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.
Valeria Cavalli informed me that the review of Le Fanu's All in the Dark in The Athenaeum appeared
on 30 June, not 20 June.
Additions
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:
"Green Tea." (Dec. 1932).
"Madam Crowl's Ghost." (Jan. 1932).
"The Room in the Dragon Volant." (Dec. 1928); (Jan. 1929); and (Feb. 1929).
"Sir Dominicks Bargain." (Sept. 1943).
"A Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter." (May 1934).
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.
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 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.
A letter by Le Fanu to Edmund Routledge of the publishing company George Routledge and Sons
is housed at the University of Virginia. Dated 7 September 1871, the letter discusses the copyright
to Le Fanu's poem "Shamus O'Brien."