Valerie Wallace

Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-73) was a highly original author of fantastic fiction - novels and short stories - and a key in Irish conservative poitics during the first half o the Victorian age. This outstanding biography, appearing in a new paperback edition with fresh appendix matter, explores the contradictions of his achievement. 'It can be thoroughly recommended.' - John Arden, New Statesman. 'One of the qualitites of this excellent studies is the train of associations which is provokes. It is far from more than a revaluation of Le Fanu, though this is incidentally provided in a discriminating and scholarly way ... The massive hint is, as with 'Ulysses', in the title 'Victorian Ireland' ... it is the world which Dr McCormack illuminates, along with the more private and tortured uiverse of Le Fanu himself.' - Roy Foster, Times Literary Supplement