Corrections

This is a correction to the primary bibliography of Le Fanu in my Greenwood book of 1995: Le Fanu's story "The Dead Sexton" appeared in "Across the Bridge," the Christmas Annual of 1871 in the magazine Once a Week, not "Magic Leaves," the Christmas number of 1870. This information was provided by Barry Cross and Jim Rockhill.

This is another correction to the text of my bio-bibliography of Le Fanu: Jim Rockhill reports that after consulting William Le Fanu's journal and Emmie Le Fanu's 9 February 1873 letter to Lord Dufferin, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu died on 7 February, not 10 February, as stated in one place in W. J. McCormack's book Sheridan Le Fanu and Victorian Ireland (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980). In another place McCormack gives the 7 February 1873 date for Le Fanu's death. Rockhill has pointed out the contradictions about Le Fanu's death date in several sources. I took this date from McCormack's book (also carried over in the chronology of Le Fanu by Ivan Melada in Sheridan Le Fanu (Boston: Twayne, 1987)). Rockhill will be discussing this matter and the sensational legend of Le Fanu's death in the introduction to the final volume of Le Fanu's ghost stories he is editing for Ash-Tree Press. This superb volume has now been published (see below).

This is another correction to the primary bibliography in my bio-bibliography of Le Fanu. I quote Jim Rockhill:

"The publication dates given for the serialization of "A Strange Adventure in the Life of Miss Laura Mildmay" in the second volume of this series [Rockhill's Le Fanu edition from Ash-Tree Press], and in Gary William Crawford's J. Sheridan Le Fanu: A Bio-Bibliography are incorrect. After consulting his copy of the magazine serialization, Mr. Barry Cross kindly wrote to inform me that this short novel first appeared not in the June and July 1870 issues of Cassell's Magazine, but in weekly issues of that magazine from 2 October 1869 to 13 November 1869. Neither M.R. James nor S.M. Ellis had identified a publication for this work preceding its first appearance in Chronicles of Golden Friars. The first appearance of "Madam Crowl's Ghost" is not in this serialization, but in All the Year Round (31 December 1870), and the first appearance of the prologue to that tale first appeared in Chronicles of Golden Friars."

In preparing my bibliography of Le Fanu, I drew the publication dates of the above items in Once a Week and Cassell's Magazine from William Clinton Lougheed's 1961 Harvard dissertation "Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu: A Critical Biography." I did not have access to the magazine parts.

Several stories by Le Fanu were reprinted in the British magazine Argosy in the first half of the twentieth century. These were not found for my Greenwood Press Le Fanu bibliography and are as follows:

The following items are additions to the primary bibliography in my Greenwood book from The Dublin University Magazine. These were brought to my attention by Antonio Auletta.

"Miscellanea Mystica--No. I." 26 (Aug. 1845): 175-86.

“Miscellanea Mystica--No.II.” 28 (Feb. 1846): 155-70.

"Miscellanea Mystica--No. III." 28 (Jun. 1846): 691-705.

Attributed by Michael Sadleir. I have been unable to determine where Sadlier attributes these articles to Le Fanu. In Partrick O'Neill's essay "German Literature and The Dublin University Magazine, 1833-50: A Checklist and Commentary" in Long Room 14-17 (Autumn-Spring 1976-77): 20-31, it is noted that the third of the "Miscellanea Mystica" articles is a translation from the German. This tends to indicate that Le Fanu did not write these articles.

“Fireside Horrors for Christmas.” 30 (Dec. 1847): 631-46.

Attributed by Patrick Rafroidi.

"An Evening with the Witchfinders." 30 (July 1847): 1-16.

"Another Evening with the Witchfinders." 30 (Aug. 1847): 147-61.

“A Third Evening with the Witchfinders.” 31 (April 1848): 440-55.

Attributed by Patrick Rafroidi.

For the texts of these stories and articles see "Internet Articles."

New from Swan River Press is a scholarly edition of the Le Fanu story "My Aunt Margaret's Adventure." The Swan River Press

Two letters by Le Fanu are housed at The Morgan Library and Museum in New York City. One is an autograph letter, signed written in Dublin to Lady Monck, 28 Dec. 1866. The other is an autograph letter, signed, possible to James Fernandez Clarke, 4 May 1869.

Some correspondence between members of the Bennett Family, with some related material ca. 1840-1866. is housed at the University of Leeds. It is the family of Susanna Bennett, whom Le Fanu married in 1843.

There is a previously unknown letter by Le Fanu to the Irish physician William Stokes in a biography of Stokes by Stokes's son published in London by Longmans, Green in 1898. He praises a book written by Stokes in a short one paragraph letter. The biography of Stokes has been reprinted by Kessinger Publishing in 2007.

Oliver Tearle has recently attributed the story "The Spirit's Whisper" to Le Fanu based on internal evidence. It appeared in the Christmas 1868 issue of Tinsley's Magazine entitled "A Stable for Nightmares." An article about the story by Tearle is forthcoming in the May 2010 issue of Le Fanu Studies.

The papers of Thomas Philip Le Fanu (1868-1942) are housed at Princeton University. Thomas authored the privately printed book Memoir of the Le Fanu Family.