A VOID WHICH CANNOT BE FILLED UP:

THE OBITUARIES OF MR. J. S. LE FANU, ESQ.

 

by Brian J. Showers

 

(ISSN 1932-9598)

 

“I do not . . . claim for this author any very exalted place,” wrote M.R. James in his notes on Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu in 1923.  Although James continued his summation with unreserved praise,[1] this former sentiment, I feel, is the general tone of the obituaries published in the wake of the Irish author’s death in 1873.  And even though words like “genius” and “uncommon merit,” are used, they are often tempered with qualifiers like “[journalism] prevented him applying himself to his profession,” and “he ran too swiftly, and he frustrated his own dearest ambition.”  Most of his obituarists seem to agree that Le Fanu was by no means a great writer, but was indeed a very good one; one who lamentably might have been better, or one still yet to reach his zenith.  Re-printed below are five obituaries, which I hope will constitute a snapshot of how the general public viewed Le Fanu at the time of his death.  I am by no means a scholar, but I hope you will indulge me a few paragraphs in which to write a brief biographical outline, hopefully putting the obituaries into context, followed by some additional observations and comments. 

Although Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (b. 28 August 1814) studied law at Trinity College, Dublin, and was summoned to the Irish Bar in 1839, journalism seems to have always been his first calling.   He was the proprietor of a number of local periodicals including the popular Protestant newspaper, The Warder, which he bought in 1838, followed by the Dublin Evening Mail, Statesman and Dublin Christian Record, and the Protestant Guardian.  One of his more notable ventures came in 1861 with the purchase of Dublin University Magazine.  The DUM was a celebrated literary magazine that had, prior to his ownership, published a number of his short stories.  And along with Le Fanu’s proprietorship of the DUM came his editorship. 

As an editor and journalist, Le Fanu was a well-known voice of Dublin’s Protestant Ascendancy.  At the same time, through ballads like “Shamus O’Brien” and “Phaudrig Croohore,” he also channelled a cautious sympathy for the neglected native Catholic Irish population.  His ballads were filled with both humour and passion, two attributes not frequently associated with the writer at present.  His articles were written with “vigour and pungent sarcasm,” no doubt necessary in reproaching the social order to which he was vitally tied.  Le Fanu’s fiction during this period of his life was limited to two historical novels, The Cock and the Anchor (1845) and Torlogh O’Brien (1847), and a short story collection entitled Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery (1851).  From 1858 until 1861 his creative pen was still. 

Le Fanu’s wife Susanna (née Bennett) died in April 1858, followed by the death of his mother Emma Le Fanu, his “primary confidante” in March 1861.[2]  These were losses from which Le Fanu would never fully emotionally recover.  From this period until his own death in 1873 Le Fanu withdrew from the public eye and into the seclusion of his great, four-storey Georgian home at no. 18 Merrion Square (now no. 70).  However, he was far from inactive in his grief-stricken semi-reclusion.  It was during this later period that Le Fanu wrote the bulk of his creative output: fourteen novels, commencing with The House by the Churchyard (1863), Wylder’s Hand (1864), and Uncle Silas (1864); and a steady stream of short stories, many of which were only collected posthumously.  The rate of his productivity was extraordinary; it was almost as if in his grief he was helplessly driven to write.  As The Freeman’s Journal obituary notes, “Hardly a magazine exists to which he has not contributed the leading serial.” 

By the end of his life Le Fanu was experiencing considerable financial difficulties.  In 1870, Joseph’s older brother William Richard Le Fanu (1816-1894) applied to their cousin Lord Dufferin[3] for a loan: “The newspapers which formerly yielded him a moderate income give him nothing now, and he is altogether dependent upon what he can gather by writing; which owing to the depressed state of the Publishing trade is very little indeed— & his constant anxiety about his health and prospects—coupled with his frequent illnesses, principally caused I have no doubt by this very anxiety interferes sadly with his powers of writing.”[4] 

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu died in his home at around 6 o’clock in the morning on Friday, 7 February 1873.[5]  Le Fanu’s daughter, Emmie,[6] in a letter to Lord Dufferin on 9 February, wrote, “He had almost got over a bad attack of Bronchitis but his strength gave way & he sank very quickly & died in his sleep.  His face looks so happy with a beautiful smile on it.  We were quite unprepared for the end.”[7]   At the time of his death his final novel, Willing to Die, was in the midst of re-serialisation in Dickens’s All the Year Round, and on his writing desk lay a mortgage for the amount of £83. 

