Uncle Silas

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For the rural reprobate of stories by H.E. Bates, see My Uncle Silas

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. It was first serialized in the Dublin University Magazine in 1865, under the title Maud Ruthyn and Uncle Silas, and appeared in December of the same year as a triple-decker novel from the London publisher Richard Bentley.

[edit] Plot summary

The novel is a first person narrative told from the point of view of the teenaged Maud Ruthyn, an heiress living with her sombre, 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....

[edit] Allusions/references from other works

Uncle Silas remains Le Fanu's best-known and most popular novel. It was the source for Arthur Conan Doyle's The Firm of Girdlestone, and remains a touchstone for contemporary mystery fiction.

[edit] Film versions

A film version was made by Gainsborough Studios in 1947, directed by Charles Frank and starring Jean Simmons, Katina Paxinou and Derek Bond. The heroine's Christian name was changed from Maud to Carolyn. It was re-titled The Inheritance in the United States, and the incestuous material was excised.

A remake titled The Dark Angel, starring Peter O'Toole, was made in 1987.