Uncle Silas (1865). By: Sheridan Le Fanu: Is a Victorian Gothic mystery-thriller

By J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, et al.

Book Overview

Uncle Silas, subtitled "A Tale of Bartram-Haugh", is a Victorian Gothic mystery-thriller novel by the Irish writer J. Sheridan Le Fanu. Despite Le Fanu resisting its classification as such, the novel has also been hailed as a work of sensation fiction by contemporary reviewers and modern critics alike. It is an early example of the locked room mystery subgenre, rather than a novel of the supernatural (despite a few creepily ambiguous touches), but does show a strong interest in the occult and in the ideas of Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish scientist, philosopher and Christian mystic. Like many of Le Fanu's novels, Uncle Silas grew out of an earlier short story, in this case "A Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess" (1839), which he also published as "The Murdered Cousin" in the collection Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery (1851). While this earlier story was set in Ireland, the novel's action takes place in Derbyshire; the author Elizabeth Bowen was the first to identify a distinctly Irish sub-text to the novel, however, in spite of its English setting. It was first serialized in the Dublin University Magazine in 1864, under the title Maud Ruthyn and Uncle Silas, and appeared in December of the same year as a three-volume novel from the London publisher Richard Bentley.Several changes were made from the serialization to the volume edition, such as resolving the inconsistencies of names. Plot summary The novel is a first-person narrative told from the point of view of the adolescent girl Maud Ruthyn, an heiress living with her sombre, reclusive father Austin Ruthyn in their mansion at Knowl. Through her father and her worldly, cheerful cousin, Lady Monica Knollys, she gradually learns more regarding her uncle, Silas Ruthyn, a black sheep of the family whom she has never met; once an infamous rake and gambler, he is now apparently a fervently reformed Christian. His reputation has been tainted by the suspicious suicide of a man to whom Silas owed an enormous gambling debt, which took place within a locked, apparently impenetrable room in Silas's mansion at Bartram-Haugh. In the first part of the novel, Maud's father hires a French governess, Madame de la Rougierre, as a companion for her. Madame de la Rougierre terrifies Maud and appears to have designs on her; during two of their walks together, Maud is brought into suspicious contact with strangers that seem to be known to Madame de la Rougierre. (In a cutaway scene that breaks the first-person narrative, we learn that she is in league with Uncle Silas's good-for-nothing son Dudley.) The governess is eventually dismissed when she is discovered by Maud in the act of burgling her father's desk. Maud is asked in obscure terms by her father if she is willing to undergo some kind of "ordeal" to clear the name of her uncle, and of the family more generally; shortly after she assents, he dies. At the reading of his will, it emerges that her father added a codicil to it: Maud is to stay with Uncle Silas until she comes of age; if she dies whilst still a minor, the estate will pass to Silas. Lady Knollys, together with Austin's executor and fellow Swedenborgian, Dr. Bryerly, attempt in vain to overturn the codicil, realizing its many dangerous implications for the young heiress; despite their efforts, Maud consents willingly to spending the next three and a half years at her uncle's mansion at Bartram-Haugh..... Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu ( 28 August 1814 - 7 February 1873) was an Irish writer of Gothic tales, mystery novels, and horror fiction. He was a leading ghost story writer of the nineteenth century and was central to the development of the genre in the Victorian era.M. R. James described Le Fanu as "absolutely in the first rank as a writer of ghost stories". Three of his best-known works are Uncle Silas, Carmilla, and The House by the Churchyard.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1717354378
• ISBN13: 9781717354372
• Release Date: April 2018
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 290 Pages
• Weight: 1.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 8.0" x 10.0"

Customer Reviews

A superb spine-tingler

Joseph Sheridan (J. S.) LeFanu, despite fame in Victorian times, has mostly fallen off the radar of modern readers. His superlative "Uncle Silas" is clear evidence as to why anyone who loves a good yarn will be immediately drawn in by his considerable gifts. This novel has a well-modulated dark atmosphere, clearly drawn and fully human characters and a superb plot.The titular Silas is the uncle of our heroine Maud Ruthyn, who becomes the ward of her mysterious uncle upon her father's death. Silas has an unsavory reputation, having once been accused of murdering a man to whom he owed a gambling debt, but he has, by the time Maud first meets him, apparently repented and found religion. She goes to his home willingly, quickly befriends his saucy daughter Milly and is, for the most part, happy in her new surroundings. The plot thickens from there, and without giving away important details, the reader should know that LeFanu lets loose with a ripping good story that ends most satisfactorily and with some wonderful twists.LeFanu is a skilled writer at the apex of his powers and an astute observer of the human condition. Some of the more telling lines exhibiting his gifts include:" . . . that lady has a certain spirit of opposition within her, and to disclose a small wish of any sort was generally, if it lay in her power, to prevent its accomplishment.""Already I was sorry to lose him. So soon we begin to make a property of what pleases us.""People grow to be friends by liking, Madame, and liking comes of itself, not by bargain.""She had received a note from Papa. He had had the impudence to forgive HER for HIS impertinence.""In very early youth, we do not appreciate the restraints which act upon malignity, or know how effectually fear protects us where conscience is wanting.""One of the terrible dislocations of our habits of mind respecting the dead is that our earthly future is robbed of them, and we thrown exclusively upon retrospect."" 'The world,' he resumed after a short pause, 'has no faith in any man's conversion; it never forgets what he was, it never believes him anything better, it is an inexorable and stupid judge.' "" . . . I had felt, in the whirl and horror of my mind, on the very point of submitting, just as nervous people are said to throw themselves over precipices through sheer dread of falling."Admirers of Wilkie Collins, Thomas Hardy and, to a lesser degree, of Charles Dickens will find much to please them in the classic "Uncle Silas."

Everything a gothic novel should be

"Uncle Silas" has all the ingredients of a great gothic novel: creepy atmosphere, slowly building tension, a sympathetic heroine, and villains you really hate. Don't trust the blurb on the back cover of the Penguin edition, however; it talks about spirits, perception vs. reality, and the like. This is NOT a ghost story. The evil depicted is all too human, which accounts for the story's disturbing effect. A great read.

Excellent!

Uncle Silas lived up to all the rave reviews I had read of it before purchasing the book. Le Fanu's characterization of the Madame was convincingly sinister and he was able to create and maintain a meanacing and forbidding atmosphere throughout the novel. The climax was startling and apropos. What can I say? I love a good gothic novel with excellent plotting and characters. I highly recommend Uncle Silas if you wish to delve into Le Fanu's novels.

Great stuff

This is a real rip-snorter of a gothic novel. Eighteen-year-old Maude, whose mother is dead, has been raised by her wealthy father, an adherent to a peculiar Scandinavian science religion. There are dark rumors afoot about the character of Maude's father's brother, the mysterious Uncle Silas, into whose guardianship Maude is entrusted at her father's death. Maude is the only thing standing between the money she will inherit from her father (when she comes of age) and Silas' considerable debt. Laudanum addiction, poison, big old houses with uninhabited wings, a creepy cousin (Silas' son), and an evil French governess: if you like gothic novels, this one's got it all.

one of the best Victorian thrillers

This is one of my favourite books, and certainly the most outstanding "Gothic" I have read. The pace is leisurely but it has a real grip, the characters (Maude especially) are convincing, and I like Le Fanu's long-breathed sentences.