There is a definite distance between the obituarists and their subject, and given Le Fanu’s withdrawal from society this is not surprising.   Even in life, “[h]is handsome . . . face was wholly missed from society; and he was only known on the title page of his books,” observes one obituarist.  “To the public he was scarcely known apart from his books,” echoes another.  The rather charming nickname “Invisible Prince” is well known Le Fanu lore, but the appellation becomes downright grim if one considers his financial hardships and emotional decline.  One gets the impression that Le Fanu was at the time of his death not personally known by many outside of his close circle.  To the people of Dublin he was a prominent stranger, an apparition whose presence was keenly felt, but never seen.  Fortunately we are offered clues as to the author’s character and personality in happier times. 

The Freeman’s Journal notes Le Fanu’s, “vigour and pungent sarcasm which he possessed in an uncommon degree,” a characteristic also mentioned by family friend Alfred Perceval Graves (1846-1931) in the “Memoir” he wrote as an introduction to The Purcell Papers (1880).[8]  The Freeman’s Journal obit also recalls Le Fanu’s, “handsome, even distinguished face,”[9] and that, “his manners were so impressive that you thought of him long after you have seen him.  He was In [sic] every sense a gentleman.  He bore himself with dignity and self-reliance.”  The Dublin University Magazine obituary, possibly written by one close to Le Fanu (see below), more elaborately lists the congenial qualities the author possessed.  He was admired for his, “learning, his sparkling wit and pleasant conversation, and loved . . . for his manly virtues, his noble and generous qualities, his gentleness, and his loving, affectionate nature.”  M.R. James, who never knew Le Fanu, wrote, “I believe that he was a singularly striking personality both in looks and in conversation.”[10]  Clearly the aforementioned nickname “Invisible Prince”, regardless of its disheartening nuances, is one of respect and possibly sympathy for a man whose, “life was a most troubled one.”[11] 

An interesting observation regarding the Dublin University Magazine obituary comes from Le Fanu scholar Jim Rockhill: “The DUM obit was obviously written by a family member or close associate—perhaps Alfred Perceval Graves or William Le Fanu?—who knew Le Fanu well enough to express how he would have liked to be remembered.  I sometimes get the sense while reading this one that Le Fanu himself is speaking.  There is too much detailed family information for this to have come from anyone outside the man’s immediate circle.  Note also the attention paid to the family's nobility since the late 16th century.”[13] 

Le Fanu owned the DUM from 1861 until he “gave up control” in 1869.[14]  Le Fanu’s successor was a poet by the name of James F. Waller (1810-1894) who resumed editorship of the magazine in 1870 until 1873.  Waller initially served as editor of the DUM from 1846-1854 and was responsible for publishing a number of Le Fanu’s early tales including “The Watcher” (1846), “The Mysterious Lodger” (1850)[15], “Ghost Stories of Chapelizod” (1851), and “An Account of Some Strange Disturbances in an Old House in Aungier Street” (1853).  Given their history, Waller and Le Fanu most likely had an affinity for one another.  It is entirely possible that Waller was in contact with and commissioned the obituary either directly from the family or from one of Le Fanu’s close friends.  The DUM obituary is one of the lengthiest and most detailed published.  Regarding Alfred Perceval Graves as its possible writer, it should be noted that much of the same intricate ancestral details are reproduced in his own “Memoir” published seven years later. 

All of the obituaries that speak of Le Fanu's novels are unanimous in identifying Uncle Silas and The House by the Churchyard as his most accomplished and commercially successful novels; the latter of which M.R. James famously wrote was, "a book to which I find myself  returning over and over again and with no sense of disappointment."  [12]   But it is Uncle Silas that is shown the slight edge of favouratism in these eulogies.  Without even mentioning The House by the Churchyard, The Irish Times regards Uncle Silas in particular as, "marked with great richness of invention, and force in the conception and delineation of character."  The Freeman's Journal lauds The House by the Churchyard for its good style, cheerful tone and clever construction, but pulls out all stops in its subsequent praise for Uncle Silas, which it begins by calling, "a marvel of mystery and a prodigy of power," and goes on from there.  The Dublin University Magazine, after mentioning "The House by the Church-Yard [sic] and  Uncle Silas (perhaps the best of all his works)", goes so far as to  state that of Le Fanu's other novels, "it is unnecessary to speak"  Indeed, apart from his ghost stories, The House by the Churchyard and Uncle Silas still today seem to be the most popular and readily available of his novels.  Interestingly enough, in the years since Le Fanu's death Wylder's Hand, written between the two aforementioned books, has steadily become at least as popular as The House by the Churchyard.  Both past and modern critics seem to agree that Le Fanu was at his creative peak during the beginning of his career as a novelist.

