The House by the Churchyard by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

First published: 1863

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Horror

Time of plot: Late eighteenth century

Locale: Chapelizod, Dublin

Principal characters

• Mr. Mervyn, the son of Lord Dunoran
• Lord Dunoran, an Irish peer convicted of murdering Mr. Beauclerc
• Paul Dangerfield, the real murderer of Mr. Beauclerc
• Zekiel Irons, Dangerfield’s accomplice in the murder
• Dr. Barnaby Sturk, a witness to the murder

The Story:

Lord Dunoran, an Irish peer, was executed after being convicted of murdering a man named Beauclerc in London. His estates were declared forfeit to the crown, and his family was left under a shadow. Eighteen years after his death, his son, who assumed the name Mr. Mervyn, takes his father’s body back to Ireland and buries it in the family vault in the Anglican church in Chapelizod, a suburb of Dublin. After the burial, Mervyn moves into an old house that is reputed to be haunted; several families moved out of it after having seen strange apparitions and heard noises at night. Mervyn hopes that he might pick up some clues in the neighborhood that will lead him to the true murderer of Beauclerc, for the young man still believes his father innocent of the crime for which he paid with his life.

About the same time that young Mervyn takes up residence in the haunted house, another stranger comes to Chapelizod, a man named Paul Dangerfield, who is looking after the affairs of a local nobleman. Dangerfield, a very rich man, soon ingratiates himself with the local people by his apparent good sense and liberality. The villagers are very suspicious of young Mervyn, however, for he keeps to himself and only a few people know his real identity.

The appearance of Dangerfield arouses apprehension in the minds of two men in Chapelizod, Zekiel Irons, the clerk at the Anglican church, and Dr. Barnaby Sturk, a surgeon at the garrison of the Royal Irish Artillery. They both recognize Dangerfield to be Charles Archer, the man who committed the murder for which Lord Dunoran was convicted. Irons was the murderer’s accomplice, and Dr. Sturk was a witness to the murder.

Irons resolves to help young Mervyn discover the guilt of Archer-Dangerfield, for he knows he can never live securely until the murderer is in prison or dead. Irons was present when Dangerfield killed his other accomplice after that man tried to blackmail him. On two occasions, Irons visits Mervyn and tells him some of what he knows; on both occasions, he warns Mervyn not to tell anyone about it, lest the information get back to Dangerfield, who will then kill Irons.

Sturk, who is pressed for money, is trying to become an agent for Lord Castlemallard, who is represented by Dangerfield. Sturk makes the mistake of threatening Dangerfield with exposure if the agency is not forthcoming, and shortly after he is found one night, terribly beaten. Since he is in a deep coma, no one knows who tried to kill him. Suspicion points to Charles Nutter, the man Sturk was trying to replace as the nobleman’s agent in Chapelizod, for Nutter disappeared on the same night that Sturk was attacked. No one suspects Dangerfield as the attacker, for he is known to have been helpful to Sturk.

Sturk lingers on, and for a time it even seems as if he might recover. Dangerfield convinces Mrs. Sturk that an operation is the only chance her husband has, and he arranges for a surgeon, for a high fee, to operate on the doctor. Dangerfield hopes the operation will be a failure and that Sturk will die without revealing the identity of his attacker. The operation is a partial success, for Sturk regains consciousness and lives for several days, during which time he makes depositions to the magistrates about the identity of his attacker and the fact that Dangerfield murdered Beauclerc years before. At this point, Irons, too, goes to the magistrates and tells what he knows about the identity of Dangerfield and the part he himself plays in the murder. Even in the face of that evidence, the magistrates find it difficult to believe Dangerfield guilty because, apart from the fact that Dangerfield paid for the operation and lent money to Mrs. Sturk, Nutter’s disappearance is cause for doubt.

