Alicia Le Fanu

Alicia Le Fanu (1791 – 29 January 1867) was an Irish poet and writer.

For her aunt, see Alicia Sheridan LeFanu.
Alicia Le Fanu
Born1791
Dublin, Ireland
Died29 January 1867(1867-01-29) (aged 75–76)
Chipping Norton, England
NationalityIrish
Known forwriter
Parent(s)Betsy Sheridan
Henry Le Fanu

Biography

Alicia Le Fanu was the daughter of Betsy Sheridan and Captain Henry Le Fanu,[1] and a granddaughter of actor Thomas Sheridan and his wife, writer Frances Sheridan.[2] She had a younger sister, Harriet. The family moved from Dublin to Kingsbridge, Devon in the 1790s,[3] and later Bath,[4] from where her mother wrote letters mentioning Le Fanu's emerging literary talents, she considered her daughter's talent for writing to be "much superior" to her own. Her mother encouraged her writing, and ensured that the family library held books that would interest and educate Le Fanu. She began her publishing career in 1809. Le Fanu moved to Leamington Spa around 1822 with her mother, following the deaths of her father and sister.[3]

The exact date of her death is generally stated to be unknown[2] and has been asserted as early as 29 January 1826,[5] but is usually stated to have been in or after 1844. She is known to have been alive in 1844, when she received £150 from the Royal Bounty Fund, secured on her behalf by her cousin, Caroline Norton.[6][7] However, Fitzer has determined that she died from a subdural effusion on 29 January 1867, while boarding with a family in Chipping Norton.[3]

Le Fanu's poems are moralistic fables, while her historical romances are melodramas, with some satire and elements of comedy. The 1824 Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Mrs Frances Sheridan was an account of her grandmother's life but it is accepted that it contains a number of unsubstantiated facts.[6]

Select bibliography
  • The Flowers; or, The Sylphid Queen: A Fairy Tale in Verse (London: J. Harris 1809)
  • Rosara’s Chain; or, The Choice of Life, a poem (London: M. J. Godwin 1812)
  • Strathallan (London: Sherwood, Neely & Jones 1816)
  • Helen Monteagle (1818)
  • Leolin Abbey: A Novel (London: Longman &c 1819)
  • Don Juan De Las Sierras: A Romance (London: Newman & Co. 1823)
  • Tales of a Tourist (London: Newman & Co. 1824)
  • Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Mrs Frances Sheridan (1824)
  • Henry the Fourth of France: A Romance (London: Newman & Co. 1826)[8]

References
  1. "Sheridan, Betsy, 1758-1837". Library of congress. Retrieved 9 October 2018.
  2. Ricorso
  3. Fitzer, Anna M. (2015). "Introduction". Strathallan : by Alicia LeFanu. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-30345-9. OCLC 932060651.
  4. Fitzer, Anna M. (2018). "Fashionable Connections: Alicia LeFanu and Writing from the Edge". Romanticism. 24 (2): 179–190. doi:10.3366/rom.2018.0371. ISSN 1354-991X.
  5. "Lefanu, Alicia, active 1812-1826". SNAC.
  6. Seccombe, Thomas (23 September 2004). "Alicia Le Fanu In Le Fanu, Philip (1735–1795), translator". In Refaussé, Raymond (ed.). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/16339. Retrieved 2020-10-11. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  7. Wright, Julia M. (2006). ""All the Fire-Side Circle": Irish Women Writers and the Sheridan-Lefanu Coterie". Keats-Shelley Journal. 55: 63–72. ISSN 0453-4387. JSTOR 30210644.
  8. "Bibliography of Nineteenth-Century Irish Literature". irish-literature.english.dal.ca. Retrieved 2020-10-11.
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