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Uncle Silas

J. Sheridan Le Fanu

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Jul 29, 2011 Kamakana rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: xlong-over-400, crime, aa-europelit, aa-irelandlit, victorianish, zz1860-1869, penguin-classics, gothic-sensation

Read this last year, but I did not put it on here. Main impression, main reading, was that it took a long time to set up until it gets intense. Perhaps had I read this before Wilkie Collins this would have been my favorite gothic or sensation novel. Very good, when it finally gets to it, just you have to be patient, as this book is not scare-a-page.

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Jul 20, 2011 KC rated it really liked it

Shelves: own

I'm torn how to rate Uncle Silas. I give it an A for atmosphere and writing but a B-/C+ for plot. Right from the beginning of Uncle Silas, the reader knows that the are reading a classic Gothic novel. The young protagonist, Maud, is naive and isolated from the world. She lives relatively alone, with only her distant father and a few servants. In order to remedy Maud's education, her father hires a governess, who turns out to be cruel and mad.

Shortly after convincing her father to fire Madame de ...more

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