"A Night in a Haunted House - Being a Passage in the Life of Mr. Midas Oldwych" [in Dublin University Magazine, January - June 1848. Volume XXXI]

Dublin: James McGlashan. Fair in Very Good- dust jacket. 1848. First Edition. Hardcover. Binding poor. Front hinge broken with text block separated from front board. Lacking front free endpaper. Title leaf with 15 x 5mm chip to blank corner, and smaller chip to blank corner of following leaf. Some leaves and gatherings detached and loose. Corners of first 100 pages creased and rubbed. Foxing. Label on front endpaper "This Volume Belongs to the Library of John Smith, LL.D., Glasgow Examiner. [. . .] Dec. 1858." Another early owner's signature on title page "Thomas Matthewson".; Complete volume of "The Dublin University Magazine, A Literary and Political Journal. Vol. XXXI. January to June,1848. [iv], 792 pages.Quarter leather and marbled boards. Page dimensions: 215 x 137mm. Text in double columns. Containing an excellent ghost story attributed to Henry Ferris "A Night in a Haunted House", pages 553-70 . A group of neighbours are sitting around the parlour chimney, and the conversation turns to haunted houses. One mentions that there is a haunted house in the neighbourhood. One of the listeners is skeptical, and decides to spend a night in the house. The story is written at a time when 19th century rationalism and skepticism on the one hand, and on the other hand folk beliefs in ghosts and haunted houses, were competing paradigms for the explanation of the supernatural. "'My dear Fellow,' interrupted Fenwick, 'if you can get the other world to believe in the nineteenth century, your business is done; but the misfortune is, you can't; and so, in spite of the nineteenth century, the houses I tell you of are haunted.'" - page 554. This volume also contains one other contribution, an essay, attributed to Henry Ferris, "A Third Evening with the Witchfinders", pages 440-455. This essays deals with 17th century accounts of poltergeist-like phenomena, the "Drummer of Tedworth" and satanic possession. "[. . .] there can be little doubt that the astral spirit of a wizard or witch, in such cases of extra-corporeal working, is energized by Satan, and cannot act but as he impels it." - page 444. "On subsequent occasions, stranger things still were done with his body. While he lay in a fit on his back, with his arms and 'leggs' spread open, he was 'tiwrled about like a pair of yar-wangles.' Sometimes, when in his fits, he would hang in the barn with his head downwards, and his heels towards the top of it. He also prophecies in his fits what ministers were coming to see him; and though he had never learned any language but the English, and naturally was rather a dunce than otheriwse, yet, when his fits seized him, he often spoke Latin, Greek, and other languages, with great fluency and correctness." - page 446. The attribution to Henry Ferris is not entirely certain (see Hayes 1995). Other contributions to other volumes of the Dublin University Magazine on similar occult subject matter were made under the pseudonym "Iris Herfner", an anagram of Henry Ferrys. [Literature: Hayes, Richard "The Night Side of Nature: Henry Ferris, Writing the Dark Gods of Silence" in Cosgrove, Brian (editor) "Literature and the Supernatural - Essays for the Maynooth Bicentenary" Dublin: The Columba Press, 1995; Neil, Terri, "Henry Ferris: A Bibliography" in Showers, Brian J. (editor) "The Green Book - Writings on Irish Gothic, Supernatural and Fantastic Literature - Issue 8 - Samhain 2016" Dublin: The Swan River Press, 2016] .