Convents and Monasteries | Project Gothic

Maximilian and Selina

Maximilian and Selina: Or, the Mysterious Abbot. A Flemish Tale.

Author: Unknown
Publisher: Tegg & Castleman
Publication Year: 1804
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 10.4cm x 18.1cm
Pages: 72
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2.M356 1802

A tale of romance, resentment, and revenge, this 1804 chapbook tells the story of a noble family living in France as one brother’s evil corrupts the lives of those around him.

Material History

Maximilian and Selina, Or, The Mysterious Abbot. A Flemish Tale can be found in two collections in the Sadleir-Black Collection of Gothic Fiction at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia. One copy is bound inside the collection Marvellous Magazine (volume III). Pencil notes (perhaps from Sadleir himself) on the inside cover of this copy indicate that this story can also be found in a volume called The Entertainer I, also in the Sadleir-Black Collection.

The title page for *Maximilian and Selina*, which is identical in both *The Entertainer* and *Marvellous Magazine* bound copies.

The printing of Maximilian and Selina bound in The Entertainer appears identical to the version bound in Marvellous Magazine; both share the same frontispiece and title page. The frontispiece shows a scene in which a man is being pushed out of a tower by someone else, while a woman watches in horror from behind. Each copy of Maximilian and Selina was published by Tegg and Castleman, but no author is indicated in either volume.

Marvellous Magazine appears very old and worn; the cover and first page are entirely detached from the rest of the book. The binding is plain and cracked. The cover is spotted leather with decorative swirling gold patterning on the spine and gold dots around the edge of the binding. The paper is medium- to lightweight and yellowed, displaying relatively small text. Before each story in the collection appears a black and white frontispiece illustrating a scene from the following pages. The entire book is 512 pages long and contains seven stories: six are exactly seventy-two pages long (including Maximilian and Selina), and one is eighty. The book is rather small, measuring only 4.3 x 10.4 x 18.1 cm.

Textual History

Maximilian and Selina is available in several different editions at the University of Virginia Special Collections Library. The copies in the larger volumes The Entertainer and Marvellous Magazine are identical and will be discussed first. The story was first printed in 1804 for Tegg & Castleman. Thomas Tegg was a well-known printer who lived from 1776 to 1846. According to an obituary, the bookseller struggled in his childhood and early career, but he eventually established his own successful business and began to amass his fortune printing, buying, and selling books. He was elected Sheriff of London in 1846 but did not serve in that position due to failing health. After his death, his sons continued in their father’s path. Interestingly, Tegg’s youngest son was so stricken with grief at his father’s death that he died as well shortly after, and their bodies were buried in the family plot together on the same day (The Gentleman’s Magazine 650). There is an intriguing (albeit unintended) parallel in Maximilian and Selina: the Duke of Anjou arrives at the convent just as the death knell tolls for his daughter, and he immediately dies of the shock. Their bodies are carried back to the chateau together, where the sight of his dead father and sister drive Godfrey to madness.

The frontispiece depicts the chapbook’s culmination where Edward pushes his brother off of the tower.

The 1804 version of Maximilian and Selina is available within multiple collections of stories. The two held by the University of Virginia are Marvellous Magazine and The Entertainer. Maximilian and Selina appears identical in both volumes, with the same title page and frontispiece. The other printing is for Dean & Munday in 1820. The edition printed by Dean & Munday that is housed at the University of Virginia Library is disbound and has significant brown spotting on the title page. It looks similar to the Tegg & Castleman version, but the publishing information is different and the frontispiece is in color. Also, it is only thirty-six pages instead of seventy-two. The shorter length is because this version is an abridged version of the 1804 edition. The overall plot is similar but most of the frame narrative has been cut out, several characters are entirely deleted, the sequence in which the reader learns about events is different, and in abridging the text many plot points are deleted in a confusing way, without any transitions being added. The Dean & Munday printing has a catalogue slip in it which gives some basic publishing information, a description of the physical object, and part of an assessment by scholar Frederick Frank: “A confusing patchwork of obscure and opaque plots … Complexity and lucidity are not necessarily incompatible elements of style in horror fiction, but in this chapbook, the style is so dense as to render even the basic facts of the story a matter of hazardous speculation” (The First Gothics 233). The explanation on the slip for the frontispiece does not relate to the story. The scene shown is Edward pushing Godfrey out of the tower while Elgiva screams in horror, but the slip describes “ruffians throwing a screaming boy from the top of a tower.”

Another incorrect description of the frontispiece is found in Frederick Frank’s article “Gothic Gold.” The year and publishing information match the Tegg & Castleman version, but the article says that the chapbook is thirty-six pages, like the Dean & Munday printing. The frontispiece is shown in black and white above a brief description of the book: “About to be hurled from the turret by his malicious brother, Adolphus de Monvel, Maximilian’s doom seems sealed as a pathetic mother figure murmurs an ineffectual prayer unheard in the fallen and godless universe. The scene is the chapbook’s initial spectacular incident in a series of unremitting crises” (“Gothic Gold” 309). This description mentions real characters from the story, but neither Adolphus nor Maximilian were a part of this scene, and the female figure is most likely Elgiva, Godfrey’s wife. This is also one of the last events in the chapbook, not the first.

Frank gives another critical synopsis of Maximilian and Selina in his book The First Gothics. It lists the publishing information of the unabridged 1804 version. However, this synopsis also contradicts the events of both versions of the chapbook (the Tegg & Castleman printing, and the abridged one for Dean & Munday). It is also different than the description given for the frontispiece in Frank’s “Gothic Gold.” In The First Gothics, the frontispiece is said to show ruffians throwing Godfrey off a tower, instead of Maximilian being thrown by de Monvel, his “brother.” This synopsis covers the rest of the chapbook, with references to real characters and similar plot points, but multiple inaccuracies which completely change the story.

Maximilian and Selina is mentioned more briefly in several other scholarly works (Potter History of Gothic Publishing 75, Mayo 551, Hoeveler). Mayo explains that Marvellous Magazine and similar anthologies generally featured stories of a specified length. For example, the volume of Marvellous Magazine containing Maximilian and Selina contains stories all seventy-two pages in length, save one exception. This length limit often resulted in the butchering of Gothic classics as they were edited and amended to reach a precise page count (Mayo 367). This is one possibility to account for the incoherency of the shorter Dean & Munday printing compared to the original, which was twice as long.

Narrative Point of View

The main story within Maximilian and Selina is narrated by Maximilian, the Abbott, as he recounts his life to Sancho Orlando. He uses first-person narration which focuses on his own thoughts and feelings as the plot progresses. Since Maximilian is older when he is telling this story, he occasionally inserts future knowledge. Part of the story is the packet that Maximilian wrote based on Nerina’s deathbed explanation. This part is told in the third person, with a somewhat omniscient narrator. The final section is the tale told by Guiscardo to Sancho, in first-person narration from Guiscardo’s point of view. The language is similar in all three: archaic and formal. The packet is perhaps a bit more flowery in its prose than the oral stories.

Sample Passage:

To discover who this was, became at length the predominant desire of my soul, since, could I but confront him, I knew my innocence must triumph; but where to seek for information, which Selina only could give, and had refused, almost to distraction. At length a light seemed to break on my bewildered senses, and I fancied the whole discovery lay clear before me. On revolving the whole affair, as stated by the Duke, I was forcibly struck with that part where Selina charged me with neglect during her father’s absence; at the same time praising the kindness of her eldest brother, by whose attention she was wholly sustained, whilst Edward and myself chose to amuse ourselves apart. I had once been told by Edward, that Godfrey was my foe, and I now believed it; he alone could have poisoned his sister’s mind against me, and made her notice, a long past and seemingly forgotten act of prudence, as a want of affection for her, —Wild as this idea was, it became conclusive, and I madly formed the resolution of following the Duke and his son, and of accusing the latter. (28)

This paragraph is from the section narrated in Maximilian’s point of view. By describing his past self’s inner thoughts about Selina’s change of heart, Maximilian emphasizes his own perspective. At the time, Maximilian did not have any doubts about his conviction that Godfrey was sabotaging his relationship with Selina, which is why he rashly rode out into the night to follow him. However, now knowing that it was Edward who really betrayed him, he uses words including “I fancied,” “wild,” and “madly.” The narrator’s hindsight creates the feeling of an omniscient point of view, even though it is simply Maximilian in the future, narrating retrospectively.

Summary

The story begins with a wise old abbot named Maximilian. A Spanish knight named Sancho Orlando comes to seek his advice after killing his friend in single combat. After the Abbot listens to his story, he assures the knight that his friend’s death was not his fault, and that he has no need for such guilt. The knight asks the Abbot how he came to be a monk, and the body of the tale is what the Abbot tells Sancho in reply.

Godfrey, Duke of Anjou, is a kind and generous nobleman visiting his chateau in the countryside with his children. Maximilian is the same age at that point as the Duke’s younger son, Edward, and because his uncle, the prior at a local convent, is close friends with the Duke, Maximilian spends a lot of time with his children. Godfrey, the Duke’s elder son, is friendly, noble, and admirable, while Edward is horrible, jealous, and cruel, but Maximilian does not notice Edward’s faults until too late because of their friendship. Selina, the Duke’s daughter, is beautiful and kind, and Maximilian falls in love with her, but Edward is the only one who knows of their relationship.

The bookplate for *Maximilian and Selina,* featuring a coat of arms, Latin text which translates to “Friendship and diligence restored,” and the name “Richardson Harrison.”

Three years later, the Duke leaves the chateau to visit a dear friend on his deathbed. While he is gone Godfrey is in charge, and Edward advises his friend not to let Godfrey see him with Selina, since he would disapprove. When the Duke returns, he is accompanied by Elgiva de Valmont, his friend’s daughter, who is now his ward. She is even more beautiful than Selina, with whom she becomes close friends. Maximilian’s heart already belongs to Selina, but the two brothers compete fiercely for Elgiva’s affections. Godfrey proposes to Maximilian and Edward that they should all stop pursuing her, since over time without the pressure of their attention she would form her own opinion of which brother she loved. Edward agrees readily.

A few weeks pass in relative peace. Edward asks Maximilian to find out from Selina whether Elgiva prefers him or his brother, but Maximilian refuses because that would be dishonorable when Edward had already agreed to Godfrey’s proposal. Soon after, Maximilian realizes that since no one is aware of his love for Selina, she could be courted by other suitors, and decides to ask his uncle to speak with the Duke. It is decided by his uncle and the Duke that Selina should be promised in marriage to him in several years, if they still love each other, since they are so young to make such a commitment. Maximilian is overjoyed with this outcome. Godfrey is also happy about his sister and Maximilian’s union, meaning that Edward had lied about his disapproval.

Maximilian speaks with Edward while walking home. Edward believes that Godfrey has broken their agreement and said something to Elgiva to turn her against him, but Maximilian does not think he would do that. Edward is distraught and wishes to do something to repair Elgiva’s opinion of him, but Maximilian advises him to keep his distance and not to act rashly. After this conversation, Maximilian is troubled by the situation and his friend’s conduct.

