Ebook Ghostly Tales

"Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-73), ""The Invisible Prince"", Irish journalist and writer, father of the Victorian ghost story. While he is best known for his novel about the ""venerable, bloodless, fiery-eyed"" uncle, Uncle Silas (1864) it was his vampire novella Carmilla (1872) that would contribute to defining the horror genre and probably influenced Bram Stoker in his writing of Dracula. Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu was born 28 August, 1814 to noble Huguenot parents Thomas Philip Le Fanu, a clergyman, and Emma Lucretia Dobbin Le Fanu. During the first few years of the Tithe Wars the Le Fanu family lived in Abington, county Limerick, at great risk. Exposure to folk superstitions in rural Ireland surely left an impression on Le Fanu at an early age.In 1833 Le Fanu entered Trinity College, Dublin to study law, graduating in 1839. He was called to the bar but never practiced, instead embarking on a career in journalism. He joined the staff of the Dublin University magazine. In 1838 Le Fanu's first story The Ghost and the Bonesetter was published in the Dublin University Magazine, which he was to become proprietor and editor of in 1861. Many of his short stories were to form the basis for his future novels, some of them appearing anonymously."