On a more trivial note is the matter of Le Fanu’s name.  In present day it is not uncommon for the author’s name to be shortened to “Sheridan Le Fanu,” omitting “Joseph.”  I am unsure why this is, but virtually every variation of Le Fanu’s name has at one time or another seen print: Lefanu, le Fanu, LeFanu, Le fanu; a couple of these variations, be they typographical or orthographical, even appear in the obituaries below.  At the very least, it is amusing to note that permutations of Le Fanu’s name have been happening since the day after he died.  I prefer either “Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu”, “J. Sheridan Le Fanu,” as appears in Rockhill, or simply “Le Fanu”.  On the title page of Le Fanu’s first editions, when not published anonymously, his name is rendered either as “J. Sheridan Le Fanu” or “J.S. Le Fanu”.  Enough said! 

Finally, from these obituaries we see that Le Fanu was remembered primarily as a novelist, a journalist, and even a balladeer.  What he is mainly known for today, rightly or wrongly, are his chilling tales of the supernatural.  Yet these are not once mentioned among his many accomplishments, and indeed constitute a comparatively small portion of his body of work.  I am not sure whether the man himself would have placed his ghost stories highly on his list of achievements, although I am sure that M.R. James’s final eulogy for the modern reader, applied equally to both short stories and novels, would have brought a smile to the Irish author’s face: “Nobody sets the scene better then he, nobody touches in the effective detail more deftly . . . . [Le Fanu] succeeds in inspiring a mysterious terror better than any other writer.”[16]

 

The Irish Times, Saturday, February 8, 1873, p. 2.

 

DEATH OF J.S. LE FANU, ESQ.

 

The Irish public will learn with much regret that Mr Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, one of the ablest of Irish writers, is no more.  His death took place yesterday at his residence, Merrion square.  Me Lefanu was for many years connected with the Dublin press, and was, until a very few years ago, part proprietor of the Evening Mail.  For several years past he directed his energies to the composition of works of fiction, and many of these—“Uncle Silas” in particular were marked with great richness of invention, and force in the conception and delineation of character.  The “University Magazine” owed to him much of its reputation at the time that it was really an Irish periodical.  Mr. Lefanu’s powers allowed no symptoms of decline to the last.  His readers, and those who knew him in private life; fully expected that his pen would yet give to the world productions equal, or superior, to the best of those he had already written.  Had Mr. Lefanu begun his career as a novelist at an earlier period of life, he might have approached the fame of a Lever or Carleton.  As it is, he leaves a blank which will be sensibly felt.  It is somewhat remarkable that the best known, or the most promising Irish novelists now remaining are all of the female sex—Miss Broughton, Lady Wilde, Miss Godkins, Miss Maunsell, and Miss Mulholland.

 

The Freeman’s Journal, Monday, February 10, 1873, p. 6

 

DEATH OF MR. LE FANU

 

