Showing results by author "J. Sheridan LeFanu" in All Categories

Mystery surrounds Maud Ruthyn in this quintessential gothic novel. Her melancholy father forbids her to ask or inquire anything concerning his misfortunate brother - Silas. From what she can gather, Silas was once a handsome, ambitious young man, but in his later years, he shrank into obscurity. Why? And why is Maud's governess, Madame de la Rougerre, so curious about her father's will? Why is she so cruel?

The death of a beloved sister initiates the career of the heiress of the Tyrone Estate. Pressured into an advantageous marriage, she finds herself residing in a spectral castle, her husband particularly forbidding her to explore the halls of the south wing.

The story is presented by Le Fanu as part of the casebook of Dr Hesselius, whose departures from medical orthodoxy rank him as the first occult doctor in literature. The story is narrated by Laura, one of the two main protagonists of the tale. Laura begins her tale by relating her childhood in a "picturesque and solitary" castle in the midst of an extensive forest in Styria where she lives with her father, a wealthy English widower, retired from the Austrian Service.