# 187 Years Ago, a Gothic Horror Story Beat Edgar Allan Poe to the Locked-Room Mystery

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/187-years-ago-a-gothic-horror-story-beat-edgar-allan-poe-to-the-locked-room-mystery/
- Published: 2026-10-23T10:00:18+00:00
- Updated: 2026-10-23T10:14:17+00:00
- Original publisher: Polygon
- Original article: https://www.polygon.com/locked-room-gothic-horror-sheridan-le-fanu/
- Topics: Horror, Paranormal, Weird & Viral

## Key points

- Le Fanu’s 1838 story featured a locked-room mystery.
- It appeared three years before Poe’s famous tale.
- *Uncle Silas* mixes Gothic dread with human manipulation.

## Summary

Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1838 story “A Passage in the Secret History of an Irish Countess” presented a locked-room murder mystery three years before Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”. The article argues that Le Fanu’s Gothic fiction deserves recognition for helping establish the genre’s use of isolated settings and mysteries rooted in human malice.

The story follows young heiress Maud Ruthyn, whose father sends her into the care of her reclusive, disreputable Uncle Silas. At his mansion, Bartram-Haugh, a debtor is found dead in what appears to be a suspicious suicide, and Maud is drawn into trying to clear Silas’s name. Le Fanu later expanded the story into his 1864 novel *Uncle Silas*, blending eerie, possibly supernatural details with the danger posed by adults exploiting a vulnerable child.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.