The Sheridanauthor Le Fanu Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873), Irish journalist, novelist, and short story writer, is called the father of the modern ghost story. Although Le Fanu was one of the most popular writers of the Victorian era, he is no longer so widely read. Le Fanu s best-known works include Uncle Silas (1864), a suspense story, and The House by the Churchyard (1863), a murder mystery. His vampire story Carmilla, which influenced Bram Stoker s Dracula, has been filmed several times. Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu was born in Dublin into a wealthy family of Huguenot origins. His father, Thomas Philip Le Fanu, was a clergyman. Le Fanu started to write poems in his childhood. In 1833 he entered Trinity College, where he read law and graduated in 1837. His first story, The Ghost and the Bonesetter, appeared in the Dublin University Magazine in 1838. It also published many of his other stories in the following years, which were later collected in The Purcell Papers (1880). As a novelist Le Fanu made his debut with The Cock and Anchor (1845), a chronicle of old Dublin which showed the influence of Walter Scott. In 1837 Le Fanu joined the staff of the Dublin University Magazine and two years later he was called to the Irish Bar. However, he never practiced, but created a career in journalism. He owned or partowned several papers, including The Warden, The Protestant Guardian, The Evening Packet and The Dublin Evening Mail. In 1861 he became owner and editor of The Dublin University Magazine, in which several of his works appeared in serialized form. In 1843 Le Fanu married Susanna Bennett; they had four children. The death of his wife in 1858 deeply depressed the author. He poured his pessimism into his horror stories and became a recluse, nicknamed The Invisible Prince because of his shyness and nocturnal lifestyle. Usually, after visiting his newspaper office, Le Fanu returned to his home in Merrion Square to write from midnight to dawn. Le Fanu died on February 7, 1873. His work fell nearly into oblivion until 1923, when the scholar and ghost-story writer M.R. James published a collection of Le Fanu s stories under the title Madam Crowl s Ghost and Other Tales of Mystery. k 47