"Haunted" by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

"Haunted" by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu  (1841, 13 pages)

Irish Short Story Month Year III

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu Month

March 1 to March 31

"Daddy's Back"

Carmilla

Prior Posts on Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

It only took a few grams of belladonna accidently  slipped into the Green Tea Mel drinks all day long to get him to agree to once again change the name of this quite tedious event back to one devoted to the works of my creator, Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu.    Later on in the month my good friend Ruffington Bousweau has agreed to do a Q and A Session with me in which I will clarify the vicious rumors spread by Rory, green with envy over my popularity as a Reading Life Host, about me and Alfred Jarry and talk about a wide range of topics.   Ruffy is, as I am sure you know, the author of a well known book on Ireland, Leprechauns, Lollipops, and Limerick Too.  

Ok sorry Daddy Le Fanu, you wrote a lot of great short stories but "Haunted" is not one of them.  For reasons that escape me you set it in America, a place a lot of my old friends have moved to so maybe that is why you did it, in the state of South Carolina in the United States.  Your prose style is as elegant as I knew it would be but somehow the story does not really get me going.  It begins with a man of substance approaching a country inn late at night.  The landlord tells him they are full but the man insists on at least shelter for his horses from the storm and he says he can sleep anywhere.  Once inside the landlord sees his is socially above in status to most of his clients so he knows he can get more money from him so he gives him a room but he tells him the room in haunted.  That night a man appears by his bed, the gentleman, who turns out to be a Congressman (what ever that might be) challenges the stranger who seems to have a pistol.  When he will not respond the Congressman shoots him through the heart but it has no consequences for him (same as it would for me, of course).  The man says he was murdered but he cannot achieve peace until his killer is brought to justice.  You can read the rest of the story online if you like by downloading for free A Stable for Nightmares or Weird Tales by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu from Amazon.