Soon after, the Duke invites Maximilian to come to his other chateau with his family, but just before they leave, Maximilian’s uncle falls ill so he stays behind. The plan is for Maximilian to spend a month with the Duke’s family at the chateau as soon as his uncle recovers, to visit his father’s estate to settle some affairs, then return to the chateau.

When she must leave without him, both Maximilian and Selina are distraught. He takes care of his uncle for over two months, then departs to join them at the chateau. However, Selina is not happy to see him. She says that she has changed her mind after so much time apart; that she has forgiven him, but they should be friends. Maximilian leaves, troubled, and speaks with Edward. He discovers that while he was away, a suitor named de Monvel visited Selina, so Maximilian asks her about him. She insists that she has loved only Maximilian, but that she cannot forgive his perjury. He is confused because he has only been faithful. Maximilian goes to his paternal home as he had planned, where he is soon visited by a stranger, Adolphus de Monvel. Adolphus had come to him to find out if he had broken his engagement to Selina, which he vehemently denies. Adolphus easily accepts this, and leaves.

Now, king Philip of France is preparing to marry, so the Duke and Godfrey go to court for the wedding. Maximilian receives a letter from the Duke saying that Selina is angry with him because she was under the impression that he was gone so long because he was in love with a peasant girl and had eloped with her. She refused to tell anyone where she heard this, but the Duke asks Maximilian to return to the chateau in a month so they can explain the truth. Maximilian convinces himself that it was Godfrey who turned Selina against him, so he goes to court to confront him. He challenges Godfrey to single combat, but Godfrey refuses the fight without due cause. The two men scuffle, and Godfrey stabs Maximilian in the chest.

Maximilian wakes up in bed in the Duke’s apartments at court, where he finds out that the Duke and Godfrey have hastened to the country on account of important news. He is worried because he has no idea what has happened. Godfrey visits while Maximilian is recovering and the two reunite as friends with all forgiven. He lies about the news that made them leave, and Maximilian later finds out that they had really received word from Edward that Selina had disappeared but they hid it from him so his anxiety would not impede his recovery. Shortly after Godfrey’s visit, they find out that Selina had run away to join a convent, in secret because she knew her father would disapprove. Now she is seriously ill and has asked the nuns at the convent to notify her father so that he could see and forgive her before she dies. The Duke, Edward, and Elgiva set out for the convent while Godfrey is still out searching for his sister, but they arrive just after she dies. The Duke immediately dies as well from grief. Godfrey is plunged into madness when he arrives back at the chateau at the precise moment when a procession is carrying the bodies of his sister and father through the gates. It is presumed that Edward and Elgiva will marry, and that Edward will become duke since the older son is indisposed.

Elgiva remarks once that Selina had died because of “hypocrisy,” so Maximilian is set upon exacting revenge upon whoever was responsible (33). He visits the chateau to question Elgiva privately, but Edward spends the whole day with Maximilian so he does not have the chance to speak with her alone. After speaking with his uncle, he decides to join the Christian army on their crusades, and he is renewed by his conviction. He fights successfully with many other knights, crusading from Constantinople from Jerusalem. They lay siege to Jerusalem and defeat the city. After the crusades are over, he joins an organization called the knights of Saint John and spends twelve years in Jerusalem.

One day, he sees a man dressed as a pilgrim being dragged to the church to perform devotions and realizes that it is Edward. Edward confesses that he has committed heinous crimes including murder and is now trying to atone for his sins. His wife is living, but she is now the mistress of king Philip. Elgiva married Godfrey, but she has died, and Edward refuses to explain further. He remains in Jerusalem for some time, and Maximilian manages to piece together some of the story. Godfrey had regained his sanity and married Elgiva, but they both died and left Edward as the guardian of their child. Edward had married a noblewoman and they had a son, but she left him to become the concubine of king Philip.

Edward leaves Jerusalem without saying goodbye. Several years later, Maximilian returns to France on business for the knights of Saint John. While there, he decides to visit the duke’s old chateau, where he finds only servants. They tell him that Edward had been dead for some time, and that his son (now the Duke) was in the country with his wife. Maximilian is confused, because he had heard from Edward that Godfrey had left an heir to the title. A few days later Edward’s son comes to visit Maximilian, saying that he had heard that someone had come to the chateau looking for his father. The new Duke explains that Godfrey had a daughter, but she had descended into madness and died, so he was now the lawful successor. Maximilian then accompanies him to his palace to meet the duchess and stays with them for a month.

Late one night, a woman knocks on his door, requesting that he come to give religious comfort to a dying servant until a confessor can arrive from a distant convent. The dying woman recognizes him as Selina’s lover because she is Nerina, Elgiva’s old servant. She tells him about Edward and Selina’s past, and Maximilian writes all of it down in a packet when he returns to his room. She dies the next morning before he can speak with her again. He learned from her that Godfrey’s daughter (named Elgiva, after her mother) was alive and well, and certainly not an imbecile as the Duke had told him. The Duke had illegally married her (his cousin) but because of their close relation it was not an official union, and he had no claim to the estate unless she died.

When the Duke enters the room, Maximilian horrifies him by immediately asking where he had hidden Elgiva. The Duke begs Maximilian not to expose him, saying that he had fallen in love with his cousin, and they had married in secret. He had been planning on suing for a dispensation and met his current wife while on his way to do so. He fell in love with her and proposed, instead of returning to Elgiva. When he broke off his engagement with her, she went insane and died of a broken heart. Maximilian pronounces him guilty of her murder, and they agree upon appropriate penance for him to perform in exchange for Maximilian’s silence. Maximilian leaves the Duke and Duchess to visit his uncle’s old convent, where he decides to join the brothers. When the prior dies two years later, Maximilian succeeds him.

Maximilian then decides to return to the chateau to find out from Nerina’s brother Conrad, the servant in charge of its care, what truly happened to Elgiva. Conrad relates that after her parents died, Edward had raised Elgiva in ignorance of her right to the estates so that she would believe that she was dependent upon him. Therefore, Nerina and Conrad did as much as they could to advance her marriage to Edward’s son, the current Duke, believing that this was the only way in which she could claim her birthright. Nerina passed away while recovering from a broken leg and when Elgiva heard the news, she went mad with grief and died. Maximilian is convinced, because Conrad has confirmed the Duke’s story.

After finishing his story, the Abbot tells Sancho that even all these years later justice can still prevail, so he plans to tell the king the whole story. He gives Sancho the packet he wrote after Nerina’s deathbed explanation containing everything that happened to him, asking Sancho to read it then come back to visit him. The Abbot believes that Elgiva is alive, and that she may now receive her rightful inheritance when the matter comes to light. Sancho takes the packet home and in it he reads the story of Maximilian and Selina once more, starting from the point where Selina, Edward, Elgiva, Godfrey, and the former Duke all left for a different chateau without Maximilian. Here, the point of view stays with Maximilian, but it’s based on his written packet, no longer on his conversation with the knight.

The family is all together at the chateau. Selina mourns Maximilian’s absence, but she cheers up in a few days. Adolphus de Monvel visits and is instantly attracted to Selina, who is completely unaware. When he confesses his feelings to her, she is flattered that he chose her over the more beautiful Elgiva, but gently denies him. However, Adolphus takes her mild denial as encouragement and continues to pursue her. The second time that he declares his affections, she tells him about her engagement. Edward overhears this and does his best to convince his sister that Maximilian is being unfaithful. He tells Selina that Maximilian has run off with a peasant girl, and she is incredibly upset. The Duke resolves to have the matter investigated, which Edward knows would expose his lies, but he does not have a chance to look into it before he and Godfrey leave for the king’s wedding. Edward hears Elgiva trying to convince Selina not to become a nun and he realizes that this would be very advantageous for him, so he persuades her over time to run away and join a convent without telling their father and helps her leave the chateau unnoticed.

Once she reaches the convent, Selina falls ill from distress since she knows that she has caused her family worry. When she explains her situation to the nuns and asks for their help, the abbess sends a messenger to the chateau to inform the Duke of his daughter’s whereabouts and her regret. He immediately sets out to see her with Elgiva and Edward. Selina writes a letter to Elgiva explaining everything and asking her to beg the Duke to forgive her. Selina and the Duke both die, and Godfrey goes mad with grief. However, after ten years he recovers and marries Elgiva. Edward is bitter and upset because he has lost his chance to have everything he wanted. Elgiva and Godfrey live happily together in the chateau with Edward and Elgiva gives birth to their daughter. One day in a rage while Elgiva and Godfrey are on a walk, Edward attempts to murder the couple. When Godfrey discovers him, Edward begs his brother to kill him, but Godfrey says that he forgives Edward and they all return to the chateau. However, Edward is even more upset by their kindness. He plans on joining the army and prepares to leave.

One night, the three of them are sitting by a window when the two brothers decide to climb a tower for a better view. When they reach the top, Edward pushes his brother off the battlements. Elgiva dies of shock when she sees his corpse. Edward is left as the guardian to the young Elgiva and marries the Duchess. After his wife leaves him for the king, he becomes penitent, and he suffers much in the name of atonement. Eventually, he passes away, still trying to pay for his sins.

After he reads the packet, Sancho is travelling when he sees his friend Guiscardo sitting by a forest, deeply upset. Guiscardo tells Sancho that he is upset because he is now a criminal and explains why. Guiscardo and his wife Maddalena visited one of Guiscardo’s castles for a reprieve but when they arrived the servants said that the new inhabitant of the neighboring property, an Italian named Prince Appiani, was infringing upon Guiscardo’s land and treating Guiscardo’s servants horribly. Soon, Appiani sent a letter apologizing for his conduct and promising to visit the next day. In person, the prince was apologetic, kind, and charming, but Maddalena seemed distressed by his visits, although she was unsure why. One day while Guiscardo was out riding with Appiani, a group of masked men come to the castle and kidnap Maddalena. Guiscardo believes that they were hired by Appiani, so he rushes into the prince’s castle and draws his sword. The prince denies any involvement and orders his servants to search for her. The two men leave together to look for her, but they are unsuccessful.

One morning a stranger comes to see Guiscardo, saying that a woman had given him a letter to deliver to Guiscardo. It is from Maddalena, telling her husband that she plans to kill herself with opium but wanted Guiscardo to know that she was imprisoned in Appiani’s castle and that the prince was the one who kidnapped her. Guiscardo immediately goes to Appiani’s castle and stabs him while he sleeps. However, Guiscardo is now consumed with guilt over having killed a helpless man. Sancho promises that after he returns from a pilgrimage, he will speak with the Pope to obtain absolution for his friend.

Bibliography

Barnes, James J., and Patience P. Barnes. “Tegg, Thomas (1776–1846), publisher.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 23 September 2004. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/27102.

Frank, Frederick S. The First Gothics: A Critical Guide to the English Gothic Novel. Garland Publishing, 1987.

——. “Gothic Gold: The Sadleir-Black Gothic Collection.” Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, vol. 26, 1997, pp. 287–312.

