Checkmate - The Original Classic Edition
Nonfiction, Reference & Language, Reference, Fiction & Literature
| Author: | Fanu Joseph | ISBN: | 9781486414574 |
| Publisher: | Emereo Publishing | Publication: | October 24, 2012 |
| Imprint: | Emereo Publishing | Language: | English |
| Author: | Fanu Joseph |
| ISBN: | 9781486414574 |
| Publisher: | Emereo Publishing |
| Publication: | October 24, 2012 |
| Imprint: | Emereo Publishing |
| Language: | English |
The atmosphere is not as dark and threatening as in Le Fanus highly popular Uncle Silas, but early on there is a vague concern that something is not quite right. A gentleman of apparently good credentials is ultimately revealed to be a formidable, highly wicked man; his meticulous steps to achieve revenge are reminiscent of a carefully played game of chess. The solution to this Victorian mystery is perhaps a little farfetched as it involves rather fanciful surgical techniques practiced by an unethical Prussian doctor.
Checkmate (1871) is a good example of the sensation novel, a genre popular in Great Britain in the 1860s and 1870s. The Victorian public was accustom to Gothic tales involving adultery, theft, kidnapping, insanity, bigamy, forgery, seduction and murder. However, the sensation novels authored by Wilkie Collins, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Le Fanu, and others were considered particularly shocking because these crimes take place not in fictionalized Gothic locales, but in familiar Victorian domestic settings.
As editor and owner of the Dublin University magazine, J. Sheridan Le Fanus literary influence was substantial, but following his death in 1873 his works faded into obscurity. Fortunately for the modern reader, M. R. James, a scholar of medieval manuscripts and a writer of ghost stories himself, helped restored Le Fanus reputation by editing and reprinting (in 1923) Le Fanus Madam Crowls Ghost and Other Stories. Today, Le Fanus short stories and novels are all available in reprint editions. Some have become television screenplays.
The atmosphere is not as dark and threatening as in Le Fanus highly popular Uncle Silas, but early on there is a vague concern that something is not quite right. A gentleman of apparently good credentials is ultimately revealed to be a formidable, highly wicked man; his meticulous steps to achieve revenge are reminiscent of a carefully played game of chess. The solution to this Victorian mystery is perhaps a little farfetched as it involves rather fanciful surgical techniques practiced by an unethical Prussian doctor.
Checkmate (1871) is a good example of the sensation novel, a genre popular in Great Britain in the 1860s and 1870s. The Victorian public was accustom to Gothic tales involving adultery, theft, kidnapping, insanity, bigamy, forgery, seduction and murder. However, the sensation novels authored by Wilkie Collins, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Le Fanu, and others were considered particularly shocking because these crimes take place not in fictionalized Gothic locales, but in familiar Victorian domestic settings.
As editor and owner of the Dublin University magazine, J. Sheridan Le Fanus literary influence was substantial, but following his death in 1873 his works faded into obscurity. Fortunately for the modern reader, M. R. James, a scholar of medieval manuscripts and a writer of ghost stories himself, helped restored Le Fanus reputation by editing and reprinting (in 1923) Le Fanus Madam Crowls Ghost and Other Stories. Today, Le Fanus short stories and novels are all available in reprint editions. Some have become television screenplays.
