# Fanny — Short Fiction character guide

> Fanny in Short Fiction by J. Sheridan Le Fanu.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** little Fanny, Little Fanny, darling Fanny

**First appearance:** 0020-the-spectre-lovers

## Snapshot

A young girl whose small presence anchors one of Le Fanu's ghostly stories in the tender, vulnerable world of childhood.

## Who they are

Fanny is the child at the center of a haunting, the kind of figure Le Fanu uses to make the supernatural feel intimate and personal rather than merely frightening. Her youth and dependence make her both the object of the story's strangeness and its most sympathetic witness. She matters because the tale's power depends on our sense that what happens to her could happen to any child left alone with the wrong visitor.

## In the story

### [The Mysterious Lodger](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_31_se/chapters/the-mysterious-lodger)

The narrator's daughter who sees an invisible specter threatening her baby brother.

### [The Child That Went with the Fairies](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_31_se/chapters/the-child-that-went-with-the-fairies)

Peg, the little sister who witnesses the abduction and later sees Billy's ghostly visits.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_31_se/characters/fanny
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_31_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_31_se/characters