Tag Archives: Sheridan Le Fanu

Sheridan Le Fanu Through a Glass Darkly

I finished the third tale in the book today – Mr Justice Harbottle. This story had an incredible atmosphere to it. It felt like Sleepy Hollow combined with Monty Python in the depiction of the crooked 18C judge. The main character is a hang ’em high type who is pursued beyond the grave by his victims. The sense of impending doom and descriptions of characters and settings, such as twisted rotting tress outside a carriage door, are what made it for me I think.

More on Sheridan Le Fanu here – http://www.litgothic.com/Authors/lefanu.html and of course wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheridan_Le_Fanu

Sheridan Le Fanu Through a Glass Darkly

I’m currently reading Through a Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu. This is not a novel per se, but a collection of five ghost stories connected by a common narrator – a Dr Hesselius. The stories remind me of some of the ghost stories by Henry James – Turn of the Screw etc, but also of Sherlock Holmes, as they have an almost investigative aspect to them. Often the afore mentioned narrator or even another Dr or priest is trying to find a medical or metaphysical explanation for strange occurences.

I am enjoying the first two stories that I have read so far – there is a good building of tension, which the Jamesian allusive prose adds to.