The House by the Church-Yard (1863) is a novel by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. An important source for James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake, The House by the Church-Yard is a hybrid of the mystery and historical genres of fiction. With its complex use of side plots and extensive frame narrative, the novel is central to Le Fanu’s legacy as an innovator whose literary works inspired Bram Stoker and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
During a routine interment at a churchyard in the historic village of Chapelizod, a grave is disturbed revealing a skull buried a century earlier. Upon examination, a gruesome discovery is made—not only does the skull show signs of severe head trauma, it contains a hole from an emergency trepanning procedure. Stirred by the discovery, an old man named Charles de Cresseron pieces together the story of a time the village had nearly forgotten. In the eighteenth century, a coffin was secretly buried in the churchyard, with no defining characteristics except for the initials “R.D.” As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that this burial is somehow related to a series of mysterious events—a love triangle between a general’s daughter, a local official, and a man who has taken residence in a home rumored to be haunted; the suicide of a disgraced prisoner; and a rivalry between a deeply indebted doctor and the agent of a local lord whose home has been infiltrated by a dubious imposter. As these plots swirl and converge, The House by the Church-Yard emerges as a masterpiece of suspense, a thriller that delights its reader just as much as it demands their attention.
This edition of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s The House by the Church-Yard is a classic of Irish literature reimagined for modern readers.
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Despre autor
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873) was an Irish writer of Gothic horror. Born in Dublin, Le Fanu was raised in a literary family. His mother, a biographer, and his father, a clergyman, encouraged his intellectual development from a young age. He began writing poetry at fifteen and went on to excel at Trinity College, Dublin, where he studied law and served as Auditor of the College Historical Society. In 1838, shortly before he was called to the bar, he began contributing ghost stories to Dublin University Magazine, of which he later became editor and proprietor. He embarked on a career as a writer and journalist, using his role at the magazine as a means of publishing his own fictional work. Le Fanu made a name for himself as a pioneer of mystery and Gothic horror with such novels as The House by the Churchyard (1863) and Uncle Silas (1864). Carmilla (1872), a novella, is considered an early work of vampire fiction and an important influence for Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897).
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