Alicia Le Fanu

Life
1791-? [Miss Alicia Le Fanu; var. Lefanu]; dg. of Elizabeth Sheridan and Capt. Henry Le Fanu; br. of Philip Le Fanu; she was a grand-dg. of Thomas Sheridan and Frances [née] Chamberlaine, and a niece of Alicia Sheridan [Mrs. Le Fanu - q.v.], and also of Richard Brinsley Sheridan; she published the Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Mrs. Frances Sheridan (1824); was known to be living in 1844 when Mrs Norton got her a civil pension, as shown in the Le Fanu Papers at Cambridge [acc. Robert Hogan]. ODNB RAF OCIL

[ top ]

Works
Poetry
  • The Flowers; or, The Sylphid Queen: A Fairy Tale in Verse (London: J. Harris 1809), 42pp.
  • Rosara’s Chain; or, The Choice of Life, a poem (London: M. J. Godwin 1812), 108pp.
Fiction
  • Strathallan (London: Sherwood, Neely & Jones 1816), 4 vols. [I: 536p, II: 363pp, III: 344pp., IV: 536pp.; see details].
  • Leolin Abbey: A Novel (London: Longman &c 1819), 3 vols. [I: 395pp., II: 286pp,., III: 276pp.].
  • Don Juan De Las Sierras: A Romance (London: Newman & Co. 1823), 3 vols. [I: iv, 210pp., II: 212pp, III: 298pp.].
  • Tales of a Tourist (London: Newman & Co. 1824), 4 vols. [I: 257pp., II: 268pp., III: 257pp., IV: 250pp.].
  • Henry the Fourth of France: A Romance (London: Newman & Co. 1826), 4 vols. [I: 231pp., II: 229pp., III: 240pp., IV: 226pp.].
Miscellaneous
  • Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Mrs Sheridan, Mother of the late Rt. Hon R. B. Sheridan ... with remarks upon a late life of the Rt. Hon. R. B. Sheridan; and also criticisms and selections from the works of Mrs Sheridan; and biographical anecdotes of her family and contemporaries. By her grand-daughter Alicia Le Fanu (London: G. &W. B. Whittaker 1824), xi, 435pp.

Bibliographical details
Strathallan / By Alicia Lefanu, grand-daughter to the late Thomas Sheridan, M.A. ... [2nd. edition] 4 vols. (London: printed for Sherwood, Neely, and Jones, [...] 1816), 19cm. Notes: R. & R. Gilbert, printers, named in colophon of Vol. 1; Barnard and Farley (London) named on colophon of Vol. 3.

[ top ]

References
D. J. O’Donoghue, Poets of Ireland (Dublin: Hodges Figgis 1912), gives no bio-dates; lists Rosara’s Chain [ ... &c.] (1816) [sic]; niece of Alicia Le Fanu [b.1754] and dg. of Elizabeth née Sheridan (wife of Capt. Henry Lefanu), the Sheridan sisters having married brothers; O’Donoghue remarks that Webb and others are ‘hopelessly wrong about the minor Lefanus’.

See references in Life of Rev. Charles Edward Herbert Orpen (1860). [possibly refers to Alicia Le Fanu 1754-1817].

Patrick Rafroidi, Irish Literature in English, The Romantic Period, 1789-1850, 1980, Vol. 2 [reflected in the list of works, supra.]

[ top ]

Notes
Kith & Kin: In 1819 Alicia Hester Le Fanu, a namesake, married William Dobbin, br. of Emma Dobbin, who married Thomas le Fanu, f. of J. S. Le Fanu. Dobbin was wounded in the head during the Peninsular War, subsequently served in the Royal Irish Constabulary and later suffered declining fortunes incl. spells in debtors’ gaol. (See W. J. McCormack, Sheridan Le Fanu and Victorian Ireland, Lilliput 1991 [2nd edn.], 1991, p.19.)

[ top ]