Two Ghostly Mysteries A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and the Murdered Cousin
2009
First Published
3.41
Average Rating
72
Number of Pages
Being a Tenth Extract from the Legacy of the Late Francis Purcell, P.P. of Drumcoolagh INTRODUCTION. In the following narrative, I have endeavoured to give as nearly as possible the "ipsissima verba" of the valued friend from whom I received it, conscious that any aberration from her mode of telling the tale of her own life, would at once impair its accuracy and its effect. Would that, with her words, I could also bring before you her animated gesture, her expressive countenance, the solemn and thrilling air and accent with which she related the dark passages in her strange story; and, above all, that I could communicate the impressive consciousness that the narrator had seen with her own eyes, and personally acted in the scenes which she described; these accompaniments, taken with the additional circumstance, that she who told the tale was one far too deeply and sadly impressed with religious principle, to misrepresent or fabricate what she repeated as fact, gave to the tale a depth of interest which the events recorded could hardly, themselves, have produced. I became acquainted with the lady from whose lips I heard this narrative, nearly twenty years since, and the story struck my fancy so much, that I committed it to paper while it was still fresh in my mind, and should its perusal afford you entertainment for a listless half hour, my labour shall not have been bestowed in vain. I find that I have taken the story down as she told it, in the first person, and, perhaps, this is as it should be. She began as follows.
Avg Rating
3.41
Number of Ratings
58
5 STARS
24%
4 STARS
19%
3 STARS
36%
2 STARS
16%
1 STARS
5%
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Author
J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Author · 68 books
Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu was an Irish writer of Gothic tales and mystery novels. He was the leading ghost-story writer of the nineteenth century and was central to the development of the genre in the Victorian era. M.R. James described Le Fanu as "absolutely in the first rank as a writer of ghost stories". Three of his best-known works are Uncle Silas, Carmilla and The House by the Churchyard.