Nutter is apprehended in Dublin within one day of Dangerfield’s arrest and is able to prove that he was away on other business at the time of the attack on Sturk. When he passed close to the scene of the crime, he frightened off Dangerfield and prevented his being able to finish the deed. Nutter did not run away; he had simply been to England and Scotland trying to straighten out his domestic affairs. A woman attempted to prove that he was a bigamist because he had married her several years before he wed the woman the people in Chapelizod knew as his wife. He married the first woman, but she herself was a bigamist, so Nutter is trying to find her first husband so as to prove that he was never legally married to the woman. He left secretly so as not to be arrested as a bigamist before he could gather evidence to clear his name.

In another quarter of the village, the apprehension of Dangerfield has great implications. He is engaged to the daughter of the commanding general of the Royal Irish Artillery, although he is many years older than the girl. General Chattesworth is quite anxious to have his daughter, Gertrude, marry Dangerfield because of his wealth. The girl, however, is in love with Mervyn and secretly engaged to him. Dangerfield’s arrest puts a stop to the general’s plan to marry his daughter to a man she does not love.

The apprehension of Dangerfield, however, does more than open the way for Mervyn’s marriage to the general’s daughter. The information that Sturk and Irons give concerning the murder of Beauclerc clears Mervyn’s father, Lord Dunoran. When Parliament meets again, it returns to Mervyn his good name, his title, and the estates forfeited at the time of his father’s conviction.

Dangerfield, alias Archer, is never convicted nor tried by a court. He dies mysteriously in his cell in the county gaol in Dublin while awaiting trial. Not long afterward, the new Lord Dunoran and Gertrude Chattesworth are married in a great ceremony at Chapelizod.

Bibliography

Browne, Nelson. Sheridan Le Fanu. London: Arthur Barker, 1951. A brief overview of Le Fanu’s life and work. Contains an introductory survey of his fiction, with particular emphasis on the atmospheric effects in his works. Provides brief, illuminating comments on The House by the Churchyard.

Gates, David. “’A Dish of Village Chat’: Narrative Technique in Sheridan Le Fanu’s The House by the Churchyard.” Canadian Journal of Irish Studies 10, no. 1 (June, 1984): 63-69. Discusses speech, dialogue, and narrative voice in the novel, as well as the interaction between these and various other techniques. Assesses Le Fanu’s debt to earlier novelists.

McCormack, W. J. Dissolute Characters: Irish Literary History Through Balzac, Sheridan Le Fanu, Yeats, and Bowen. New York: Manchester University Press, 1993. Offers substantial critical commentary on Le Fanu, a section of which is devoted to The House by the Churchyard. Discusses various aspects of the novel, including its cultural context. Further illumination of both the novel and Le Fanu’s career is provided by the study’s complex overall focus.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Sheridan Le Fanu and Victorian Ireland. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980. The definitive study of Le Fanu and the Ireland of his time. Uses a substantial amount of primary source material and a sophisticated critical methodology to create a comprehensive picture of Le Fanu’s cultural background and intellectual interests. Discussion of The House by the Churchyard focuses on the presence and significance of the past.

Sage, Victor. Le Fanu’s Gothic: The Rhetoric of Darkness. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Examines Le Fanu’s stylistic development and narrative methods, placing his work within the context of the cultural politics of his era. Includes an analysis of The House by the Churchyard.

Sullivan, Kevin. “The House by the Churchyard: James Joyce and Sheridan Le Fanu.” In Modern Irish Literature: Essays in Honor of William York Tindall, edited by Raymond J. Porter and James D. Brophy. New Rochelle, N.Y.: Iona College Press, 1972. Links Le Fanu’s work with later developments in Irish writing. Among the more explicit connections is the common setting of The House by the Churchyard and James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake (1939).

Walton, James. Vision and Vacancy: The Fictions of J. S. Le Fanu. Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 2007. An examination of all of Le Fanu’s fiction, discussing his philosophy and literary influences. Places Le Fanu’s work within the context of Victorian English and continental novels. Demonstrates how his horror writing stands apart from traditional ghost stories of the Victorian era.