The Brinsley Le Fanu Fan Page

Short Biography of Brinsley Le Fanu

It's surprising how scarce is available data about so prolific artists as Brinsley Le Fanu was. Even more, if we consider the fact he was a son of very successful Irish writer Sheridan Le Fanu. Information on the web is unreliable, often confusing between the two, sometimes with the additional mix up with one of another member of Le Fanu family, contradicting dates and names... This includes books, not long ago much more reliable then blog posts and wiki entries, but today more and more with large copy-pasted materials taken right from superficial and careless entries of doubtful values. So let's start with the most trustworthy info. Brinsley Le Fanu was born as George Brinsley Le Fanu, the youngest son of Sheridan Le Fanu, on August 1st, 1854 in Dublin. We don't know anything about his formal education, but he obviously worked a lot, illustrating such classics as: Alice in Wonderland by Lewis CarrollIvanhoe by Sir Walter ScottThe Lady of Shalott and the Voyage of Maeldune by Sir Alfred TennysonAncient Mariner by Samuel Taylor ColeridgeThe Story of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth LongfellowUncle Remus by Joel Chandler HarrisUncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stoweetc. His probably most notable work was illustrations on Books for the Bairns series edited by William Thomas Stead. Of course, he illustrated several of his father's works as well: The Cock an AnchorThe Evil GuestThe Watcher and Other Weird Stories (Brinsley wrote a preface too)etc. Apart from the illustration, we excelled in the painting too, exhibiting at the Dudley Gallery, the Manchester City Art Gallery, the New Water Colour Society, the Royal Academy, and the Royal Society of British Authors. He died in London on June 25th, 1929.

Note: This website is a part of The Vintage Artists On-Line Project