Hoeveler, Diane Long. The Gothic Ideology: Religious Hysteria and Anti-Catholicism in British Popular Fiction, 1780–1880. University of Wales Press, 2014.

Maximilian and Selina: Or, The Mysterious Abbot. A Flemish Tale. London, Tegg & Castleman, 1804.

Mayo, Robert Donald. The English Novel In the Magazines, 1740–1815: With a Catalogue of 1375 Magazine Novels And Novelettes. Northwestern University Press, 1962.

Potter, Franz J. The History of Gothic Publishing, 1800–1835: Exhuming the Trade. Macmillan UK, 2005.

——. Gothic Chapbooks, Bluebooks and Shilling Shockers, 1797–1830. University of Wales Press, 2021.

“Thomas Tegg.” Collections Online | British Museum, https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG48140.

“Thomas Tegg, Esq.” The Gentleman’s Magazine: and historical review. June 1846: 650.

Researcher: Grace S. Saunders

Fatal Secrets

Fatal Secrets; Or, Etherlinda de Salmoni. A Sicilian Story.

Author: Issac Crookenden
Publisher: J. Lee
Publication Year: 1806
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 18 cm x 11 cm
Pages: 36
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2.C76 F 1806

In Issac Crookenden’s 1806 chapbook, characters face betrayal, secret identities, romantic intrigues, incest, and other sinful subjects. The drama of these Sicilian nobles’ story prompts the narrator to interject with frequent lectures on morality.

Material History

Fatal Secrets is a small volume, only eighteen centimeters in length and eleven centimeters in width. As the sole chapbook included in the rebinding, it is quite slim. The cover is a solid tan paper, and the exterior is not decorated by anything but the title of the chapbook. The title is found on a rectangle of maroon leather with gold leaf stamping. “FATAL SECRETS / Issac Crookenden / 1806” is stamped into the leather. The material and quality of the cover indicate the chapbook was rebound following its first publishing. Comparison to other novels in the Sadleir-Black collection reveals that Sadleir likely rebound the chapbook in a similar style with several other books of his before selling his personal collection.

Handwritten cover preceding the title page

Upon opening the book, the reader sees the creamy, relatively unworn paper that appears to have been inserted during the rebinding. After turning these opening pages, the first page of the original chapbook is revealed. It is in much worse condition than the paper included in the rebinding. The first and last original page is suede-colored with gray stains. In ink, someone has written “Fatal Secrets; Or, Etherlinda de Salmoni” in a cursive script at the top of the page. The next page is distinctively lighter than that of the first, but is made of a similar thin, soft paper. The pulpy pages are worn, and in some cases have small tears along their edges. They have the same grey stains as the darker pages, which are absent on the pages inserted during the rebinding. Both types of pages have signature marks. The original signature marks are printed onto the page, while the newer pages have the signature marks penciled on. On a few of the 26 numbered pages, there are holes near the spine where they were threaded together. The thread was likely removed during the rebinding.

After turning to the printed pages, the reader sees the first of two illustrations in the chapbook. The frontispiece is in black and white and depicts a dramatic scene from the story. Included in the illustration is a plaque on which is written “Fatal Secrets.” The caption also reveals the publishing date as November 1, 1806. The title page lists the author as “Issac Crookenden, Author of The Mysterious Murder, &c. &c.” This page also lists the complete title of the chapbook: “Fatal Secrets; Or, Etherlinda de Salmoni. A Sicilian Story.”Turning past the title page begins the story. The print is small but clear with the pages numbered at the top. The last of the two illustrations is on the final page of the story and is more of a closing drawing than an illustration of a scene. At the end of the original pages, there are several fly leaves which are the same as those added from the rebinding.

Textual History

Fatal Secrets; Or, Etherlinda de Salmoni. A Sicilian Story has four publicly known copies according to WorldCat. At least three of these copies appear to be of the same edition, namely those in the University of Virginia, Duke University, and University of California, Los Angeles libraries. All available sources refer to the edition published in 1806, so there was likely only one edition. This edition was published by J. Lee, a publishing house on 24 Half Moon Street, Bishopgate. Isaac Crookenden’s only works published by J. Lee, Fatal Secrets and The Mysterious Murder; or, The Usurper of Naples, were both published in 1806 (Potter 91). J. Lee published authors other than Crookenden, including Sarah Wilkinson, another prolific chapbook author, and he also published sensationalist pamphlets and other literature outside of gothic chapbooks (Potter 91)

Fatal Secrets is just one of many of Crookenden’s works. He wrote at least ten gothic chapbooks, all under his name. Both his unabashed use of his own name and his frequent writings were very unusual in the world of gothic publishing (Potter 26). In fact, Crookenden was only second to Sarah Wilkinson in the number of gothic chapbooks published under his name (Potter 26). Over the course of twenty years, he regularly published his sensationalist chapbooks, all of them thirty-six pages each (Nevins 67). As the amount of money to be made from writing chapbooks was likely quite small and Crookenden was employed as a schoolteacher for part of his literary career, it is unlikely that he pursued this path with a mind for profit (Potter 26, 71–72). His work, however, was hardly original.

Scholarly analysis of Crookenden’s works largely focuses on one aspect of them: their plagiarism. He is accused of being “the most notorious counterfeiter of legitimate Gothic novels,” the “master counterfeiter of long Gothics,” and a plagiarist of “better-known English and German Gothics” (Tymn 59, Frank 19, Nevins 67). Crookenden was in no way unusual among his peers for abridging and even stealing more famous novels’ plots. What did make him notable, however, was the fact that he published this stolen work under his own name (Frank 143).

Fatal Secrets itself may be a plagiarized combination of Ann Radcliff’s A Sicilian Romance and The Italian (Frank 133). It certainly shares many popular Gothic tropes with the novels, including an imprisoned mother, evil father, hidden parentage, and possible fratricide (Nevins 303–5). Still, it is unclear whether Crookenden’s contemporaries recognized Fatal Secrets as plagiarism or cared whether it was so. There is little evidence for Fatal Secrets’s advertisement or subsequent reception. There do not appear to be any reprintings or adaptions. As of 2021, it is listed under both Amazon and AbeBooks, but neither website seems to sell any copies, digital or otherwise. Other than references to Crookenden’s plagiarism, Fatal Secrets is only mentioned in scholarship within lists of Gothic texts (Tracy 30). Fatal Secrets appears to have had neither significant scholarly nor cultural significance beyond its publishing. It blends into the fabric of the hundreds of gothic chapbooks published over several decades that briefly entertained their audience.

Narrative Point of View

Fatal Secrets is narrated in an omniscient third-person point of view, except for a letter written in the first person. The narration is highly dramatic and emotional, but clear. Sentences are lengthy and segmented. The narrator changes between the present and backstory multiple times. The narrator frequently interjects into the storytelling various direct addresses to the reader about the morality of the characters’ choices and human nature. The narrator clearly condemns some characters’ actions and portrays others as faultless heroes. The dedication at the beginning of the chapbook states that these addresses are meant to guide the reader’s personal morality.

Sample Passage of Third-Person Narration:

In the mean time, the degeneracy of his son, had a visible effect on the Marquis’s happiness; and at last precipitated him into those very vices for which the former had been excluded his paternal home. So inconsistent is human nature; and “so apt are we to condemn in others what we ourselves practise without scruple.”

The Marquis, as we have before observed, collecting his scattered property retired to a seat he had recently purchased in the vicinity of Beraldi Castle; but they lived such a secluded life, that altho’ Ricardo found them out by means of seeing Alicia accidentally, yet he little imagined it was his own parents who resided there. (35)

Sample Passage from the Letter:

I look round in vain to see my beloved Count? ah, how often do I fix my eye on the vacant spot where you used to sit, and strive to collect your every attitude, and those dear engaging features which shed such tender benevolence when I applied you to be my friend in my helpless state.—I told you that I had been the victim of a villain’s perfidy, you pitied my situation, and sheltered me in your castle.—Ah ! why did you so? for it was this kindness that begot gratitude in my soul, and gratitude soon ripened into love !—How often have you told me that you loved me, and not even Theodora herself should rival me in your heart*. (31)

Fatal Secrets’ narration fits the story it tells. The narrator’s knowledge of all the characters’ motivations and past actions both make the story clearer and serve its theatrical nature through the inclusion of dramatic irony. Full of twists that evoke horror and disgust in the characters, the black-and-white narrative descriptions simplify the quandaries it creates. The clear narrative division between the heroes and the sinners provides the story with a neat ending. The constant moralizing from the narrator is in clear conflict with the shocking and obscene story it tells but allows for the story to claim both sensationalist and righteous audiences.

Summary

Before the story begins, Crookenden dedicates the chapbook to a “Madam *******.” Here he accounts his anonymization of her to her assumed unwillingness to be associated with the story, but assures her that he will use the depravity of his story to teach the reader of morality.

Fatal Secrets starts with Theodora de Beraldi worried about her husband’s delay at one of his estates. She is comforted by Ricardo, the cousin of Count Beraldi, who is staying with her and his cousin after being disowned by his father for debauchery. While Ricardo comforts Theodora, she squeezes his hand and he begins to believe that she is in love with him. He lusts after her and is about to declare his intentions when her husband returns. Theodora, ignorant of Ricardo’s feelings, is overjoyed at her husband’s return, but Count Beraldi seems troubled.

Ricardo later finds a letter in the Count’s library that reveals Count Beraldi is having an affair. He leaves the letter for Theodora to find, and when she does, she falls ill. At this time, Count Beraldi is away. Ricardo leaves under the guise of finding the Count to make him return to his ill wife. In reality, he tasks a group of robbers to capture the Count and leave him in the dungeon of one of the Count’s estates. Having replaced all the servants of the estate with people loyal to him, Ricardo takes control of the Count’s land and rules while his wife is ill. Ricardo confesses his feelings for Theodora, who is horrified and refuses him. He imprisons her and separates her from her son, Ormando. She again falls ill, and, after being separated from her son for the final time, dies having never granted Ricardo’s wishes.

Ricardo takes in his lover’s daughter, Etherlinda, and raises her as the heir to Count Beraldi’s estate. He also raises Ormando, but as an orphan under his care rather than the true heir. Eventually, the two fall in love with each other. Ormando confesses his feelings and Etherlinda returns them. Ricardo sends Ormando off to serve him with the understanding that, if he returns and still loves Etherlinda, he will have Ricardo’s blessing.

The final page of *Fatal Secrets* and its accompanying illustration

Etherlinda is the daughter of Alicia whom Ricardo seduced and bore Etherlinda out of wedlock. Alicia is the daughter of the Marquis Salmoni, but she concealed this from Ricardo out of shame. The Marquis lost much of his wealth to debauchery and moved to his only remaining land with his wife and daughter. Ricardo eventually stole Etherlinda away from Alicia and stopped providing for the mother of his child. Alicia then went to Count Beraldi (before he was imprisoned) and implored his assistance. The two began an affair, the same one that was revealed in the letter. Ricardo discovered that Alicia was the mistress of Count Beraldi after he imprisoned the Count. He was enraged by this and imprisoned her in a separate dungeon.

