Abstract
The place of Ireland in a consideration of the gothic fiction of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu has been a matter of serious scholarly dispute. This chapter discusses ways in which Ireland might be considered a ‘field of force’ out of which his fiction emerges, arguing that events in Ireland shaped the theological system that can be detected in much of his work. The focus will be on two of Le Fanu’s most admired stories, ‘The Watcher’ (1847) set in Ireland, ‘Green Tea’ (1872), set in England, to suggest how the former establishes a cosmic perspective deeply influenced by the author’s experiences in 1840s Ireland.
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Killeen, J. (2021). Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu and Ireland. In: Bloom, C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Steam Age Gothic. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40866-4_15
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