I had anticipated a slog, but was pleasantly surprised! For its faults, I found this a pretty solid Victorian crime thriller. Though I read Le Fanu’s novels hoping to see some of the horror elements of his quite scary short fiction, I’m slowly accepting that human horrors are what he’s concerned with most of the time outside of short stories.
As others have mentioned, the narration style is bizarre as Le Fanu chose to make his narrator a character, but declined to develop that character or include him in most of the action, and switched between first person and omniscient narration in the same chapter sometimes. If Le Fanu had edited out 75% of the sentences containing the word “futurity” as well as the incessant duplicate physical descriptions of the main characters every time they reappear (Stanley’s yellow eyes, Larkin’s dove-like eyes and oblong head), he would have had more room to unfold major events instead of reporting that they had occurred and that he did not know how. Were there not editors back in the day?
The primary female character(s) here are, amazingly, developed with a depth and force of character very unusual for Le Fanu or Dickens, which allowed me to invest in the story to a degree I wouldn’t have otherwise. I wished more of the action had included the heroine rather than the movements of the antagonists. ( )

Mark Wylder’s marriage to Dorcas Brandon will bring about a truce between their families, after centuries of avaricious squabbling over titles, incomes and the ownership of Brandon Hall itself. But, as Charles De Cresseron travels down from London for the festivities, he can’t help marvelling that Mark has pulled it off. Despite their long acquaintance, Charles has never really liked Mark, and his raffish old acquaintance seems unworthy of a stately and beautiful woman like Dorcas Brandon. She, for her part, maintains an air of queenly indifference to her impending marriage: this is clearly no love match. When Mark unaccountably vanishes, shortly before the wedding, all the evidence suggests that he has cut and run; but what has prompted his disappearance? To make matters worse, his departure leaves a convenient gap on the stage at Brandon Hall, and Dorcas has another admirer waiting in the wings: the devilish Captain Stanley Lake, all too eager to take advantage of his rival’s absence. All the components of Victorian Gothic are present and correct: rambling old houses; dark secrets; ghosts and devilry; dastardly plots; innocence under threat; and an abiding mystery at its heart.

For the full review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2021/04/28/wylders-hand-1864-joseph-sheridan-le-fanu/ ( )

Dickensian intrigue with the merest hint of the supernatural. Atmospheric, with quite a good ending.
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu was an Irish author, probably best known for the short story 'Carmilla' about a female vampire. Carmilla was a great influence on Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula, and has been used as the basis of many horror films. Le Fanu was the author of many other excellent gothic horror short stories. His best known novels are Uncle Silas and The House by the Churchyard, both dripping with gothic chills. ( )

The second of Le Fanu's novels that I've read, and this one's about on par with Uncle Silas. I liked it very much, although there is a bit of a structural difficulty when the narration begins in first-person and then shifts suddenly to omniscience and then back again without much warning.

Other than that, though, some really excellent characters and a good Victorian-style thriller, with dark copses between fancy country houses, mistaken identities, and complicated financial machinations. Good stuff! ( )

First published in London in 1864, this is the work of a genial writer, but certainly no genius. If you enjoy the discursive mid-Victorian style, you probably be able to overlook the clunky plot-mechanics and improbabilities of this story of disappearance and and confused identities. If he is remembered at-all, Lefanu is generally regarded as one of the founders of the modern tale of suspense, and by extension, the modern mystery-thriller. If WYLER'S HAND is any indication, those genres grew up as much despite him as because of him. Still, I enjoyed it, though if there had been just one more late-night walk between the rural houses, I probably would have pitched it --r myself -- into the sea. ( )