On Ormando’s journey, he stops at a convent and is welcomed by a monk. This monk is Marquis Salmoni, although Ormando does not know it. The Marquis became a monk after his wife died of the grief caused by her missing daughter. When Ormando departs, he accidentally leaves behind the letter Alicia wrote Count Beraldi. This letter had been misplaced by Ricardo and was hidden for seventeen years before Ormando found it. Ormando did not get a chance to read it before he dropped it, so he is unaware of its contents. The Marquis died shortly after reading the letter and learning of his daughter’s sin.

Later in his journey, Ormando is kidnapped by Ricardo’s robbers and taken to a castle. Here Ricardo reveals himself to Ormando, having closely watched him the entire time. Ricardo leads Ormando into the dungeon and tells him that if he does what he says he will be entitled to Etherlinda and Ricardo’s estates. Ormando is horrified when Ricardo commands him to kill Alicia, who has been kept in the dungeon for all these years. She reveals that she is Etherlinda’s mother and that Ormando is Count Beraldi’s son. She and Ricardo argue, and she reveals her last name to be de Salmoni. Ricardo realizes that Alicia is his sister and dies of shock. Alicia believed her brother to have been dead and is horrified by the revelation.

Ormando releases both Alicia and Count Beraldi from captivity. He is announced as the true heir and marries Etherlinda. Etherlinda never finds out her true ancestry and bears Ormando many children. Alicia is reunited with her daughter but then spends the rest of her life at a convent, repenting.

Bibliography

“‘The Absolute Horror of Horrors’ Revised: A Bibliographical Checklist of Early-Nineteenth-Century Gothic Bluebooks.” Romantic Textualities, 29 Jan. 2013, http://www.romtext.org.uk/reports/cc09_n03/.

Crookenden, Isaac. Fatal Secrets: Or, Etherlinda De Salmoni. A Sicilian Story. J. Lee, 1806.

Frank, Frederick S. Gothic Writers: A Critical and Bibliographical Guide, edited by Douglass H. Thomson, and Jack G. Voller, Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., 2001.

Nevins, Jess. The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana. Monkeybrain, 2005.

Potter, Franz J. Gothic Chapbooks, Bluebooks and Shilling Shockers, 1797–1830, University of Wales Press, 2021.

Tracy, Ann B. The Gothic Novel 1790–1830: Plot Summaries and Index to Motifs, University Press of Kentucky, 2014.

Tymn, Marshall B. Horror Literature: A Core Collection and Reference Guide. Rr Bowker Llc, 1981.

Researcher: Chloe Fridley

The Life, Sufferings, and Uncommon Vissisitudes of Thetis, Dutchess de Lancy

The Life, Sufferings, and Uncommon Vissisitudes of Thetis, Dutchess de Lancy, Explaining her Birth on an Uninhabited Island, Where she Lived till she was Sixteen Years of age; The Misfortunes and Death of her Parents, and her Surprising Release from that Desolate Place by the Duke de Lancy, to Whom she was Afterwards Married: The dreadful Calamities she Experienced After – Till she Retired to a Monastry, There to end her Wretched Days.

Author: Unknown
Publisher: J. Ker
Publication Year: c. 1805–10
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 11cm x 18cm
Pages: 38
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2.E575

This mock-autobiography published around 1805 to 1810 and written by an unknown author features a haunting, a murder, a birth, and an incestuous marriage—all in a remarkably short number of pages.

Material History

The Life, Sufferings, and Uncommon Vissisitudes of Thetis, Dutchess de Lancy is a chapbook bound within the second volume of The Entertainer. The elegant binding is brown calf-skin leather with a decorative marbling effect. The marbling effect was produced by the sprinkling of acidic dye onto the leather binding. The volume’s title, The Entertainer, is written in gold text on the spine of the book.

The frontispiece of *Thetis, Dutchess de Lancy* with a quote beneath that lacks quotation marks.

The story is framed as a fictional autobiography, with no known author. Its shortened title The Dutchess de Lancy is seen at the top of each body page. There are thirty-eight pages in the chapbook, one title page and one with an illustration. The illustration is in black and white and appears to depict Thetis kneeling and holding her baby, looking up towards the ghost of her mother. The mother is radiating light and gesturing towards a cottage in the left of the picture. Underneath the image is a quote from the story, written in cursive, “Awe struck, I cast a look of inquiry towards the Spectre. “Grieve not my Thetis,” it exclaimed [sic] The crimes of the parents are expiated by the sufferings of their unfortunate children.” The second page, opposite the illustration, is the title page.

The title page shows the full, longer title of the book. The full title, with capitalization included, is THE LIFE, SUFFERINGS, AND UNCOMMON VISSISITUDES OF THETIS, Dutchess de Lancy, Explaining her birth on an uninhabited Island, where she lived till she was sixteen years of age; THE MISFORTUNES AND DEATH OF HER PARENTS, AND HER SURPRISING RELEASE FROM THAT DESOLATE PLACE BY THE DUKE DE LANCY, TO WHOM SHE WAS AFTERWARDS MARRIED: The dreadful Calamities she experienced after – till she retired to a Monastry, there to end her wretched Days. The font size and capitalization change multiple times on the title page for emphasis. Notable characteristics include a long s, which is a stylized s that appears to look like an f. The long s is not present in the other pages of the book. Underneath the title are the printers and booksellers, along with their addresses in London, England. At the very bottom of the page is the price of the chapbook: sixpence. The title, the list of printers and booksellers, and the price are all separated by decorative dividing lines.

The pages within the chapbook have quite typical formatting. The book is just over 18 cm tall, and the outside of the pages are browning and grey-spotted. The font is small, and there are line skips between paragraphs. The pages are aging, and some are torn. There are bookbinder symbols consisting of a letter and a number to indicate the page order to the bookbinder. Evidence of prior ownership can be found before the chapbook title page, on the inside of the front cover. On the left is the name “Emma Webb” handwritten in a fading, fancy script, and on the right are notes written by Michael Sadleir. He wrote a list of all the chapbooks contained within the volume alongside their bookseller and the publishing date. The Life, Sufferings, and Uncommon Vissisitudes of Thetis, Dutchess de Lancy is the first chapbook in the volume, with the bookseller J. Ker. There is no publication date written, but the other books within the volume with known publication dates were published between 1800 and 1805.

Textual History

There is little information about The Life, Sufferings, and Uncommon Vissisitudes of Thetis, Dutchess de Lancy. There is no known author, editor, or illustrator for the chapbook. There is no scholarship written on the work, and it can be inferred that the chapbook was not widely sold or read. However, there is a decent amount of information on its publisher, John Ker—abbreviated J. Ker in his work. Ker started publishing in 1800 and published an estimated fifteen titles, thirteen of which were of the gothic genre (Potter 38). Multiple sources claim that he was likely the son of John Ker, the third Duke of Roxburgh, and was married to the gothic author Anne Ker (Potter 38, Steele 70). It is known that John Ker also published some of Anne Ker’s work and that her husband was indeed named John. The two also shared business and family connections, so while not proven, it is very likely that John Ker the publisher and Anne Ker’s husband are the same person (Steele 70).

John Ker published from 1800 to 1810 and collaborated with many popular booksellers. Stephen Elliot, along with Nathaniel and John Muggeridge, were the booksellers that Ker associated with the most (Potter 41). In Thetis, Dutchess de Lancy, both Elliot and the Muggeridges are listed as booksellers. Two other booksellers listed in Thetis, Dutchess de Lancy are T. Evans and Kemmish. Alongside their names, their addresses are also listed. The UCLA Library and the New York Public Library both allege that since “1805–1810 marks the span of time that T. Evans and Kemmish operated from these addresses,” Thetis, Dutchess de Lancy was likely released during these five years. This period of time—1805 to 1810—aligns with the timespan when Ker was in operation.

The title page for *Thetis, Dutchess de Lancy*.

According to WorldCat, there are five copies of Thetis, Dutchess de Lancy registered in various libraries across the world. The institutions that hold a physical copy are the University of Virginia, the British Library, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, and the University of California, Los Angeles. The British Library digitized their copy, and it can be found via the library’s website or on Google Books. All of the libraries except the Library of Congress mention that after Thetis, Dutchess de Lancy, the story Zelim and Almena follows. Zelim and Almena is unconnected plot-wise to the story of Thetis, Dutchess de Lancy, but the two stories seem to have been printed and sold in conjunction. Mention of Zelim and Almena can also be found in the Catalogue of the Private Library of Mr. George S. Davis, written by George Davis himself. In this document, all the books that were in Davis’s private library are documented. Davis details a copy of Thetis, Dutchess de Lancy that was bound with Sterne’s Maria and Zelim and Almena. He describes the story as “very curious” (Davis 190). This is the only documented review of the chapbook.

There are a few differences between the British Library’s copy and the University of Virginia’s copy of Thetis, Dutchess de Lancy. Instead of the illustration being opposite the title page at the front of the chapbook, the British Library’s version has the illustration opposite page 35. The British Library copy also has a more modern green hardback cover, in contrast to the copy at the University of Virginia, which has a spotted brown calf-skin leather cover. Despite these differences, the two copies are nearly identical, with the same font, bookbinder marks, and text on each page.

Narrative Point of View

Thetis, Dutchess de Lancy is narrated in the first person by the main character, Thetis. From the beginning, it appears as if Thetis is directly addressing the reader. However, on the final page, Thetis addresses the story to the Countess de Milleray. The Countess de Milleray is not mentioned in the chapbook at any other point, only on the last page in a footnote indicated by an asterisk. Thetis’s narration is intimate, fast-paced, and descriptive. Pages 13–21 are an interpolated tale told by Thetis’s mother, Jaqueline. Jaqueline’s long, uninterrupted dialogue is notable as the reader does not get any glimpse of Thetis’s thoughts or reactions.

Sample Passage of First-Person Narration:

During your* visit to the Convent a short time time [sic.] after my seclusion, I determined to disclose to you the real reasons of a conduct apparently so absurd: I have now been an inmate of these holy walls near twenty years – about six years since, I received a few lines, written by my beloved brother on his death bed, they were tranquil, and thanks to the Almighty, resigned; and he now sleeps in peace within the cemetery of his Convent – grief had broken the heart of the most amiable of men.

*The Countess de Milleray, to whom this narrative is addressed. (36)

Sample Passage of the Interpolated Tale:

“My sisters had bound my long glossy hair in bands round my head, fastening it on the top with bunches of flowers, in the manner of the Lacedeamonien women; this gave me a very singular appearance, and being different from the other girls made my person the more remarked.” (14)

The first-person point of view narrated by Thetis allows the reader to experience a first-hand account of Thetis’s inner thoughts and feelings. The narration choice makes the chapbook more intimate and realistic. While the Countess de Milleray is never mentioned in the book except for the final page, the reader is still able to get a sense of the relationship between Thetis and the Countess. Thetis reveals very personal information about what she experiences, detailing events that would be seen as shameful by society’s standards. However, Thetis is willing to describe these events in extreme detail, confessing her every thought and action candidly. The portion of the story where Jaqueline tells an interpolated tale includes none of Thetis’s thoughts. This section is very distinct from the rest of the novel as the reader is not told how Thetis feels about her mother’s story. This change in expression of Thetis’s thoughts causes a rift between this tale and the rest of the surrounding story. It removes Thetis from the narrative and brings the entire focus onto Jaqueline, Thetis’s mother.

