Keeping in Touch: An Anthology of the Victorian SeanceMain MenuIntroductionFurther ReadingI - Spiritualism and Its BelieversII - Ambivalent SkepticsIII - Scoffers and FraudsIV - The Private SeanceV - The Public SeanceWork CitedMegan Brueningb3bbdc9bd1941527cc9ff27849ef1a643abdd7d3
12016-11-23T12:41:55-05:00The Painted Chamber3plain2016-12-16T21:08:51-05:00The excerpt from John C. Dent’s story “The Painted Chamber” (published in Once a Week in 1872) is the second part of a short story. In the excerpt the narrator is visited by a female medium that declares that his office is the location of a grisly murder. The narrator and medium try to uncover the story of the crime but do not find any definitive evidence. Although the séance takes up a short part of the story, the effect it has on the narrator demonstrates how the séance disrupted the stability of public spaces, or rather disrupts the stability of public space narratives in ways that cannot be resolved by “rational” empirical modes of inquiry (like those the narrator uses to try and uncover the mystery).