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T. W. ROLLESTON (REVIEW DATE 26 FEBRUARY 1887)

SOURCE: Rolleston, T. W. "Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu." Irish Fireside 1, no. 9 (26 February 1887): 133.

In the following excerpt, Rolleston offers a laudatory estimation of Le Fanu's skill as an author of sensation novels, noting particularly The House by the Churchyard.

Le Fanu was a poet as well as a novelist, and he was a poet as a novelist. Unfortunately his powers, though great, were limited, or rather he chose to exercise them too much in one particular groove. In taking up a novel of Le Fanu's we enter a region of mystery and terror, the region whose secrets such writers as Wilkie Collins, the late Hugh Conway, and too many others, have devoted themselves to bringing to light. But Le Fanu is incomparably superior to any of these. Where, in the best of them, do we find his wit, his learning, his sense of beauty, his passion, his mastery of language,...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Primary Sources
   1. Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (Story Date December 1871–March 1872)
4. General Commentary
   1. T. W. Rolleston (Review Date 26 February 1887)
   2. Victor Sage (Essay Date 2004)
5. Title Commentary
   1. "Carmilla"
   2. Robert F. Geary (Essay Date 1999)
6. Further Reading