Summary

Thetis, Dutchess de Lancy is a chapbook centered around the character, Thetis, and her eventful life. Thetis lives on a bountiful island which is deserted except for her mother and father. They tell her stories about their lives and she learns that they are on this island because of a shipwreck. One day, Thetis’s father becomes ill. Thetis is distressed and stays by his side as much as she can. When Thetis wakes up, she goes over to her father to find him no longer breathing. She looks towards her mother in confusion, as she does not understand what death means. They wrap Thetis’s father in woven grass and bury him. Thetis mourns her father’s passing.

A sample page of *Thetis, Dutchess de Lancy*.

Two years pass, and Thetis has worked through her grief. She has started to become the same joyous girl she once was. However, her mother remains somber. Thetis implores her mother to tell her why her spirits are down, and her mother agrees to tell Thetis a story. She reveals to Thetis that the man she called her father was not actually her father, but a man named Victor. She tells Thetis that her name is Jaqueline, and she is the youngest of six children in the Villenueve family from the town of Languedoc, France. They were a peasant family, but Jaqueline was spoiled more than her other siblings. She was given fancy clothes and accessories that rivaled the clothing of children from richer families, while her siblings had very little. One day, the young Marquis of the village decided to throw a coming-of-age celebration. The sixteen-year-old Jaqueline attended and caught the eye of a nobleman. They danced and flirted, and they developed sentiment towards each other. She gained the favor of both the nobleman and the Marquis, and her family was invited to fraternize with the nobility while the other peasants left.

After the party, the nobleman visited her residence and they conversed together, but were always under her mother’s supervision. One day, walking back from her grandmother’s, Thetis met the nobleman and the Marquis. They asked her if she would like to go on an outing with them. She was suspicious, so she refused and began to walk away. They started to pursue her and she ran, but they caught up to her. The nobleman lifted her in his arms and shoved her into a carriage, and they drove away.

She was taken to Paris by the nobleman, where she was given a room in a grand residence. Thetis resisted the sexual advances of the nobleman for a time, but she eventually gave in to his seduction. After many months, she became pregnant. Jaqueline was happy to have become pregnant, but the nobleman was angry. She did not see the nobleman again, and was informed by the Marquis that the nobleman is married with a wife and a son, and that he had left France for a distant settlement. When Jaqueline expressed concern for her parents, the Marquis told her that it was their fault for being punished as they were using Jaqueline to move upwards in society. Jaqueline was enraged by the nobleman and decided to get revenge. She bought tickets for a ship going to where the nobleman currently resided and was joined by her eldest sister. The beginning of the voyage was smooth, but a storm hit, and the ship sank. Jaqueline managed to survive and washed up on the island, while her sister died. Victor also washed up on the island and was the only other survivor. She went into labor, and Victor aided her. She had a baby girl, who they named Thetis. Jaqueline learned that Victor was the nobleman’s younger brother, and she told him her story.

Jaqueline finishes telling Thetis this story, and the pair go to sleep. The next day, Thetis’s mother, Jaqueline, is sick. She dies, and Thetis buries her and mourns for her. That night Thetis sleeps, but is awoken by a sigh. She sees her mother’s ghost, who beckons her to go outside. Thetis walks outside, but then faints. She is awoken by a French Duke standing over her. The Duke invites her to join him and his crew on their voyage to France. She agrees, and the two fall in love on the voyage. Once in France, the two marry, but Thetis feels uneasy. Her mother’s ghost appears to her again and tells her to beware. She is frightened, and the Duke tries to comfort her. Thetis soon becomes pregnant, and the Duke suggests that they take a trip to ease her worries.

The married couple, along with the Marquis and Marchioness de Beaufoy, visit Thetis’s mother’s village. They stay in the Chateau de Murat, welcomed by the Marquis who lives there. After a time, Thetis recounts her story to the Marquis of the Chateau de Murat and asks if he knows about her mother or the Villenueve family. The Marquis is alarmed by the question and rushes out to talk with the Marquis and Marchioness de Beaufoy and the Duke. The Marchioness enters and tells Thetis, “The crimes of the Parents shall be visited on the Children—that terrible denunciation is fulfilled” (32). She then proceeds to tell Thetis that the Duke, the man she is married to, is in fact her own brother. Thetis faints.

Thetis gives birth to a baby boy, and for three months she is bedridden. The only people she sees are the Marchioness and the attendants. After the three months have passed, Thetis feels a cold hand on her forehead while she is sleeping. It is her mother’s ghost, and she motions for Thetis to follow her and bring her child. Thetis follows the spectre into the village to a vine-covered cottage. The ghost stops, and then waves her hand towards her. Thetis looks down at her baby, who is now lifeless. “‘Grieve not, my Thetis,’ [the ghost] exclaimed, ‘the crimes of the parents are expiated by the sufferings of their unfortunate children’” (34). The ghost disappears, and Thetis remains in the same spot, grieving, until morning.

An old man exits the cottage and sees Thetis. He brings her and her dead child inside, and three women help her to sit down. Thetis tells the oldest woman her story, and the woman asks if her family name is Villenueve. Thetis says yes, and the old woman reveals that she is Jaqueline’s mother, and Thetis’s grandmother. The old man who first brought her in was her grandfather, and the two other women are her aunts. Thetis calls for the Marchioness, and she comes to the cottage. She explains to Thetis that the father of Thetis and the Duke was the nobleman who seduced Jaqueline. Thetis’s mother was Jaqueline, while the Duke’s mother was the nobleman’s wife.

The Duke is upset by his marriage to his half-sister, so he joins a convent of monks and takes his vows. Thetis likewise joins a convent and takes her vows. In the final portion of the story, Thetis addresses her writing to the Countess de Milleray. She says that she has lived in the convent for twenty years and feels her death approaching. She is writing out her story in hope of full pardon for her crime. “Thus, my dear Madam, have I opened my heart to you, and though you may not be able to esteem, yet grant your pity to the unfortunate Thetis” (36).

Bibliography

Davis, George S. Catalogue of the Private Library of Mr. George S. Davis. Detroit, 1890, Google Books, www.google.com/books/edition/_/rwJGAQAAMAAJ?hl=en.

The Life, Sufferings, and Uncommon Vissisitudes of Thetis, Dutchess de Lancy. London, J. Ker.

Potter, Franz J. Gothic Chapbooks, Bluebooks and Shilling Shockers, 1797–1830, University of Wales Press, 2021.

Steele, John G. “Anne and John Ker: New Soundings.” Cardiff Corvey: Reading the Romantic Text, no. 12, 2004, pp. 63–81, www.romtext.org.uk/reports/cc12_n03.

Researcher: Gretchen E. Maune

Wolfstein

Wolfstein; or, the Mysterious Bandit. A Terrific Romance. To Which Is Added, The Bronze Statue. A Pathetic Tale.

Author: Unknown
Publisher: J. Bailey
Publication Year: possibly 1822
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 17.9 cm x 10.7 cm
Pages: 28
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2.W742 1800

This abridged version of Percy Shelley’s 1811 novel, St. Irvyne, tells of a man high in the Alps, entangled with a pack of bandits and then with the occult, forced to learn first-hand the cost of devaluing life.

Material History

Wolfstein is presented in a now-unbound pamphlet. It is light, being twenty-eight pages in length, 10.7cm x 17.9cm in dimension, and lacking in a back cover. The untethered, yet remaining front cover is composed of a marbled, and half-leather binding. This marbling effect was a popular design of the period, and it was achieved by filling a container with water and oil paint and dipping the cover in the swirling colors. The cover’s corners and spine are leather, but the rest is made of faded, dark green decorative marble paper, which appears to have once been a shade of deep blue, yellowed with time. No indication of the author is given on the front, nor anywhere inside the book.

Notes written by Michael Sadleir in the very front of the book. Information on the original volume, including a list of the stories it contained, is jotted down in pencil on these pages.

Immediately upon opening the cover, the viewer will be greeted with several notes written in the handwriting of Michael Sadleir, the original curator of this collection. These reveal that there was once a “Coloured Frontispiece” and seven stories in this volume; of these, Wolfstein is the first and the only remaining. The stories are listed exactly as follows:

Wolfstein or The Mysterious Bandit / a Terrific Romance. To which is added The Bronze Statue, a pathetic tale. J. Bailey.
The Ruffian Boy or the Castle of Waldemar. A Venetian Tale. Based on Mrs. Opie’s stay of the same name.
by J.S. Wilkinson. J. Bailey
Feudal Days or The Noble Outlaw
J. Bailey
The Monastery of St Mary or The White Maid of Avenel. A Scottish Tale (J. Bailey). By Emelia Grossett
Glenwar, The Scottish Bandit
by an Evonian
(Dean and Munday)
The White Pilgrim or the Castle of Olival
trans from the Le Pelerin Blanc by Sarah Scudgell Wilkinson (Dean & Munday)
Theodore and Emma or the Italian Bandit by an Etonian.
(J. Bailey)

The rips between these notes and the title page of Wolfstein indicate that the frontispiece may have been removed, perhaps along with the other six stories. The current curator of the Albert & Shirley Small Special Collections Library, David Whitesell, hypothesizes that these stories were likely removed in the early days of the collection, possibly when it was first moved to the library. Another mysterious note on the back of the front cover reads, “43 O.R.” What this pen-written memo means is unknown, but it was likely written in the early twentieth century.

Thus, Wolfstein’s forced isolation commands all our attention to it. The title page, though badly torn up, boldly introduces the title in three successive lines, as “Wolfstein; OR, THE MYSTERIOUS BANDIT. A Terrific Romance.” Farther down, the page reads, “TO WHICH IS ADDED, THE BRONZE STATUE. A Pathetic Tale.” The title page arranges the above text in slightly different font variations and vertical lines per each phrase. The page is without pictures or other notable visual features. Further into the chapbook, the titles appear at the top of almost every page as either Wolfstein; OR, THE MYSTERIOUS BANDIT. or THE BRONZE STATUE. The first story takes up pages four through nineteen, while the second story goes from page twenty to the final, twenty-eighth page.

Throughout the book, the pages are yellowed and tattered. The margins are a uniform 1.5 cm on every page, and the printing is generally clean and well done. Occasionally, letters are displaced; this is a result of the moveable type that was used to print the book. Some seemingly random letters—A, A2, A3, A6, and B—can be found on different pages near the beginning of each story. These are signature marks, a common technique of traditional bookmaking: since books were printed on large sheets of paper that had to be folded and cut, signature marks helped bookbinders to order the pages correctly.

