Best Ghost Stories of J. S. LeFanu
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Le Fanu is a Victorian writer who, along with Edgar A. Poe before him, invented the unity of mood and economy of means that characterizes the modern horror small tale. Jack Sullivan, in Horror Literature, maintains that “Le Fanu was more revolutionary than Poe, for he started the process of dismantling the Gothic props and placing the supernatural tale in everyday settings.” These quietly elegant tales include a female vampire who predates Dracula, a vicar troubled by a spectral monkey, a cruel lynching mediate who gets his due and many other fine portents and hauntings.
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Probably the most distinguishing characteristic of LeFanu’s writing to me is that he doesn’t clarify why something is happening in his tales. Ghosts search owing to drawers, skeletons are dug up, heroes disappear, and barons die of unseen causes, and we are never told what happened. LeFanu doesn’t necessarily clarify the motives and occurrences of his tales and loose ends are not all tied up. At first, I was unsure about what to reflect; what kind of ghost tale doesn’t clarify all the actions at the end? How am I supposed to be terrified if I don’t know the ultimate cause of Baron X’s demise? The method of storytelling started to grow on me, though, and I now feel that a lack of resolution on every issue makes a better tale. Why should the supernatural be fully clarified in 20 pages? When the reader is demoted from an omniscient viewpoint to that of only an eyewitness, the tale is more compelling.
My favorite tales are probably “Sir Dominick’s Bargain” and “An Authentic Narrative of a Haunted House,” the ex- for its mood and atmosphere, and the latter for its minimalist telling. “The Haunted Baronet” is another brilliant tale, with strong attention to detail and background that help in the tale-telling; it was a very satisfactory read. “The Fortunes of Sir Robert Ardagh” is the same tale told sans background and detail, and is visibly inferior. The other tales I loved based on the setting, which is 19th century Ireland, which evokes a mood much like James’. By and large, it is the sort of book that makes you wish for a warm fireplace and a unsettled night.
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Rating: 4 / 5
when it came to construction a ghost tale, owing to dialogues and occurences, noone matches Lefanu. At this, he is a master. he describes the situation before THE happening magnificently. though, when it does happen, the tale is over. the horror itself seem to escape Lefanus writing style. his ghost tales are mostly not catching to a modern(living)reader. only 2 of his ghost tales are worth reading. I still recommend this book. the wits are the two tales who are not ghost tales. Carmilla, one of the very best vampire tales, built perfectly owing to subtle hints, psychology, and descriptions. my favourite gothic tale. then it’s Lefanu’s masterpiece: green tea. in fact, one of the best horror tales ever written! too terrible Lefanu insisted on writing so many ghost tales, instead of common horror, otherwise he might be a real master in the genre, as Carmilla and Green Tea proves
Rating: 3 / 5
I don’t much like ghost tales, but these and the ones by M R James really stand out from the pack. Atmospheric, inventive, and original. In “Carmilla” LeFanu invented the vampire tale, and with its subtle horrors and hints of lesbianism, it is at least as excellent as Dracula. Rich and intricate prose.
Rating: 4 / 5
Not only would I say that Lefanu is stuck-up to the supposedly incomparable M.R. James, he really rivals Poe in terms of psychological profundity and intellectual denseness. These tales are meticulously crafted and some of them are inexhaustible in their the makings readings. M.R. James, on the other hand, is a pleasure to read, to be sure, but shallow when placed alongside the likes of Lefanu. I have nothing against James but he is strangely over-rated for some wits. Lefanu, Onions, Poe and Lovecraft I would have to rate ahead of him, with Lefanu and Poe at the top.
Rating: 5 / 5
I have probably read this book more often than any other book on my shelves. In the creation of mood, the elaboration of motifs and their own inexorable progression beyond the veil of reality into the numinous, these tales have never been excelled. As highly respected a practitioner of the ghost tale as Montague Rhodes James wrote:
“He stands absolutely in the first rank as a writer of ghost tales. That is my premeditated verdict, after reading all the supernatural tales I have been able to get hold of. Nobody sets the scene better than he, nobody touches in the the effective detail more deftly.”
I first read “Green Tea” in the mammoth Modern Library anthology GREAT TALES OF TERROR AND THE SUPERNATURAL at about the age of 11 after reading several tales by Poe. Poe I had found fascinating, feverish and disturbing, but this tale terrified me. Unlike Poe’s often dream-like excursions, the settings in Le Fanu’s works are quite concretely of this world. The characters are tied to this world by the same dull occupations and concerns with commerce or law that dog us to this day. Though, a subtle intrusion is soon seen or otherwise makes itself felt, and from this point the conclusion, no matter how surprising, is inevitable. Nothing will save the seemingly upright man from “The Familiar.” Nothing anyone does in their ineffectual way will keep the beloved of “Schalken the Painter” from her fate as a death-bride. A more lyrical version of the same motif appears in a less unified, but equally fine tale set in the aftermath of the Jacobite Rebellion in Ireland. “Squire Toby’s Will” both as document and motive force will have its way no matter how what is done in an attempt to circumvent it. The implications of the haunting in “Green Tea,” where a man falls subject to demonic harrassment by making his presence know to those from outside owing to the slightest of infractions – I am abusing caffeine by way of sipping an enormous glass of green tea as I write this – terrified me when I read it 30-odd years ago and continues to terrify me to this day. “An Authentic Narrative of a Haunted House,” with its seemingly inexplicable haunting, “Mr. evenhandedness Harbottle,” which raises the question, “Whose justice are we seeing here?” “Carmilla”, whose final line hints that the victimization may have finished only with the heroine’s death, and the small novel “The Haunted Baronet,” in which nature itself seems to be imbued with the evil genius presiding over the title character’s doom are just a few of the tales in this volume that have haunted me for decades. There is nothing else quite like them in literature, their mixture of fantasy and reality, illusion and verisimilitude is so assured.
As bonuses to an already brilliant volume, E. F. Bleiler’s introduction and notes are exemplary and though a large paperback, it is solidly bound in signatures, with durable, laminated cover stock, uses acid free paper and is better made than a majority of hardcovers.
Rating: 5 / 5