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| J. Sheridan Le Fanu | |
The Authorship of "The Mysterious Lodger"
commentary by Gary W. Crawford
of www.gothicpress.com
The story "The Mysterious Lodger" (attributed to Sheridan Le Fanu by M. R. James) has been the subject of some discussion. Some people say that the story is not by Le Fanu, as famed scholar E. F. Bleiler has asserted, & some, such as Marie Noelle-Zeender say it is Le Fanu's work.
I must say that there is sufficient internal evidence to support the attribution, but by the same token, I question it.
The story is indeed horrifying. The mysterious lodger taken in by a young married couple & their children is a horrifying character. The seemingly evil cat that is associated with the lodger may well indeed be one of Le Fanu's "evil animals," such as the demon monkey of "Green Tea" & the owl of "The Familiar." And as in stories such as "The Familiar" & "Green Tea" religious doubt is depicted.
But my feeling about the story centers mainly on the happy ending, which somehow seems too forced, almost as if it is a religious tract. Most of Le Fanu's stories deal with ambiguity & uncertainty. Faith in God is never resolved, & there are always doubts. This element of doubt does not find its way into "The Mysterious Lodger." If anything, at the conclusion, it affirms faith in God. The narrator comes to a firm faith.
I will say that the concluding passage of Le Fanu's novel Uncle Silas affirms faith in God with echoes of Swedenborgian theology, but even here, the reader learns that the first of Maud Ruthyn's children has died. It is a hollow happy ending; & as Elizabeth Bowen has suggested, Maud Ruthyn may be likened to the bride of Death.
Still, there is too much in "The Mysterious Lodger" that makes me think that it is not by Le Fanu. The prose style, to me, does not seem to be Le Fanu's. It is rather wooden & overly melodramatic. Le Fanu's prose is often more clear, facile, & evocative of atmosphere.
I actually wonder if Le Fanu read this tale (published in The Dublin University Magazine, with which Le Fanu was long associated) before he wrote a story like "Green Tea," which came after "The Mysterious Lodger."
We will never, however, really know who wrote the story. I am glad that it has been reprinted over the years, but I wish M.R. James, who first attributed the story to Le Fanu, had provided the reader with his reasons for thinking it is Le Fanu's work.