Rhoda Broughton (1840-1920) was the niece of J. Sheridan Le Fanu, the dark prince of horror writers. It should be no surprise that she should try to follow in his footsteps. Her best collection is Tales For Christmas Eve (1873) later reprinted as Twilight Tales (1879).
In the spirit of keeping Roger Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October going, I will be featuring some of my favorite ghost stories and authors throughout October. (Of course, Ms. Broughton would wonder why I am not doing this at Christmas. Colonials!)
It would be re-writing history if I suggested that either Joseph Le Fanu or Rhoda Broughton saw themselves as writers of horror fiction. Both wrote literary novels that the critics have not been kind to over the decades. It is their ghost stories that have stood the test of time. We don’t get to pick how people of future generations view us. Even during her time, Broughton was crowned “queen of the circulating libraries”, essentially meaning a hack of the maudlin type. Literary figures like Oscar Wilde and Lewis Carroll mocked her. Despite this, she was a good friend of Henry James’, author of The Turn of the Screw (1898) to the end of his life.
Like many women writers of the Victorian era, Broughton thought to make a few bob writing ghost stories. Unlike many, she published hers in the Temple Bar, not in Charles Dickens All the Year Round or Household Words. Temple Bar was edited by that other Victorian woman of ghost story distinction, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, author of Lady Audley’s Secret (1862). Other ghost and sensation story alumni include Wilkie Collins, Robert Louis Stevenson, A. Conan Doyle and E. F. Benson.
Modern critics may have passed on her novels but her horror fiction remains well-anthologized. H. P. Lovecraft made no mention of her in The Supernatural Horror in Literature but Robert S. Hadji pronounced Broughton’s “short ghost fiction as not as terrifying as her uncle’s, but it is skillfully wrought” (Survey of Modern Fantasy Literature, 1983). He correctly notes that “The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth” is one of her best.
“The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing but the Truth” (Temple Bar, February 1868) was called “one of her cleverest stories” by Robert S. Hadji. And he is right. It is hard to describe the plot without ruining the surprise. Told in the form of letters, the story hinges on a terror that kills you when you see it. E. F. Benson would use a similar idea in “How Fear Departed from the Long Gallery” (1911) and ruined it with too much explanation and sentiment. Broughton does not.
“The Man with the Nose” (Temple Bar, October 1872) begins with a couple squabbling over where to go for a holiday. When the man suggests The Lakes, the female half of their party begs no, then tells a story of why. A mesmerer named Wiertz haunts her family on an earlier vacation.
“Behold It Was a Dream” (Temple Bar, November 1872) has more letters between two women, Jane and Dinah, who are haunted by a terrible masculine figure in a dream. The story concludes with a horrible newspaper clipping. This one feels to me like it has a little of Uncle Joe’s “Carmilla” (The Dark Blue, December 1871) in it.
“Poor Pretty Bobby” (Temple Bar, December 1872, and was also published in The New York Times on December 29, 19872) has an old woman recalling her engagement to a soldier she dislikes, Bobby Gerard. This is one of her longer stories and to be completely honest, less interesting ones.
“Under the Cloak” (Temple Bar, January 1873) has a woman accept a ride from a stranger. What he has under his cloak is not what you think. Short and fun.
Entering the new century, Broughton continued to write novels up to 1920 with A Fool In Her Folly, a partially autobiographical book. As one who was connected to so many ghost story writers, literary figures, it is a shame she never wrote a tell-all about those old days in Victorian London. Who was better positioned to talk about ghost stories and their tellers?
