Alicia Le Fanu (c.1791-c.1844) : 'Rosara's Chain ; or, the Choice of Life : a poem

Alicia Le Fanu hangs both literally and symbolically in a rather undetermined manner amidst the literary ‘greats’ of her family on the Le Fanu family tree provided by the King’s College Archive Centre at Cambridge University, and her particular genealogical branch comes to a somewhat faltering stop with her life’s beginning. Her birth and death dates remain uncertain and it is unclear from the Le Fanu family archive and other sources where she was born and where she grew up, whether or not she married and had children, and what the particular experiences of her life may have been. What is certain, however, is that she followed in the literary traditions of the Sheridan-Le Fanu family and, like the female members of the family that preceded her, successfully published a range of fictional and historical works alongside her more well-known male relatives