The Purcell Papers — Volume 3

Name: The Purcell Papers — Volume 3
Author: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

Pages: about 142
Category: Literature & Fiction
Language: English
Reading time: 2.6 h at 250 wpm

Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 87 min at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

Reprinted from an original copy in the collection of the University of Chicago Library.
From the edition of 1880, London First AMS edition published in 1975 Manufactured in the United States of America
Being a Tenth Extract from the Legacy of the late Francis Purcell, P.P. of Drumcoolagh.
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.
My maiden name was Richardson,(1) the designation of a family of some distinction in the county of Tyrone. I was the younger of two daughters, and we were the only children.

A short sample. Read the whole book

The Purcell Papers — Volume 3

From the opening

More to read