Mirror of Literature,  11 (1828), 444–48.

The Sketch Book. The Sexton of Cologne

Anon

Genre:

Regular Feature, Extract, Short Fiction

Publications extracted:

Monthly Magazine

Subjects:

Death, Putrefaction, Superstition, Supernaturalism, Fear, Disease


    Narrates the burial in a trance of a rich burgomaster's wife, and her revival after her coffin was opened by the sexton. When the sexton came to rob the coffin, he fancied that he smelt 'the pestilential breath of decay, though it was full early for corruption to have begun is work' (446). The supposed corpse seizing his hand, he fled; he trembled all over 'as if shaken by an ague-fit' (447).



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