"An Authentic Narrative of a Haunted House" by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

"An Authentic Narrative of a Haunted House" by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

Irish Short Story Month
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu Month

March 1 to March 31

Carmilla

Mel  will be sleeping a long time after the potion I added  to his Green Tea so while he "naps" I am in charge of Irish Short Story Week  So we are, until or maybe I should say if,  he revives, changing the name of this event to Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu Month.  (You can read about me here where Mel explains I am the first literary lesbian vampire.   Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, my Daddy (1814 to 1873-Dublin), brought me to world attention in his novel, named after me of course, Carmilla.   I am very Irish.  My family was here when St Patrick came.  I was an Irish noblewoman from the midlands when Cromwell's troops destroyed my family's ancestral home and drove me from my land.       Ever since then I feed only on the fairest of English roses, as the invaders like to style their beastly females.  

Lots of strange things the English school masters cannot explain happen in Ireland and nobody knows more about this than Daddy.   He is considered the greatest ever writer of Gothic Ghost and Horror Stories.  I am proud to say unlike many who claim to be Irish writers, he is not Anglo-Irish but descended from French Huguenots who fled to Ireland a long time ago.    He was a close friend of Ruffington Bousweau, whose chateau I always stay at while in Paris, descended from the same branch of the Huguenots as Daddy.  (There is no truth to the rumors Rory is spreading about Ruffy, Alfred Jarry and me concerning what happened  at the opening night party for Ubo Roi held at Ruffy's Isle de France chateaux .   This is all explained in Ruffy's classic travel  book on Ireland and England, Liverpool, Leprechauns and Lollipops (1925).   Later on in the event I may allow Mel to publish the transcript of my Question and Answer session with Ruffy.

Anyway today I will feature one of the best, no the very best, haunted house story ever written, "An Authentic Narrative of a Haunted House" by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.  

"Hi Carmilla, bet you
thought I would not be
here today"-Rory

The story is told in the first person by a man who has been advised by his doctor to take up residence by the sea.   He and his wife are pretty close to invalids.  They take their retinue  of six servants and their children to their new house.    The fun of this story is in the slow suspense Daddy builds  up so skillfully and the very matter- of- fact way the story is told.   The first sign something is wrong is when his wife, they have their own rooms, insists there was a stranger in her room.   Soon the servants report seeing intruders.  At first it is thought they are simply real people coming into the house as the sea coast area has a lot of smugglers and such who may just be trying to scare them out of the house so they can use it for their operations.   Then he starts seeing spectral guests also.   To make it all the strangers, his servants each describe encounters with people that he has seen in the house also.   It is too much to be just dreams as people always first say about ghosts. 

You can read this story here