The page where the first chapter of *Wolfstein* begins. The repairing patch on the left side and the text it ripped off, the word “blue,” on the right side, are visible.

Another interesting feature near the beginning of the book is on the backside of the cover page. A patch, roughly page-colored and a little over an inch in size, is stuck on the page; looking closely, one can see that its application tore the word “blue” from the body of the text where the first chapter starts on the following page. This patch was applied long ago to repair a rip in the title cover, conceivably when the volume was being moved to the library, but its current presence appears somewhat ironic, as the title page is now badly torn up. As such, it seems that the book may have been tattered for quite some time.

Textual History

Information on Wolfstein; or The Mysterious Bandit’s textual history is sparse and sometimes contradictory, especially when it comes to the publication date. In Montague Summers’s extensive, usually detailed Gothic Bibliography, the entry on this story is a one-liner, reading, “Chapbook. n.d. [c. 1800]” (561). Indeed, the circa 1800 publication date is the definite, albeit vague, consensus amongst all sources, though some sources specify the year of 1822, noting one crucial detail: Wolfstein is not an original work. Unlike its publishing companion, The Bronze Statue, published by Anna Jane Vardill, who signed her work as “V”, Wolfstein is not marked anywhere with any indication of an author. Instead, the credit for the work is given to author Percy Bysshe Shelley, as Wolfstein is a condensed, sixteen-page version of Shelley’s 1811 novel St Irvyne; or The Rosicrucian.

Herein the problem is introduced: which came first, The Rosicrucian or The Mysterious Bandit? Frederick S. Frank writes that Wolfstein is a “plagiarized abridgment of various Räuber-roman” and that “P. B. Shelley may have obtained the name of his morose hero in Saint Irvyne … from this lurid little shocker” (“The Gothic Romance” 173). Other sources, however, seem to indicate the opposite. The frontispiece of the chapbook, as found in the New York Public Library, lists the date issued as “1822 (Questionable).” The WorldCat library catalogue, too, describes Wolfstein as “a slightly altered and much abridged version of P. B. Shelley’s 1811 novel, St. Irvyne … published shortly after J. Stockdale’s 1822 re-issue of St. Irvyne.” Finally, in discussing gothic literature’s “fetishisation and moralisation of the formulaic,” Franz J. Potter asserts, “There are multiple redactions and adaptations of what are now viewed as trade novels,” among them, “Percy Shelley’s juvenile novel … was deftly converted into Wolfstein” (The History of Gothic Publishing 54).

Shelley’s St. Irvyne, at its comparatively whopping length of about two-hundred pages, contains many plot points common to Wolfstein, while having mostly different character names. Wolfstein’s breakneck pace, then, can be justified through its impressive inclusion of many of St. Irvyne’s plot points. The abridgment is not perfect, though; Wolfstein spends almost no time on Shelley’s female characters, who, in St. Irvyne, have characterization, dialogue, and plot lines of their own. Wolfstein’s Serena, the only notable woman in the chapbook, pales in comparison to Shelley’s Olympia, who, while still being portrayed primarily as a sexual object, does more than just get captured and murdered (Finch). Wolfstein goes from barely skimming St. Irvyne’s waters to totally diving in, even directly copying the text, as in the “mouldering skeleton” and “terrible convulsions” of the final scene (Wolfstein 19, Shelley 236). The unique similarities of the plots suggest that Wolfstein was published after Shelley’s novel, possibly in 1822.

The title page of *Wolfstein* and its partner story, *The Bronze Statue*. The price, sixpence, is listed at the bottom.

Plagiarized chapbooks like Wolfstein were not an irregularity. The printer and publisher of Wolfstein, John Bailey, published many adaptations and abridgements of popular novels as it was “a financially sound investment for printers and publishers exploiting the readers’ appetite for entertainment” (Potter Gothic Chapbooks 89). However, the author, or rather abridger, of Wolfstein is nowhere to be found, whether due to the popularity of anonymity at the time or the fact that the story was a plagiarism. Oftentimes, details like authors and dates remain absent; in total, Bailey dated only five of his thirty-eight pamphlets, these dates ranging from from 1808 to 1823 (Potter Gothic Chapbooks 89). Bailey established himself as a publisher on Chancery Lane by 1800, and his overall contribution to Gothic literature was momentous, finding “market value … in the sensationalism and horror that readers craved” (Potter Gothic Chapbooks 90). Throughout his career, Bailey published and priced a broad range of works at sixpence—very cheap—thus targeting “the general reader whose interest varied by age and need” (Potter Gothic Chapbooks 91).

John Bailey’s gothic pamphlet publications usually contained a frontispiece—which Wolfstein did have, albeit separated—and is now available through the New York Public Library Digital Collections. As described by the WorldCat library database, Wolfstein’s frontispiece was a “folding engraved hand-colored frontispiece with caption beginning, ‘Deeper grew the gloom of the cavern,’ depicting the final scene: a giant skeleton, a lightning bolt, the terrified Wolfstein.” Bailey often commissioned frontispieces from artist George Cruikshank (Potter Gothic Chapbooks 90). Overall, the Bailey family contributed at least seventy-six pamphlets to the “gothic pamphlet marketplace,” making up 19 percent of the total number of Gothic chapbooks (Potter Gothic Chapbooks 91). Their contribution was essential to the genre. Wolfstein is but a singular example of the Bailey family’s gothic legacy.

According to WorldCat, five known copies of Wolfstein exist. One of them is in the University of Virginia’s Special Collections Library; one is at the University of California, Los Angeles; one is in New Jersey, at Princeton University; one is in the New York Public Library; and one is across the seas at the University of Birmingham.

Narrative Point of View

Wolfstein is narrated in the third person, including both an objective and an omniscient point of view. Although the narrator is anonymous and physically absent from the story, they sometimes offer omniscient insight into the characters. Mainly, though, the focus is on the fast-moving plot, following the terrific story of Wolfstein as he delves into a life of crime. The narration is almost jarringly engaging, with each page or two seeming to start a new arc of the story, and sprawling, multi-clause sentences describing settings and streams of consciousness. While the narration does pause to zoom-in on specific descriptions, its mere fifteen-page length requires quick movement through the many beats of action it contains. This action ranges from murder, thievery, and poisoning to suicidal contemplation, dreams, and phantasmal appearances. The narration also centers primarily on Wolfstein, informing us always of his perspective and emotions.

Sample Passage:

As Pietro concluded, a universal shout of applause echoed through the cavern; and again the goblet passed round, when Wolfstein eagerly seized an opportunity to mingle the poison. The eyes of Barozzi, which had before regarded him with so much earnestness, were intentionally turned away; he then arose from the table, and, complaining of a sudden indisposition, retired.

Stiletto raised the goblet to his lips. “Now, my brave fellows, the hour is late, but before we retire, I here drink success and health to every one of you.” Wolfstein involuntarily shuddered as Stiletto drank the liquor to the dregs, when the cup fell from his trembling hand, and exclaiming, “I am poisoned!” he sank lifeless on the Earth. (11)

Wolfstein’s narrative style frequently deals with action, but by no means does it lack description or other, slower modes of fiction. Action verbs in sentences are always surrounded by expressive, carefully chosen adverbs and adjectives, so that every action is afforded some reason or emotion. Additionally, the dynamic characters guarantee that the reasoning and feelings surrounding each action are also dynamic, making the narration riveting and surprising throughout the tale. For the Alpine Bandits, power is obtained and maintained through stealth, strength, and wit, so intelligence is a crucial quality. Taking this into account, the selectively omniscient point of view aids in the fortune of some characters and expedites the downfall of others, including Stiletto. The main characters, Wolfstein and Barozzi, are favored by the narrator in terms of detail and perspective, and since their thought processes are presented most thoroughly, the book depicts them as the only characters who are thinking deeply. In a world where success is based on cunning, they make all other characters seem static and unthinking in comparison, and those characters’ lives are treated as unimportant and easily discarded. The narrative’s marking of Wolfstein and Barozzi as intellectually superior sets them up to search for eternal life and heightens the irony of their eventual defeat and ruin.

Summary

High in the Alps, a terrible thunderstorm “borne on the wings of the midnight whirlwind” is raging (4). Against a rock, a man named Wolfstein watches the storm. Wolfstein is tormented by sadness, and he “curse[s] his wayward destiny… [seeing no point in a life both] useless to himself and society” (4). Overcome by emotion, he rushes to jump off the cliff, but instead faints and falls to the ground. His body is quickly found by a group of traveling monks. They initially suppose him to be dead, but when he wakes up and lashes out at them, they try to comfort him. Abruptly, the group is ambushed by the Alpine Bandits, who attack and rob the monks. They threaten Wolfstein, who says that he has nothing to lose and nothing to fear. Upon hearing this, they invite him to join their group, and he agrees with little thought. The banditti take Wolfstein to the “summit of a rocky precipice,” where they enter a cavern that serves as the bandits’ base camp (5). In the cavern, they enjoy a banquet made by a woman kept there and eventually retire to bed. Before going to bed himself, Wolfstein recounts the sorrows of his life, having been “driven from his native country” by an unnamed force that presents an “insuperable barrier to ever again returning” (6). Eventually, he goes to sleep.

As he “inure[s] more and more to the idea of depriving his fellow creatures of their possessions,” Wolfstein becomes a courageous bandit (6). His new lifestyle is tested when an Italian count comes to the Alps, and he goes out to scout alone. While scouting, he discovers that a detached party of the banditti has already overtaken and killed the count, now dragging a woman’s “lifeless … light symmetrical form” out of their carriage (7). Immediately, Wolfstein becomes infatuated with her; but the bandit chief, Stiletto, seems to desire her for himself.

That night, the woman, whose name is Serena, is invited to the banquet and seated at the right side of Stiletto, much to Wolfstein’s displeasure. Filled with “indignation,” he determines to “destroy his rival” (8). He slips a white powder into Stiletto’s goblet and later proposes a toast. Just when Stiletto is about to drink, another robber, Barozzi, “dashe[s] the cup of destruction to the earth” (8). Barozzi is a reserved, cryptic man. He tells nothing about himself to anyone, and he has never “thrown off [his] mysterious mask” (9). The interference enrages Wolfstein further, and he decides to attempt the murder once more, reasoning that he is not worthy of “the celestial Serena, if [he] shrink[s] at the price… for her possession” (9). The day after, the bandits are drunk and merry again. Stiletto asks Pietro, a robber who knows many poems, to tell an old German story to pass the time. Pietro recites a poem about Sir Eldred the bold, a crusader who died in battle in Palestine. At his death, his lover wept, “raised her eyes to the banner’s red cross, / And there by her lover she died” (11). After the story was told, a goblet was passed around, and Wolfstein again slipped poison into it. At this, Barozzi “intentionally turn[s] away,” then rises from the table and retires (11). Stiletto raises the drink, toasting to the “success and health to every one of you” (11). He drinks it and immediately becomes ill, crying, ““I am poisoned!” and collapsing (11).

