Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter: 'These questions can never now be answered''

By Sheridan Le Fanu

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu was born on 28th August 1814 in Dublin into a literary family with Huguenot, Irish and English roots.

For a time he and his siblings were tutored but Le Fanu would often immerse himself in the books of his father’s library.

In 1833 Le Fanu began his Law studies at Trinity College, Dublin and graduated in 1839. Although called to the bar he instead began a career in journalism.

He was also writing. His first fiction story ‘The Ghost and the Bonesetter’ was published in 1838. In 1843 came the novella ‘Spalatro: From the Notes of Fra Giacomo’, a hero with a particular necrophiliac passion for an undead blood-drinking beauty, a forerunner to his later female vampire ‘Carmilla’.

In 1844 Le Fanu married Susanna Bennett with whom he had 4 children. The following year his first novel ‘The C'ock and Anchor’ was published. Works now flowed from his pen and with a rapid increase in family finances they moved, in 1851, to Merrion Square, Dublin, where he remained until his death.

In 1858 Susanna died and Le Fanu became reclusive. It was during this period that he produced some of his best work. Working only by candlelight he wrote through the night, burnishing his reputation as a major figure of 19th Century supernaturalism with many classics including; ‘Green Tea’, ‘Mr Justice Harbottle’, and ‘In a Glass Darkly’.

Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu died in Merrion Square in his native Dublin on 7th February, 1873, at the age of 58.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Miniature Masterpieces
• Release date: Jan 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9781803547510

Sheridan Le Fanu

J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1814–1873) was an Irish writer who helped develop the ghost story genre in the nineteenth century. Born to a family of writers, Le Fanu released his first works in 1838 in Dublin University Magazine, which he would go on to edit and publish in 1861. Some of Le Fanu’s most famous Victorian Gothic works include Carmilla, Uncle Silas, and In a Glass Darkly. His writing has inspired other great authors of horror and thriller literature such as Bram Stoker and M. R. James.

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Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter by Sheridan Le Fanu

The Author, An Introduction

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu was born on 28th August 1814 in Dublin into a literary family with Huguenot, Irish and English roots. 

For a time he and his siblings were tutored but Le Fanu would often immerse himself in the books of his father’s library.

In 1833 Le Fanu began his Law studies at Trinity College, Dublin and graduated in 1839. Although called to the bar he instead began a career in journalism. 

He was also writing. His first fiction story ‘The Ghost and the Bonesetter’ was published in 1838.  In 1843 came the novella ‘Spalatro: From the Notes of Fra Giacomo’, a hero with a particular necrophiliac passion for an undead blood-drinking beauty, a forerunner to his later female vampire ‘Carmilla’.

In 1844 Le Fanu married Susanna Bennett with whom he had 4 children. The following year his first novel ‘The C'ock and Anchor’ was published. Works now flowed from his pen and with a rapid increase in family finances they moved, in 1851, to Merrion Square, Dublin, where he remained until his death.

In 1858 Susanna died and Le Fanu became reclusive. It was during this period that he produced some of his best work.  Working only by candlelight he wrote through the night, burnishing his reputation as a major figure of 19th Century supernaturalism with many classics including; ‘Green Tea’, ‘Mr Justice Harbottle’, and ‘In a Glass Darkly’.

Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu died in Merrion Square in his native Dublin on 7th February, 1873, at the age of 58.

Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter

Being a Seventh Extract from the Legacy of the late Francis Purcell, P. P. of Drumcoolagh.

You will no doubt be surprised, my dear friend, at the subject of the following narrative. What had I to do with Schalken, or Schalken with me? He had returned to his native land, and was probably dead and buried, before I was born; I never visited Holland nor spoke with a native of that country. So much I believe you already know. I must, then, give you my authority, and state to you frankly the ground upon which rests the credibility of the strange story which I am, about to lay before you.

I was acquainted, in my early days, with a Captain Vandael, whose father had served King William in the Low Countries, and also in my own unhappy land during the Irish campaigns. I know not how it happened that I liked this man's society, spite of his politics and religion: but so it was; and it was by means of the free intercourse to which our intimacy gave rise that I became possessed of the curious tale which you are about to hear.

I had often been