The death of Mr. Le Fanu, the novelist, will be learned with regret by all who are interested in the maintenance of our national repute for litereary [sic] effort.  He died on Friday at his residence Merrion-square, in the 58^th year of his age.  Mr. Le Fanu was called to the Bar in 1839, but found the pursuit of that profession averse from his disposition.  He entered the ranks of the press, and became editor and joint proprietor of the “Warder” newspaper, with no less a colleague than Mr. Butt.  At that time, when Protestant ascendancy was at its zenith, the “Warder” was a splendid property, and Mr. Le Fanu became a successful journalist in every sense of the word.  The brilliant services of Terry Driscoll added greatly to the popularity of the paper.  Gradually the times changed, and the “Warder” ceased to be splendid.  Mr. Le Fanu then purchased the “Evening Packet,” which a few years since was amalgamated with our able contemporary, the “Evening Mail.”  In the columns of the “Mail” Mr. Le Fanu found free scope for that vigour and pungent sarcasm which he possessed in an uncommon degree.  His first novel (of the later series) “The House by the Churchyard—a Souvenir of Chapelizod,” was, it may be fairly said, the book of the season.  For good style, a cheerful tone, clever construction, and maintained power it must take rank with the bettter [sic] order of novels.  He soon after published “Uncle Silas;” and in this he placed himself in the foremost ranks of popular-novelists.  All the critical journals, all the daily newspapers were loud in eulogy, and Mr. Le Fanu took then a place which he never lost with library readers.  “Uncle Silas” is certainly a marvel of mystery and a prodigy of power.  The reader is wrapt in painful attention from first to last.  There is a nerve, a fierce intensity in the book which keeps the reader spell-bound; and it has this uncommon merit—you can read it a second time with vivid delight.  Mr. Le Fanu then, at the height of his success, resolved on a course which eventually injured his fame.  He wrote at least a couple of novels every year.  They poured from his pen with Braddonian rapidity.  Hardly a magazine exists to which he has not contributed the leading serial, sometimes with success, often with satisfaction, always with punctuality—for he was now a devotee.  But he ran too swiftly, and he frustrated his own dearest ambition.  His labour for the last seven years must have been immense, for he did not write with ease; his manuscript was very irregular, for he never lost his careful disposition.  His handsome, even distinguished face was wholly missed from society; and he was only known on the title page of his books.  This was the more to be lamented, inasmuch as Mr. Le Fanu, though by no means an enthusiast, was always attractive.  He had that quickness which mayhap his French blood gave him; and his manners were so impressive that you thought of him long after you have seen him.  To those who knew him no phenomena could be more striking than that he, of all men, should have written “Shamus O’Brien”—the ’98 ballad—and “Phaudrig Crohore” [sic]—two really splendid specimens of Irish ballad poetry.  They are full to excess of rollicking Irish humour, fine quaint wit, homely phrase, and bold description.  Conscientiously he could write them easily—for politics were not a law unto him; but naturally they must have been a great effort, or he a many-sided man.  In this rapid sketch of Mr. Le Fanu’s work, we hope we have not erred in coldness from a desire to keep the reputation of a really brilliant man free from the extravagant nonsense with which it is the habit to follow the little lives of local literati.  We desire to say in real earnestness the plain truth; for Mr. Le Fanu’s fame has no need of that villainous puffery which bedaubs indiscriminately the “mechanical mediocrity” weich [sic] torments us every day.  In one respect he was entitled to the praise of every man connected with the guild of letters, whether he be bond or free.  Too often, clever Irishmen lack that self-respect and self-control which bring dignity and honour and the praise of good men.  We need not pause to name the men of genius who have lived miserably and died meanly, to become immortal as master minds, and be remembered as self-hostile dupes.  In our own generation we have had many; memories vivid with shame and pain, burning, albeit, in intellectual glory.  In this matter Mr. Le Fanu was above reproach.  He was In [sic] every sense a gentleman.  He bore himself with dignity and self-reliance.  In his death we lose a man whom Ireland and literature will not lightly forget, and to whom generations to come will be indebted for days and nights of keenest pleasure.

 

(This article was also re-printed in The Irishman, Saturday 15 February 1873.)

 

The Irish Builder, February 15, 1873, p. 50.

 

OBITUARY.

 

THE LATE J. SHERIDAN LEFANU.

 

Since our last issue Ireland has lost another racy novelist, for many years well known in English as well as Irish literary circles.  He was a member of the Irish Bar, and contributed to the Dublin University Magazine and other Irish and English publications.  He was also for some time proprietor of the above magazine, and chief editor and proprietor of the Warder newspaper.  Of late years he relinquished all active connection with the newspaper press, and devoted his time to the production of some very successful novels. Mr. Le Fanu was the son of the Dean of Emly, a dignitary of the Irish Church, and brother to William Le Fanu, Commissioner of Public Works.  At his death the late novelist was in his fifty-eighth year.

     All the old compeers and colleagues who worked together on magazines and newspapers during the past thirty years in this city are disappearing, and soon we will have scarcely one left.  The Dublin University Magazine possesses memories that are bright, though the fate of the magazine itself is a wayward one of late years.  It still lives; but men who, like Le Fanu and Lever, helped to preserve its fame as well as its name, are gone from us.

J. Sheridan Le Fanu deserves a fitting memoir and tribute to his memory, and we hope that some of his old companions of the pen will supply it on an early occasion.

 

The Illustrated London News, Saturday, 15 February 1873

 

OBITUARY OF EMINENT PERSONS.