The devastated banditti begin to search for the culprit, but the search distresses Wolfstein, and he confesses. They are about to kill him when Barozzi intervenes, insisting that they leave him unhurt on the condition that he immediately leaves. Wolfstein does. In “half-waking dreams,” he hears Stiletto’s ghost cry out for justice (12). As he ventures out from the cabin, he spots Serena lying on the ground. Seeing her as the reason he “forfeited all earthly happiness,” he takes his sword and stabs her in the breast (12). He continues on his way, finds an inn to stay in, and Barozzi shows up. In exchange for saving him from the banditti, Barozzi demands Wolfstein’s protection and commands that Wolfstein listen to his story. Feeling indebted, Wolfstein swears to do so, and Barozzi takes his leave. In dreams, Wolfstein sees himself on the edge of a precipice, being chased by a dreadful figure. Barozzi saves him, but then the monster throws Barozzi off.

One evening, Wolfstein wanders outside late at night, “shudder[ing] at the darkness of his future destiny” (14). As he is going back inside, Barozzi grabs his arm. Jolted, Wolfstein asks if Barozzi is there to make good on his promise. Barozzi replies: “‘I am come to demand it, Wolfstein, (said he) art thou willing to perform?’” (14). Wolfstein gathers his strength and proclaims that he is ready, conducting Barozzi inside. Inside, Barozzi says it “neither boots [Wolfstein] to know nor [him] to declare” about his past, but he plans to do so anyway (15). He tells Wolfstein that every event in his life has been known and guided by his machinations, and tells him to not interrupt, regardless of how horrifying the tale might be.

At seventeen years old, Barozzi set out on a journey from his city of Salamanca. The sky that night was completely black and covered by clouds, and Barozzi “gazed on a torrent foaming at [his] feet” (15). He then planned to commit suicide. Right before jumping, he heard a bell from a neighboring convent that “struck a chord in unison with [his] soul” (16). It made him give up the plan, and he fell to the foot of a tree, crying. In sleep, he dreamed he stood on a cliff high above the clouds. Amid the mountain’s dark forms, he felt an earthquake and saw “the dashing of a stupendous cataract” (16). Suddenly, he heard sweet music, and everything became beautiful; “the moon became as bright as polished silver; pleasing images stole imperceptibly upon my senses … louder swelled the strain of seraphic harmony” (16). It calmed his violent passions. Then, the sky divided, and “reclining on the viewless air, was a form of most exact and superior symmetry” (16). Speaking “in a voice which was rapture itself,” it asked, “Wilt thou come with me—wilt thou be mine?” (16). Barozzi, upset by the proposition, firmly declined. Upon this, he heard a deafening noise, and his neck was grasped by the phantom, who turned hideous. It mocked Barozzi, saying, “‘Ah! Thou art mine beyond redemption,’” and asked him the same question again (17). Frenzied and terrified, he replied yes, and awoke. From that day forward, a “deep corroding melancholy usurp[ed] the throne of [his] soul,” and he dived into philosophical enquiries. There he found a method for eternal life “connected [with his] dream” (17). He lamented to Wolfstein that this secret may not be shared with anyone else. Barozzi tells Wolfstein to meet him at midnight in the ruined Abbey St. Pietro—there, he says, he will reveal the secret to eternal life.

The frontispiece was torn out of the copy of *Wolfstein* in the Sadleir-Black Collection. It is part of the New York Public Library’s Digital Collection.

In the still night, Wolfstein ventures there and descends into the vaults. He trips over a body, and in horror, finds it to be the body of Serena. On her face, there was a “laugh of anguish” still remaining, and it was accompanied by wild, knotted hair. Wolfstein “dashe[s] [her body] convulsively on the earth” and, consumed by almost-madness, runs into the vaults. Thirsting for knowledge, he waits patiently, and at the midnight bell, Barozzi appears at last. Desperation alone pushes Barozzi on. His figure thin and his cheek sunken and hollow, he greets Wolfstein, saying they must get to work. Barozzi throws his cloak to the ground, shouting, “I am blasted to endless torment!!!” (19). The cavern grows darker, and lightning flashes in it. From thin air, “the prince of terror” emerges. He howls and shouts, “‘Yes… yes, you shall have eternal life, Barozzi!” (19). Barozzi’s body “moulder[s] to a gigantic skeleton, yet two pale and ghastly flames glazed in his eyeless sockets” (19). Wolfstein convulses and dies over him.

The tale ends with a statement from the narrator: “Let the memory of these victims to hell and to malice live in the remembrance of those who can pity the wanderings of error” (19). The voice remarks that endless life should be sought from God, the only one who can truly offer eternal happiness.

Bibliography

Finch, Peter. “Monstrous Inheritance: The Sexual Politics of Genre in Shelley’s ‘St. Irvyne.’” Keats-Shelley Journal, vol. 48, Keats-Shelley Association of America, Inc., 1999, pp. 35–68, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30213021. Accessed 15 November 2021.

Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle. “Wolfstein; Or, the Mysterious Bandit…, [Frontispiece].” The New York Public Library Digital Collections, The New York Public Library, 1822, http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/3b47b780-0c31-0135-fa18-1917b1455179. Accessed 15 November 2021.

Frank, Frederick S. “Gothic Chapbooks, Bluebooks, and Short Stories in the Magazines (1790–1820).” Gothic Writers: A Critical and Bibliographical Guide, edited by Douglass H. Thomson et al., Westport, Conn, Greenwood Press, 2001, pp. 133–146, ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uva/detail.action?docID=3000461. Accessed 15 November 2021.

——. “The Gothic Romance 1762–1820.” Horror Literature: A Core Collection and Reference Guide, edited by Marshall B. Tymn., New York & London, R.R. Bowker Company, 1981. Accessed 15 November 2021.

Potter, Franz J. Gothic Chapbooks, Bluebooks and Shilling Shockers, 1797–1830, University of Wales Press, 2021. Accessed 15 November 2021.

——. The History of Gothic Publishing, 1800–1835: Exhuming the Trade. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. EBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Accessed 15 November 2021.

Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley. St. Irvyne, Or, the Rosicrucian: A Romance. London, J.J. Stockdale, 1811.

Summers, Montague. A Gothic Bibliography. London, The Fortune Press, 1941.

“Vardill, Anna J, John Bailey, John Bailey, and Percy B. Shelley. Wolfstein; Or, the Mysterious Bandit: A Terrific Romance … to Which Is Added, the Bronze Statue, a Pathetic Tale. London: Printed & published by J. Bailey, 116, Chancery Lane, 1822.” Entry in WorldCat. http://uva.worldcat.org/oclc/7130368. Accessed 15 November 2021.

Wolfstein; Or, the Mysterious Bandit: A Terrific Romance … To Which Is Added, the Bronze Statue, a Pathetic Tale. J. Bailey, n.d.

Researcher: Rachel Jean Quinn

Cordelia

Cordelia, Or a Romance of Real Life

Author: Sophia King Fortnum
Publisher: Minerva Press
Publication Year: 1799
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 11cm x 18cm
Pages: 212
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2.F63 C 1799

In this 1799 gothic novel, a young woman named Cordelia struggles with her father’s abandonment of her family, tries to improve her situation, and is ultimately faced with deceit and tragedy.

Material History

Cordelia, or a Romance of Real Life by Sophia King Fortnum is presented in leather binding with a marbled paper cover, giving it an elegant and high-quality appearance. The marbled decoration of the front would have been achieved by hand, using water and oil colors to create a unique design, and shows the care that was taken into the appearance of the book.

The spine is decorated with a few thin horizontal lines and has subtle embellishments surrounding the title, in capital letters, CORDELIA. The book still gives a refined impression, but its age shows with small fractures stemming from a substantial vertical crack down the spine and faded coloring of the cover. The top and bottom right corners of the paper cover appear worn off and torn, which could indicate the possible existence of leather, or another material, corners that came off at one point in its history. The book is 11 by 18 cm and 212 pages in length.

Inside, the pages are yellowed and occasionally darkly spotted on the tops and edges, which is referred to as foxing and is common in paper as it ages. This could possibly be due to oxidization, humidity, or other factors depending on the environments and conditions impacting the paper. The ink in the book is only somewhat faded and still easy to see, but brownish stains blemish many of the pages and one blue stain bleeds through page seven onto eight.

The pages alternate between two lengths and are curled slightly on all edges, leading to pages sticking together as they’re turned. Horizontal folds split the paper into thirds, showing that the paper could have been folded before it was bound in its leather and marbled paper dressings.

Sample page of text that shows folds in page and blue stain.

Opening the novel, the title is displayed on the second page as Cordelia, or a Romance of Real Life in fanciful font, and on the third page again. The author’s name appears below the title on the third page. Throughout the novel, on the tops of pages, the title is printed as CORDELIA.

The font of the story is prominent, and the lines of text are decently spaced apart. Wide margins, consisting of a larger bottom margin and thinner top margin, also make the text easy to read. As was common in printing at the time, the letter s in Cordelia is usually printed as a “long s,” which appear similar to f, and can cause some confusion for modern readers. Many of the pages feature letters and numbers at the bottoms. These signature marks are meant to indicate to the printer how to fold the pages in the correct order before binding them. Each chapter begins with a quote relevant to the chapter and a word or few words completely capitalized. The text’s format then continues generally uniformly, which fits in with the overall high-quality impression of the book.

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Textual History

Cordelia, or A Romance of Real Life was published in two volumes in 1799 by the Minerva Press and is Sophia King Fortnum’s second novel (Summers 284). Fortnum was born around 1782 to John King and Deborah Lara, though she may have been born earlier and misconstrued her age (Brown et al.). She was of Sephardic Jewish heritage, and her father was a moneylender and radical political actor in England with a notorious career known as the “Jew King” (Brown et al., Baines). Her parents divorced in 1784 or 1785 after her mother took two of the children, possibly including Fortnum, with her to Italy to try to prevent her father’s marriage to the dowager countess of Lanesborough, an English noblewoman, and failed (Brown et al., Endelman). Fortnum and her sister, Charlotte Dacre, author of Zofloya and other gothic novels, published a collection of poetry together dedicated to their father called Trifles of Helicon in 1798 (Brown et al.). Fortnum married Charles Fortnum and began publishing under Sophia Fortnum instead of Sophia King in 1801 (Brown et al.).

Sample page of text that shows folds in page.

Fortnum published other gothic novels throughout her career, as well as poetry. She was the author of Waldorf, or the Dangers of Philosophy, A Philosophical Tale in 1798, The Victim of Friendship in 1800, The Fatal Secret: or, Unknown Warrior. A Romance of the Twelfth Century in 1801, and her final novel, Victor Allen: a Novel in 1802 (Summers 86). Fortnum published much of her poetry in newspapers under the name “Sappho” and published her only verse collection in 1804: Poems, Legendary, Pathetic and Descriptive (Brown et al.). The date of Fortnum’s death after these publications is unknown.

