Uncle Silas

Uncle Silas is a Victorian Gothic mystery/thriller novel by the Anglo-Irish writer J. Sheridan Le Fanu. It is notable as one of the earliest examples of the locked room mystery subgenre. It is not a novel of the supernatural (despite a few creepily ambiguous touches), but does show a strong interest in the occult and in the ideas of Swedenborg.


By : Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814 - 1873)

00 - A Preliminary Word



01 - Austin Ruthyn, Of Knowl, And His Daughter



02 - Uncle Silas



03 - A New Face



04 - Madame De La Rougierre



05 - Sights And Noises



06 - A Walk In The Wood



07 - Church Scarsdale



08 - The Smoker



09 - Monica Knollys



10 - Lady Knollys Removes A Coverlet



11 - Lady Knollys Sees The Features



12 - A Curious Conversation



13 - Before And After Breakfast



14 - Angry Words



15 - A Warning



16 - Doctor Bryerly Looks In



17 - An Adventure



18 - A Midnight Visitor



19 - Au Revoir



20 - Austin Ruthyn Sets Out On His Journey



21 - Arrivals



22 - Somebody In The Room With The Coffin



23 - I Talk With Doctor Bryerly



24 - The Opening Of The Will



25 - I Hear From Uncle Silas



26 - The Story Of Uncle Silas



27 - More About Tom Charke’s Suicide



28 - I Am Persuaded



29 - How The Ambassador Fared



30 - On The Road



31 - Bartram-Haugh



32 - Uncle Silas



33 - The Windmill Wood



34 - Zamiel



35 - We Visit A Room In The Second Storey



36 - An Arrival At Dead Of Night



37 - Doctor Bryerly Emerges



38 - A Midnight Departure



39 - Cousin Monica And Uncle Silas Meet



40 - In Which I Make Another Cousin's Acquaintance



41 - My Cousin Dudley



42 - Elverston And Its People



43 - News At Bartram Gate



44 - A Friend Arises



45 - A Chapter-Full of Lovers



46 - The Rivals



47 - Doctor Bryerly Reappears



48 - Question and Answer



49 - An Apparition



50 - Milly's Farewell



51 - Sarah Matilda Comes To Light



52 - The Picture of a Wolf



53 - An Odd Proposal



54 - In Search Of Mr. Charke’s Skeleton



55 - The Foot of Hercules



56 - I Conspire



57 - The Letter



58 - Lady Knollys' Carriage



59 - A Sudden Departure



60 - The Journey



61 - Our Bed-Chamber



62 - A Well-Known Face Looks In



63 - Spiced Claret



64 - The Hour Of Death



65 - In The Oak Parlour



66 - Conclusion


The writer of this Tale ventures, in his own person, to address a very few words, chiefly of explanation, to his readers. A leading situation in this 'Story of Bartram-Haugh' is repeated, with a slight variation, from a short magazine tale of some fifteen pages written by him, and published long ago in a periodical under the title of 'A Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess,' and afterwards, still anonymously, in a small volume under an altered title. It is very unlikely that any of his readers should have encountered, and still more so that they should remember, this trifle. The bare possibility, however, he has ventured to anticipate by this brief explanation, lest he should be charged with plagiarism—always a disrespect to a reader.

May he be permitted a few words also of remonstrance against the promiscuous application of the term 'sensation' to that large school of fiction which transgresses no one of those canons of construction and morality which, in producing the unapproachable 'Waverley Novels,' their great author imposed upon himself? No one, it is assumed, would describe Sir Walter Scott's romances as 'sensation novels;' yet in that marvellous series there is not a single tale in which death, crime, and, in some form, mystery, have not a place.

Passing by those grand romances of 'Ivanhoe,' 'Old Mortality,' and 'Kenilworth,' with their terrible intricacies of crime and bloodshed, constructed with so fine a mastery of the art of exciting suspense and horror, let the reader pick out those two exceptional novels in the series which profess to paint contemporary manners and the scenes of common life; and remembering in the 'Antiquary' the vision in the tapestried chamber, the duel, the horrible secret, and the death of old Elspeth, the drowned fisherman, and above all the tremendous situation of the tide-bound party under the cliffs; and in 'St. Ronan's Well,' the long-drawn mystery, the suspicion of insanity, and the catastrophe of suicide;—determine whether an epithet which it would be a profanation to apply to the structure of any, even the most exciting of Sir Walter Scott's stories, is fairly applicable to tales which, though illimitably inferior in execution, yet observe the same limitations of incident, and the same moral aims.

The author trusts that the Press, to whose masterly criticism and generous encouragement he and other humble labourers in the art owe so much, will insist upon the limitation of that degrading term to the peculiar type of fiction which it was originally intended to indicate, and prevent, as they may, its being made to include the legitimate school of tragic English romance, which has been ennobled, and in great measure founded, by the genius of Sir Walter Scott.

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