Ghost and the Bone Setter, The

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu was born on 28th August 1814 in Dublin into a literary family with Huguenot, Irish and English roots. For a time he and his siblings were tutored but Le Fanu would often immerse himself in the books of his father’s library. In 1833 Le Fanu began his Law studies at Trinity College, Dublin and graduated in 1839. Although called to the bar he instead began a career in journalism. He was also writing. His first fiction story ‘The Ghost and the Bonesetter’ was published in 1838. In 1843 came the novella ‘Spalatro: From the Notes of Fra Giacomo’, a hero with a particular necrophiliac passion for an undead blood-drinking beauty, a forerunner to his later female vampire ‘Carmilla’. In 1844 Le Fanu married Susanna Bennett with whom he had 4 children. The following year his first novel ‘The C'ock and Anchor’ was published. Works now flowed from his pen and with a rapid increase in family finances they moved, in 1851, to Merrion Square, Dublin, where he remained until his death. In 1858 Susanna died and Le Fanu became reclusive. It was during this period that he produced some of his best work. Working only by candlelight he wrote through the night, burnishing his reputation as a major figure of 19th Century supernaturalism with many classics including; ‘Green Tea’, ‘Mr Justice Harbottle’, and ‘In a Glass Darkly’. Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu died in Merrion Square in his native Dublin on February 7th, 1873, at the age of 58.