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This eBook has been formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. Maud Ruthyn is an heiress who lives with her somber, reclusive father Austin Ruthyn in their mansion at Knowl. Through her father and her worldly, cheerful cousin, Lady Monica Knollys, she gradually learns more regarding her uncle, Silas Ruthyn, a black sheep of the family whom she has never met. Once an infamous rake and gambler, he is now apparently a fervently reformed Christian. His reputation has been tainted by the suspicious suicide of a man to whom Silas owed an enormous gambling debt, which took place within a locked, apparently impenetrable room in Silas's mansion at Bartram-Haugh.

Sheridan Le Fanu's most celebrated novelIn Uncle Silas, Maud Ruthyn, the young, naïve heroine, is plagued by Madame de la Rougierre from the moment the enigmatic older woman is hired as her governess. A liar, bully, and spy, when Madame leaves the house, she takes her dark secret with her. But when Maud is orphaned, she is sent to live with her Uncle Silas, her father's mysterious brother and a man with a scandalous-even murderous-past. And, once again, she encounters Madame, whose sinister role in Maud's destiny becomes all too clear.With its subversion of reality and illusion, and its exploration of fear through the use of mystery and the supernatural, Uncle Silas shuns the conventions of traditional horror and delivers a chilling psychological thriller.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

"Uncle Silas" is J. Sheridan Le Fanu's classic gothic novel narrated by the teenage character Maud Ruthyn who lives with her reclusive father Austyn Ruthyn in their mansion at Knowl. From her father Maud comes to learn of her Uncle Silas, an infamous rake and gambler and the suspicious suicide of a man to whom Silas owes an enormous gambling death. Mystery surrounds this suicide as the man is found dead in a locked room. While Austyn is convinced of his brother's innocence Maud is not and when her father unexpectedly dies, she must go to live with her Uncle. As Maud suspects that Uncle Silas has designs on her inheritance she finds herself in a dreadful situation in which she fears for her life. "Uncle Silas" is a chilling psychological thriller that is considered by many as Le Fanu's best and most popular work.

Maud Ruthyn is an heiress who lives with her somber, reclusive father Austin Ruthyn in their mansion at Knowl. Through her father and her worldly, cheerful cousin, Lady Monica Knollys, she gradually learns more regarding her uncle, Silas Ruthyn, a black sheep of the family whom she has never met. Once an infamous rake and gambler, he is now apparently a fervently reformed Christian. His reputation has been tainted by the suspicious suicide of a man to whom Silas owed an enormous gambling debt, which took place within a locked, apparently impenetrable room in Silas's mansion at Bartram-Haugh.

Perhaps no other writer in the history of English fiction so completely mastered the technique of creating an atmosphere of unrelieved suspense and terror as Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-73). This is surely evident in all of his supernatural fiction: such superb examples of the English ghost story as "Carmilla," "The Haunted Baronet," "Squire Toby's Will," and others (many available in Dover's Best Ghost Stories of J. S. Le Fanu). But nowhere is Le Fanu's success as great as in Uncle Silas.Death prowls the 400-odd pages of this book — in Maud Ruthyn, her father Austin, the grotesque Madame de la Rougierre, in the shadowy suspicion that surrounds Uncle Silas, in the chilly atmosphere at Knowl and the even more haunting terror pervading Bartram-Haugh, in the gloomy night thoughts and somber reflections about death that occur and reoccur. With consummate skill, Le Fanu has truly captured the secret fears and dreads that grip us all.One of a half dozen or so nineteenth-century novels still read for pleasure rather than as a school exercise, Uncle Silas is the Victorian mystery story par excellence, displaying both Le Fanu's considerable narrative ability and his emotional power. It has remained in print since its first appearance in 1864, has been translated into several languages, and has been filmed in England as The Inheritor. Its longevity and perennial appeal are both well established and well deserved, for as Frederick Shroyer says in his Introduction, "It is one of the most effective, gripping novels of terror … ever written. Today, as in the past, Uncle Silas continues to serve diabolically well to chill the reader's psychic bones."Despite its continuous popularity, Uncle Silas has of late been virtually unobtainable in America. Now republished by Dover, this chilling Victorian novel will be a welcome treat for all Le Fanu admirers, mystery fans, English majors, and every reader who enjoys a well-told tale.

