Extract: CHAPTER I. MORTLAKE HALL. There stands about a mile and a half beyond Islington, unless it has come down within the last two years, a singular and grand old house. It belonged to the family of Arden, once distinguished in the Northumbrian counties. About fifty acres of ground, rich with noble clumps and masses of old timber, surround it; old-world fish-ponds, with swans sailing upon them, tall yew hedges, quincunxes, leaden fauns and goddesses, and other obsolete splendours surround it. It rises, tall, florid, built of Caen stone, with a palatial flight of steps, and something of the grace and dignity of the genius of Inigo Jones, to whom it is ascribed, with the shadows of ancestral trees and the stains of two centuries upon it, and a vague character of gloom and melancholy, not improved by some indications not actually of decay, but of something too like neglect. It is now evening, and a dusky glow envelopes the scene. The setting sun throws its level beams, through tall drawing-room windows, ruddily upon the Dutch tapestry on the opposite walls, and not unbecomingly lights up the little party assembled there. Good-natured, fat Lady May Penrose, in her bonnet, sips her tea and chats agreeably. Her carriage waits outside. You will ask who is that extremely beautiful girl who sits opposite, her large soft grey eyes gazing towards the western sky with a look of abstraction, too forgetful for a time of her company, leaning upon the slender hand she has placed under her cheek. How silken and golden-tinted the dark brown hair that grows so near her brows, making her forehead low, and marking with its broad line the beautiful oval of her face! Is there carmine anywhere to match her brilliant lips? And when, recollecting something to tell Lady May, she turns on a sudden, smiling, how soft and pretty the dimples, and how even the little row of pearls she discloses!
About the Author: Sheridan Le Fanu, born August 28, 1814 in Dublin, where he died February 10, 1873, is an Irish writer. This is one of the major authors of the fantastic tale. The first successes The year 1851 marked a turning point in the career of the prolific writer with the publication of his first collection of fantastic news: Ghost Stories and Tales of Mysteries. Following the death of the father of Susanna, Joseph and his wife moved into her father's house that Susanna has inherited 18 Merrion Square. Le Fanu will spend the rest of his life. It is in this exclusive residential area of Dublin that Le Fanu met the knight Sir William Robert Wills Wilde, Irish surgeon, and Jane Francesca Elgee of so-called "Speranza", Irish poet and nationalist. Therefore, although anecdotal, seems nevertheless interesting to note that since this couple of friends will like child another writer, will become the enfant terrible of Irish letters both in his work by his private life, Oscar Wilde . The wife of Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, Susanna, shows the first signs of the disease that will win seven years later. On 1 August 1854 born George Brinslay, which will illustrate later novels of his father and realize the few portraits of him to have survived