Related Works
Anon. "Uncle Silas." The Intellectual Repository and New Jerusalem Magazine (1 April 1865): 177-182.
A review of Uncle Silas in a British Swedenborgian church magazine that gives an honest view of
Swedenborgianism as Le Fanu sees it. He concludes, "The author . . . evidently knows little of
Swedenborg's writings, and he has mixed up his views with those of the mystics and the
spiritualists."
Baldick, Chris, and Robert Morrison, eds. The Vampyre, and Other Tales of the Macabre. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1997.
Mentions Le Fanu's "Carmilla" and reprints his "Passage in the History of an Irish Countess" with
commentary.
Cox, Michael, ed. Casting the Runes, and Other Ghost Stories, by M.R. James. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1987.
Good commentary on Le Fanu's influence on James and James's commentary on him.
Ferris, Henry. A Night with Mephistopheles: Selected Works of Henry Ferris. Ed. S.T. Joshi. Horam, East
Sussex, England: Tartarus Press, 1997.
A selection of works from The Dublin University Magazine by an obscure Irish citizen names Henry
Ferris, one of which, "A Night in the Bell Inn" was attributed to Le Fanu by August Derleth.
However, recent research brings into question the authorship of the pieces (one is a translation of a
minor piece by E.T.A. Hoffmann) and it has been suggested that the identity of the author is a hoax.
Hayes, Richard. "'The Night Side of Nature': Henry Ferris, Writing the Dark Gods of Silence."
Literature and the Supernatural: Essays for the Maynooth Bicentenery. Ed. Brian Cosgrove. Blackrock,
Ireland: Columbia, 1995.
An excellent study of "the Ferris-texts" based on internal and external evidence. Points out that
some items attributed to Ferris based on internal evidence (such as the story "A Night in the Bell
Inn" attributed to Le Fanu by August Derleth) may not be Ferris's work at all. Points the way to
further investigation.
Kennedy, Meegan. "'The Ghost in the Clinic': Gothic Medicine and Curious Fiction in Samuel
Warren's Diary of a Late Physician." Victorian Literature and Culture 32.2 (2004): 327-51.
A study of this popular Victorian short story collection that argues that its reporting of case
histories was common in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century medical books. While Le
Fanu is not mentioned, see my posting above on the Google Groups Le Fanu discussion group
about Warren's influence on Le Fanu.
Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan. Onkel Silas: eller Swedenborgarens Testamente. Goteberg: D.F. Bonnier, 1866.
A Swedish language edition that appears to market the book as a book for Swedenborgians.
Marryat, Florence. The Blood of the Vampire. Ed. Greta Depledge. Brighton: Victorian Secrets, 2010.
A scholarly edition of a book first published in 1897. In the introduction, Depledge notes how
female vampirism can be read as a Victorian metaphor (or medicalization) of hysteria,
transgressive female sexuality and the "threat of the non-white other" (xxiii). She connects Le Fanu's
"Carmilla" with Marryat's text (xiv-xvi) and suggests that Laura responds to Carmilla's influence by
displaying "incipient signs" of the lassitude and languor associated by contemporaries with
hysteria (xvi).
McCormack, W.J. The Pamphlet Debate on the Union between Great Britain and Ireland: 1797-1800.
Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1996.
Reid, Forrest. Uncle Stephen. London: Faber, 1931.
A sort of reverse-version of Uncle Silas in which a young boy runs away to stay with a mysterious
uncle following the death pf his father. Uncle Stephen is reviled by the family but is entirely
benign, associated with life as surely as Silas is associated with death. The book contains many
echoes of Le Fanu--notably in the description of Uncle Stephen. Stephen and Tom's first meeting is
clearly modelled on the first meeting of Maud and Uncle Silas, with many of the details quoting Le
Fanu's treatment of setting and atmosphere. The book also contains elements of the supernatural
and treats the natural world as another version of the domain of signs.
Schultz, David E. and S.T. Joshi, eds. Essential Solitude: The Letters of H.P. Lovecraft and August
Derleth. 2 vols. Hippocampus Press, 2008.
Letters with Derleth show that Lovecraft had read very little of Le Fanu's works, and he didn't have
a high opinion of what he read.
Showers, Brian J. No. 70 Merrion Square: Part One. Dublin: Swan River Press, 2006.
A miniature set of chapbooks containing a ghost story in tribute to Le Fanu.
Showers, Brian J. No. 70 Merrion Square: Part Two. Dublin: Swan River Press, 2006.
Storey, Graham, ed. The Letters of Charles Dickens, 1868-1870. Vol. 12. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2002.
Publishes Dickens letters to Le Fanu about the publication of Le Fanu's "Green Tea" in Dickens's All
the Year Round.
Waters, Sarah. Affinity. London: Virago, 1999.
Set in 1872, Waters's novel is the story of Margaret Prior, a young woman who falls in love with
Selina Dawes, a "spritualist" (actually a criminal locked up in Millback Prison). The tale focuses on
Margaret's hysteria and sense of entrapment, and parallels are implied between her predicament
and the circumstances of Maud in Uncle Silas. Margaret enquires of a friend is she "remembed Mr.
Le Fanu's novel, about the heiress who is made to seem mad?" (29). The novel more generally
invokes the themes of madness, criminality, imprisonment and exploitation in The Rose and the Key,
The Wyvern Mystery, and throughout the stories of In a Glass Darkly.