connection with Maturin and Wilde.

Sage, Victor. "Gothic Laughter:  Farce and Horror in Five Texts."  Costerus, NS 91 (1994): 190-203.

Studies the ambiguous humor and horror that lies at the heart of Gothic fiction, and discusses the scene in Le Fanu's Uncle Silas in which Maud and Madame de la Rougierre walk through a graveyard and the sequence is horrifying at the same time it is funny.  Relates the scene to the women of Victorian drama and their morally questionable stance.  Sage notes that in Gothic fiction, there is a similarity between  horror and theatrical farce.

Saler, Benson, and Charles A. Zieger. "Dracula and 'Carmilla:  Monsters and the Mind."  Philosophy and Literature 29.1 (April 2005): 218-27.

A study of Le Fanu's "Carmilla" and Bram Stoker's Dracula from a psychological and anthropological standpoint to show that Stoker's novel follows the more typical "monster narratives" in myth and folklore.  Le Fanu's novella stresses ambiguity, whereas Stoker's novel falls in line with more well-defined monster narratives.

Sceats, Sarah.  "Oral Sex: Vampiric Transgresion and the Writing of Angela Carter."  Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature 20 (2001): 107-21.

Le Fanu's "Carmilla" present a lesbian vampire that subverts the patriarchal society in which she lives.  Discusses the vampire imagery of Angela Carter's works in this respect.

Schmalenbach, Renate.  "Die Verborgene Doppeldeutigkeit der Wirklichkeit, Zur Komzeption des Gespenstischen bei J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Tiel 1."  Quarber Merkur 36.1 (March 1999) [No. 88]: 32-88.

Schmalenbach, Renate.  "Die Verborgene Doppledeutigkeit der Wirklichkeit, Zur Konzeption des Gespenstischen bei J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Tiel 2."  Quarber Merkur 36.2 (Dec. 1999) [No. 89/90]: 47-76.

Shaw, Patricia.  "Sheridan Le Fanu:  Master of the Occult, the Uncanny and the Ominous." Barcelona English Language and Literature Studies 1 (1989): 189-206.

Signorotti, Elizabeth.  "Repossessing the Body: Transgressive Desire in 'Carmilla' and Dracula."  Criticism 58.4 (1996): 607-32.

"Dracula seeks to repossess the female body for the purposes of male pleasure and exchange, and to correct the reckless unleashing of female desire in Le Fanu's 'Carmilla.'"

Simmons, William P. "Through a Mind Darkly: Some Thoughts on J.S. Le Fanu and the Psychology of the Ghost Story."  Wormwood No. 6 (Spring 2006): 24-32.

Draws from much of the typical commentary on Le Fanu's use of the psychological in the ghost story from E. F. Bleiler and others.  However, emphasizes that it is the point of the perception of the supernatural by the characters is that which makes the supernatural real.  Examines the single most important innovation in Le Fanu's ghost stories by focusing "on the psychological realisation of, and emotional reaction to, the supernatural, lending greater emotional power to the figures menacing his characters while making his fiction more believable."

Spence, Joseph.  "'The Great Angelic Sin':  The Faust Legend in Irish Literature, 1820-1900. Bullan, 1.2 (1994): 47-58.

"Dracula seeks to reposses the female body for the purposes of male pleasure, and to correct the reckless unleashing of female desire in Le Fanu's 'Carmilla.'"

Takeda, Mihoko.   "Hisuteri/merenker: (ge): Rezubian kyuketsuki Kamira."  Eigo Seinenl/Rising Generation 144.10 (Jan. 1999): 595-98.

Towheed, Shafquat.  "A Chasm in the Narrative of  Le Fanu's 'Green Tea.'"  Notes and Queries 46.1 (1999): 67.

Le Fanu may have inadvertently replaced fictional time with real time in "Green Tea."  There is an error in the time sequence of events.

Tracy, Robert.  "Undead, Unburied: Anglo-Ireland and the Predatory Past."  Lit:  Literature, Interpretation, Theory 10.1 (1999):13-33.

Studies major Anglo-Irish writers, such as Maturin, Stoker, Le Fanu, Yeats, and Bowen to show how they adapted Irish folklore and tales of ghosts and vampires into a metaphorical expression of the Anglo-Irish anxiety about their having taken something that didn't belong to them.

Valente, Joseph.  "'Double Born': Bram Stoker and the Metrocolonial Gothic."  Modern Fiction Studies 46 (2000): 632-45.

Walters, Douglas.  "J. S. Le Fanu's 'Schalken the Painter: A Portfolio."  Ghosts and Scholars 22 (1996): 35-39.

A few illustrations of Le Fanu's "Schalken the Painter" by Walters with introductory comments.

Walton, James.  "'The Liar' and Le Fanu."  Short Story  12.2 (Fall 2004): 97-104.

A study of Henry James's short story, "The Liar," which is influenced and acknowledged by Le Fanu's novel Guy Deverell.  Discusses other works by Le Fanu and relates them to themes in Henry James.

Walton, James.  "Vision and Vacancy: 'Schalken the Painter' and Le Fanu's Art of Darkness."  Papers on Language and Literature 40.4 (Fall 2004): 353-83.

This essay appears in the "Internet Articles" section above.

Wegley, Mark.  "Fear Unknowable:  Le Fanu's Contribution to the Literary Fantastic." Genres 17 (2002): 32-51.

Wegley, Mark.   "Unknown Fear:  Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu and the Literary Fantastic."  The Philological Review 27.2 (Fall 2001): 59-77.

Attempts to place Le Fanu prominently with spectral writers such as Poe and Henry James, and in so doing, draws from Todorov's study of the fantastic.  Argues that Le Fanu's ghost stories offer "a more theoretical discussion surrounding 'the fantastic' in literature."

Wilkinson, Robin.  "'Schalken the Painter/Le Fanu the Writer."  Etudes Anglaises 56.3 (2003): 275-84.

Studies the description and use of paintings in Le Fanu's fiction.  In particular, argues that the early story "Schalken the Painter" looks "forward to the subjective topography and suspended narratives of the later fiction." Sees the tale as "a disguised self-portrait allowing him to investigate issues of authorship and desire."

Woudhuysen, H. R.  "Sermons and Ghosts."  Times Literary Supplement 6 June 2003, issue 5227, p. 21.

A discussion of Le Fanu and his family and the books they had in their possession, which now command large sums.

Zeender, Marie Noelle.  "Une Representation Insolite du Conflit Irlandais: 'Ultor de Lacy' de J. S. Le Fanu."  Etudes Irlandais 21.2 (1996): 45-54.