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The Wyvern Mystery

First published: 1869
Pages: 339

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About this book

Alice Maybell, an orphan raised on the fringes of a proud old family, is drawn into a secret marriage with the brooding Charles Fairfield, heir to the Wyvern estate. What should be happiness curdles into fear as she begins to sense that her husband is hiding something monstrous in his past, and that the lonely house holds a danger she cannot name. Le Fanu builds his Victorian Gothic on jealousy, buried guilt, and a menacing first wife, ground he shares with Charlotte Bronte, though the mood here runs darker and the sense of entrapment sharper. Published in 1869, it is a taut study of a woman caught among the men who claim to protect her. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available to download.

About the author

J. Sheridan Le Fanu

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873) was an Irish novelist and journalist celebrated for his Gothic mysteries and ghost stories. Writing from Dublin, where he ran several newspapers, he became the defining supernatural author of Victorian Ireland and a formative influence on Bram Stoker and M. R. James.