The novel is a first person narrative told from the point of view of the teenaged Maud Ruthyn, an heiress living with her somber, reclusive father Austyn Ruthyn in their mansion at Knowl. She gradually becomes aware of the existence of Silas Ruthyn, a black sheep uncle whom she has never met, who was once an infamous rake and gambler but is now apparently a reformed Christian. Silas's past holds a dark mystery, which she gradually learns from her father and from her worldly, cheerful cousin Lady Monica: the suspicious suicide of a man to whom Silas owed an enormous gambling debt, which took place within a locked, apparently impenetrable room in Silas's mansion at Bartram-Haugh. Austyn is firmly convinced of his brother's innocence; Maud's attitude to Uncle Silas (whom we do not meet for the first 200 pages of the book) wavers repeatedly between trusting in her father's judgment, and growing fear and uncertainty.In the first part of the novel, Maud's father hires a French governess, Madame de la Rougierre, as a companion for her. Madame de la Rougierre, however, turns out to be a sinister figure who has designs on Maud. (In a cutaway scene that breaks the first-person narrative, we learn that she is in league with Uncle Silas's good-for-nothing son Dudley.) She is eventually discovered by Maud in the act of burgling her father's desk; this is enough to ensure that she is dismissed.Austyn Ruthyn obscurely asks Maud if she is willing to undergo some kind of "ordeal" to clear Silas's name. She assents, and shortly thereafter her father dies. It turns out that he has added a codicil to his will: Maud is to stay with Uncle Silas until she comes of age. If she dies while in her minority, the estate will go to Silas. Despite the best efforts of Lady Monica and Austyn's executor and fellow Swedenborgian, Dr. Bryerly, Maud is forced to spend the next three and a half years of her life at Bartram-Haugh.Life at Bartram-Haugh is initially strange but not unpleasant, despite ominous signs such as the uniformly unfriendly servants and a malevolent factotum of Silas's, the one-legged Dickon Hawkes. Silas himself is a sinister, soft-spoken man who is openly contemptuous of his two children, the loutish Dudley and the untutored but friendly Milly (her country ways initially amaze Maud, but they become best friends). Silas is subject to mysterious catatonic fits which are attributed by his doctor to his massive opium consumption. Gradually, however, the trap closes around Maud: it is clear that Silas is attempting to coax or force her to marry Dudley. When that plan fails, and as the time-limit of three-and-a-half years begins to shrink, it becomes clear that more violent methods may be used to ensure that Silas gains control of the Ruthyn estate....Includes a biography of the Author

Uncle Silas is a Victorian Gothic mystery/thriller novel by the Anglo-Irish writer J. Sheridan Le Fanu. It is notable as one of the earliest examples of the locked room mystery subgenre. It is not a novel of the supernatural (despite a few creepily ambiguous touches), but does show a strong interest in the occult and in the ideas of Swedenborg.Like many of Le Fanu's novels, it grew out of an earlier short story, "A Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess" (1839), which he also published as "The Murdered Cousin" in the 1851 collection Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery. The setting of the original story was Irish; presumably, it was changed to Derbyshire for the novel because this would appeal more to a British audience.

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In Uncle Silas, Sheridan Le Fanu’s most celebrated novel, Maud Ruthyn, the young, naïve heroine, is plagued by Madame de la Rougierre from the moment the enigmatic older woman is hired as her governess. A liar, bully, and spy, when Madame leaves the house, she takes her dark secret with her. But when Maud is orphaned, she is sent to live with her Uncle Silas, her father’s mysterious brother and a man with a scandalous-even murderous-past. And, once again, she encounters Madame, whose sinister role in Maud’s destiny becomes all too clear. With its subversion of reality and illusion, and its exploration of fear through the use of mystery and the supernatural, Uncle Silas shuns the conventions of traditional horror and delivers a chilling psychological thriller.

Addicted to laudanum and prey to inexplicable visions, Silas appears like a spirit to his neice Maud. Silas has his own plans for Maud and the fortune she will inherit. Uncle Silas is LeFanu's best-known novel, dealing with themes of spiritualism, secret corruption, greed, lust, and other peculiar Victorian obsessions. A classic novel of spiritual terror by opne of the true masters of the form.