Project Gutenberg's Two Ghostly Mysteries, by Joseph Sheridan LeFanu

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Title: Two Ghostly Mysteries
A Chapter in the History of a Tyrone Family; and The Murdered Cousin

Author: Joseph Sheridan LeFanu

Release Date: July 6, 2004 [EBook #12828]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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A CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF A TYRONE FAMILY

AND

THE MURDERED COUSIN

Two stories by J.S. LeFanu

A Chapter in the History was first published in 1836.
The Murdered Cousin was first published in 1851.

A CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF A TYRONE FAMILY

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 to