| CARMILLA J. Sheridan LeFanu |
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| PROLOGUE Upon a paper attached to the Narrative which follows, Doctor Hesselius has written a rather elaborate note, which he accompanies with a reference to his Essay on the strange subject which the MS. illuminates. This mysterious subject he treats, in that Essay, with his usual learning and acumen, and with remarkable directness and condensation. It will form but one volume of the series of that extraordinary man’s collected papers. As I publish the case, in this volume, simply to interest the “laity,” I shall forestall the intelligent lady, who relates it, in nothing; and after due consideration, I have determined, therefore, to abstain from presenting any precis of the learned Doctor’s reasoning, or extract from his statement on a subject which he describes as “involving, not improbably, some of the profoundest arcana of our dual existence, and its intermediates.” I was anxious on discovering this paper, to reopen the correspondence commenced by Doctor Hesselius, so many years before, with a person so clever and careful as his informant seems to have been. Much to my regret, however, I found that she had died in the interval. She, probably, could have added little to the Narrative which she communicates in the following pages, with, so far as I can pronounce, such conscientious particularity. |
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR |
| Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu was born in Dublin in 1814 into a weathy family. He was educated at Trinity College. He wrote mostly goast stories and mystery novels. He was also the owner and editer of The Dublin University Magazine. Other Publications that he was invoved with were The Warden, Evening Packet and The Dublin Evening Mail. In 1843 Le Fanu married Susanna Bennett. They had four children. He died in 1873. |
| OTHER WORKS BY LE FANU |
| The Cock and the Anchor, 1845 The Fortunes of Colonel Torlogh O'Brien, 1847 Ghost Stories and Tales of Mystery, 1851 The House by the Churchyard, 1863 Wylder's Hand, 1863 Uncle Silas, 1864 Guy Deverell, 1865 The Prelude, 1865 All in the Dark, 1866 The Tenants of Malory, 1867 A Lost Name, 1868 Haunted Lives, 1868 The Wywern Mystery, 1869 Checkmate, 1871 The Chronicles of Golden Friars, 1871 The Rose and the Key, 1871 |
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