 

MR. LE FANU

 

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Esq., died, on the 7th inst., at 18, Merrion-square South, Dublin, in his fifty-eighth year.  Descended from the sisters of the Right Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Mr. Le Fanu inherited no small share of the genius of the Sheridan family.  He was called to the Irish Bar in 1839, but soon deserted law for literature.  His first contributions appeared in the Dublin University Magazine, which, at a later period, he edited.  He was also for several years proprietor and editor of the Warder, and also part proprietor of the Dublin Evening Mail.  As a novelist he gained considerable distinction, his most popular works being “The House by the Churchyard” and “Uncle Silas.”

 

The Dublin University Magazine, issue 81, March 1873, pp. 319-20.

 

JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU.

 

SINCE the last issue of this Magazine, there has passed away one who for several years controlled its destinies as Editor and Proprietor,—one who was well known in the best Dublin society—and one who inherited a large share of the genius that came to him on his mother’s side, relinquishing the bright prospects which the influence of his family would have enabled [him] to wield for the arduous and uncertain paths of literature.

JOSEPH SHERIDAN LE FANU, author of “Uncle Silas” and many other well-known novels, died at his house, Merrion Square, Dublin, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, on the 7^th of February.  He was the representative of a noble Huguenot family of Normandy, who possessed in that province in the generalité of Caen, many estates, among which were Mondeville, Sequeville, Cresseron, &c.; the certificate of noblesse, officially signed by Guy Chamillart, bearing date 1671, and now in the possession of his son, Philip S. Le Fanu, Esq., of Merrion Square, proves their nobility by charter to the year 1595.

On the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, they were deprived of their estates; but having influential relatives at the Court of Louis XIV., they were permitted to leave France with their personal property without molestation, two members of the family, John Le Fanu de Sequeville and Charles Le Fanu de Cresseron, held cavalry commissions in the army of William III.  Charles was on the King’s staff, and afterwards served as Major of Dragoons, under Marlborough.

Joseph Sheridan was son of Thomas Philip Le Fanu, Dean of Emly, whose father, Joseph Le Fanu, formerly Clerk of the Coast in Ireland, married Alicia, sister of the Right Honourable Richard Brinsley Sheridan; his brother, Captain Henry Le Fanu, having married Sheridan’s only other sister.  The Subject of this notice was born in August, 1814, and at an early age, gave promise of the powers which he afterwards attained.  His wonderful acting in private theatricals, as a mere boy, is still fresh in the recollection of many, and when scarcely fifteen years of age he wrote many pieces of poetry, which show an unusual depth of imagination and feeling.  He entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1833, and was there distinguished by classical knowledge, but still more by his power in debate in the College Historical Society; many of his contemporaries there now occupying distinguished positions in life, remember him as one of its most eloquent members.  He was called to the Bar in 1839, but almost immediately afterwards became connected with the press, having purchased the Warder newspaper, then a paper of note in Ireland, which he edited.  This was injurious to his future prospects, as it prevented him applying himself to his profession, for which he was admirably suited, and of which, there can be little doubt, he would have become a distinguished member. 

His earliest contributions to literature appeared in this Magazine, of which, years afterwards, as we have said, he became proprietor and editor.  Among his earliest articles were several stories, some serious, others replete with wit and humour, and highly illustrative of the habits and feelings of the Irish peasantry.  Amongst his contributions to the Magazine were also many short poems, some full of tenderness and feeling, others of powerful dramatic effect.  Foremost amongst the latter were “Shamus O’Brien,” a ballad of ’98, and “Phaudhrig Crohore,” [sic] two of the best specimens of Irish ballad poetry, abounding in rollicking humour and vivid description, combined with touches of the deepest pathos.  He married, in 1844, Susan, Daughter of the late George Bennett, Q.C.; from that time until her death, which occurred in 1858, he wrote little, except for the press.  The death of his much-loved wife was an overwhelming blow to him, from which he never recovered.  From that time till his death he led a secluded life, mixing little in society, from which his handsome, distinguished face was missed.  To the public he was scarcely known apart from his books.  In 1863 he published “The House by the Church-Yard,” which was soon followed by “Uncle Silas,” and other novels of which it is unnecessary to speak.  “Uncle Silas” was, perhaps, the best of his works, the plot the most skilfully contrived, the interest the most absorbing.  Of his latest work, “Willing to Die,” the last pages were written a few days before his death.  He was a man who thought deeply, especially on religious subjects.  To those who knew him he was very dear.  They admired him for his learning, his sparkling wit and pleasant conversation, and loved him for his manly virtues, his noble and generous qualities, his gentleness, and his loving, affectionate nature.  His death has left in many hearts a void which cannot be filled up.