From this time on, he lived a largely reclusive life.īy this time he had acquired a London publisher who insisted he set his work in England and in modern times to appeal to an English readership. When she died in 1858 at the age of 34, Le Fanu was shattered and blamed himself for what had happened to her. But the marriage suffered from financial difficulties and Susanna’s increasing ill health. In 1844, he married Susanna Bennett, the daughter of a leading barrister, and they had four children. He had financial interests in a number of newspapers during his life, such as the Statesman, the Dublin Evening Mail and the Dublin University Magazine. In 1839, he became owner of a newspaper, the Warder, and from then on journalism was his chief occupation.

He contributed stories to the Dublin University Magazine, one of which was his first ghost story, The Ghost and the Bonesetter (1838). He went on to study law at King's Inns in London but his main interests were literary. He attended Trinity College Dublin, and his time at university, where he studied classics, was a success. He was tutored privately and also made extensive use of his father’s library to educate himself. His grandmother Alicia and his great-uncle Richard Brinsley Sheridan were playwrights. Of French Huguenot descent, he was born in Lower Dominick Street in Dublin, the son of a Church of Ireland clergyman. His novella Carmilla is one of the earliest examples of a vampire story in English literature and predates Dracula by some 25 years. Although he is probably not as well known as Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker or Mary Shelley, the Irish writer Sheridan Le Fanu, who was born 200 years ago on August 28th, is a seminal figure in the development of horror writing.

In a Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu