Errata on The Lighthouse by George Soane

"The Lighthouse," a fine tale of madness, was first published in the London magazine with the cumbersome name, The Log Book; or Nautical Miscellany. The year was 1826. The anonymous author was George Soane. He later printed the short story in his three-volume collection titled, The Last Ball, and Other Stories, published in 1841. The story was listed under the new, benign title, “Lucy Ellis.” Despite the varying titles and fifteen years of anonymity, this is the finest lighthouse horror story to come out of the first half of the nineteenth century. The only qualification is knowing that Edgar Allan Poe failed to finish his own lighthouse story before his untimely death in 1849.

George Soane

Soane’s creation of realistic dialogue and free-spirited outbursts among the characters is excellent. This mastery of the form stems from his work as a London theatre playwright. The characters upstage this “lighthouse on one of the wildest parts of the English coast” and force the structure to take a small role in the overall story.

Although strangely relegated to obscurity in the annals of English literature, Soane’s ghost and horror fiction must not be forgotten. Here is his best horror story, “The Lighthouse.” Sadly, in over 180 years since it was first published, it has been uncollected in any anthology.

You can read the original text on my website: “The Lighthouse.”