According to Montague Summers’s A Gothic Bibliography, the Minerva Press was owned by William Lane and was the “most famous publishing house which issued Gothic romances” (ix). Cordelia also had a French translation published by C. Chanin in Paris in 1800: Cordelia, ou la Faiblesse Excusable, histoire de la vie telle qu’elle est (Summers 284). A contemporary review of Cordelia by Tobias George Smollett called the novel a “gloomy tale” that was not “very probable in its incidents” or “interesting in its progress” (235–36). Smollett’s review also stated that the novel lacked an “attractive style” and called the “morality… inconsistent with the prevailing ideas of female virtue” (236). Editions of the first and second volumes of Cordelia were published by Gale Nineteenth Century Collections Online in 2017 and are available on Amazon, though the second volume is out of print.

Narrative Point of View

Cordelia, or a Romance of Real Life, is narrated in the first person by its protagonist, Cordelia. Cordelia recounts the events of the story in retrospect, rarely describing specific scenes and often summarizing her own judgements on situations and people to convey what happened. Cordelia goes on tangents about her beliefs and judgements within the text, saying she has “digressed” multiple times after long-winded statements of her opinions (8, 50). The wording of sentences can be lengthy, using many colons, semicolons, and commas, but the language is not overly ornate, and it communicates ideas clearly.

Sample Passage:

The folly and conceit of this ridiculous couple forcibly excited my contempt; I easily developed the character of Mrs. Milner, whose brain was turned by wits, and pretended Literati. They found that by humouring her caprices, and flattering her ignorance, they should reap considerable advantages from her fortune and connections. Authors and philosophers swarmed at her table like butterflies; they praised her works, drank her wine, and dedicated poems to her. Mrs. Milner was therefore well pleased, and expended her fortune almost wholly among designing parasites, Democrats, and madmen, for I believe few who visited her were exceptions to this rule; as to the little conceited Citizen, he was a particular friend and almost totally governed her. As she was, however, a woman of rank and fortune, she did not meet with her deserved portion of contempt, but was in some measure countenanced by persons of fashion, and vitiated taste: for instance, titled profligates, romantic misses, and antiquated dowagers, who joined in her follies, and attended her levees, believing they by that means improved their manners and understanding. (48–50)

The narration overall emphasizes Cordelia’s opinions and feelings and pays less attention to action and plot. One effect of this style of first-person narration is that there is no objective view of the story or characters. In the above passage, Mrs. Milner’s characterization is completely based on Cordelia’s view of her. Cordelia states that Mrs. Milner “pretended Literati” and people praised her only to gain something from her “rank and fortune,” declaring her own “contempt” for Mrs. Milner (48, 49). She frames Mrs. Milner as untalented and ignorant and others’ praise as insincere, but there is no objective point of view to confirm this. The audience can only rely on Cordelia’s perception of herself and others to judge characters’ intelligence or morality. Throughout Cordelia, Cordelia’s impressions of others guide the framing of the story, and when her impressions prove to be inaccurate, as with Lioni’s character, the effect is unpredictability.

Summary

The narrative of Cordelia, or A Romance of Real Life, Volume I is told from the first-person perspective of Cordelia, the protagonist of the story. The novel begins with Cordelia’s rantings and criticisms of people’s disregard of religion and virtue in place of fame and fortune. Cordelia admits to being susceptible to these kinds of romantic notions at one point in her life and begins to tell her backstory. Cordelia’s family consisted of her mother, her sister Rosina, and her brother Collville. Her mother was married early in life to Mr. Arden, Cordelia’s father, but he soon deserted her and their children to be with a woman named Lady Lindern. Mr. Arden and Lady Lindern lived a luxurious life while Mr. Arden’s family was left with no prospects and infrequent visits. Cordelia describes her mother as pale, melancholy, and perpetually in love with Mr. Arden, believing he will return to her someday. She describes herself as “a sort of ringleader” of her siblings, and as the story starts, her father begins to favor her because of her apparent “genius” (20, 22). Cordelia grows to love and respect her father despite his cruel treatment of her family. However, she also becomes more dissatisfied with her situation after seeing how Mr. Arden and Lady Lindern live.

Sample page of text that shows a poem written by Mrs. Milner.

Cordelia and her siblings want to leave England, but because their mother still holds onto hope that Mr. Arden will return to her, she is determined to stay. Cordelia wants to run away, but her mother discovers this and tells her father. Mr. Arden gives Cordelia the opportunity to work for a wealthy writer, Mrs. Milner, and become more involved in society as an attempt to address her unhappiness with her situation. He orders her to hide their familial relation, and she starts to work for Mrs. Milner. She finds Mrs. Milner silly and untalented, but Cordelia does well and begins to interact with more writers, philosophers, and other friends of Mrs. Milner. She becomes more like them, calling herself “vain and ridiculous” in retrospect (54). One day, Cordelia edits one of Mrs. Milner’s essays heavily, and Mrs. Milner finds the rewrite insulting, reprimanding her. Cordelia leaves after this, abandoning the post her father recommended her for. When her father finds this out, he tells her that she has lost his good opinion and is an ungrateful daughter. Cordelia tries to appeal to Lady Lindern’s sympathy and has an outburst about her role in destroying her family. Lady Lindern is offended and tells Mr. Arden. Cordelia receives a letter from her father telling her it is better if they do not see each other, and she loses all hope of bettering her situation.

Cordelia decides to run away and fantasizes about obtaining fame and fortune. With the help of her sister, Rosina, she gets money together and leaves home. She eventually finds somewhere to stay, but her hostess charges her a high price and drains her funds quickly. Throughout this time, she tries to apply for jobs with theater companies but is denied. After many rejections and having to seek the assistance of a family friend, Mrs. Larlston, she gets news that her application to join a theater company was accepted. At her new job, she meets Lucinda, who she is initially wary of but becomes close friends with. Their work for the company is physically demanding and pays very little, and Cordelia remains unhappy with her life. They eventually meet a man named Count Victor Lioni and his younger companion Charles Mandani. Cordelia is suspicious of Lioni but finds Mandani agreeable and develops feelings for him. Lucinda tells Cordelia that Lioni is a childhood friend and later tells her that they have gotten married.

Sample page of text that shows letters between Olivia and Mandani.

Lucinda, Lioni, Mandani, and Cordelia go on a trip to Italy and Cordelia is unsure of Mandani’s sentiments towards her. Cordelia asks Mandani about Lucinda and Lioni’s marriage and he sees the idea as ridiculous, revealing to Cordelia that Lioni and Lucinda are not married and that Mandani perceives Cordelia to have loose morals. After Cordelia clears the confusion about her morality, Mandani makes it seem like he intends to form a serious union with her. Cordelia confronts Lioni about the lie of his and Lucinda’s marriage, and the Count makes an advance towards her. After Cordelia’s poor response to this, he tells her she and Mandani are his captives. Cordelia sends a letter to Lioni asking him to let her leave, but he refuses and reveals that Mandani is lying to her. Lioni gives Cordelia a pile of papers and letters, which reveal that Mandani is married. According to the letters, Mandani loved Lioni’s sister Olivia, but at sixteen, Olivia took her vows in a convent. Mandani wanted to marry her and convinced her to run off to France with him and elope. Olivia’s guilt over breaking her vows caused her to leave him and move back to a convent. Lioni forgave Mandani, but if Mandani ever forgot Olivia and moved on with another woman, Lioni promised to kill him on behalf of his sister.

Cordelia cannot tell Mandani she knows about his past and marriage, and the Count gives her money to leave and have a life away from Mandani as a gesture of friendship. Cordelia overhears Mandani say that Olivia is dead to him, and he loves only her now, but she knows they cannot be together because of Lioni’s threat. She plans to leave for Switzerland and live in peaceful and comfortable solitude with Lioni’s money, but before she can make it, she encounters armed men who attack her and tie her up. She is confused and terrified but then wakes up in what she thinks is a madhouse. She despairs and adds “shrieks” to the “groans of lunacy,” but “Nature” eventually rescues her by sending her into a “happy insensibility” (212).

Bibliography

Baines, Paul. “Fortnum [nee King], Sophia.” Oxford University Press, 2015, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/63521.

Brown, Susan, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy, eds. “Sophia King: Life & Writing.” Orlando: Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present. Cambridge University Press Online, 2006. <http://orlando.cambridge.org>. 09 November 2021.

Endelman, Todd. “King, John [formerly Jacob Rey].” Oxford University Press, 2015, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/67336.

King Fortnum, Sophia. Cordelia, or a Romance of Real Life. London, Minerva Press, 1799.

Smollett, Tobias George. The Critical Review, or, the Annals of Literature. R. Baldwin, London, 1800.

Summers, Montague. A Gothic Bibliography. Russell & Russell, 1964.

Researcher: Aliana Bobé Cummings

The Castle Spectre; or, Family Horrors

The Castle Spectre; or, Family Horrors: A Gothic Story

Author: Sarah Scudgell Wilkinson
Publisher: Printed for T. and R. Hughes
Publication Year: 1807
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 12cm x 20cm
Pages: 38
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2.W55 Ca 1807

Set in Scotland, England, and Italy, Sarah Scudgell Wilkinson’s 1807 chapbook is a complicated tale of vengeance, violence, and long-lost love. And there’s a ghost!

Material History

At first glance, The Castle Spectre; or, Family Horrors: A Gothic Story is nothing more than a small, nondescript book. It is bound in a spotless cardboard cover, with no title or images on the front or back. The spine has a small red rectangle in which The Castle Spectre or Family Horrors is written in gold writing. The chapbook is about 12 centimeters wide, 20 centimeters long, and 1 centimeter thick.

The frontispiece of *The Castle Spectre*, which was glued onto a blank page for support

Upon opening the book, it is evident that it has been rebound. The pages inside are soft, yellowed, and worn. The edges are tattered and uneven and the pages are of different sizes. The frontispiece appears to have been glued to a blank page for structural support, as it was ripped and about two inches of the page is missing from the bottom. This page contains a colorful image of two knights in front of a red castle. They are holding blue shields with gold crosses and are wearing red skirts. Behind the knights is a woman in a pink dress; she is surrounded by what appears to be sunbeams and looks as if she is floating with her arm raised. Some of the colors go beyond the edge of the picture, indicating it may have been painted with watercolor. Beneath the image is a caption that says, “GERTRUDE rising from the Rubbish before the CASTLE”. Below the caption is a note about the print company.

The title page contains the title, written as follows: “The // Castle Spectre; // or, // Family Horrors: // A Gothic Story.” The words are all uppercase, except for “A Gothic Story,” which is written in a more elaborate gothic typeface. Beneath the title is a quote by Langhorne, and then a note on the publisher: “London: // Printed for T. and R. Hughes, // 35, Ludgate-Street.” “London” is written in the same gothic font, while the rest is again all capitalized. Beneath this is the publishing date: 1807. The title page has a small, rather illegible phrase written in pencil in the upper left corner, and a large stain on the right. The back of the title page is blank, except for a small stamp in the bottom left corner that says, “Printed by Bewick and Clarke, Aldergates-street.” It should be noted that the name of the author is never mentioned.

On the first page of the text, the title is again printed, but this time as The Castle Spectre. The chapbook contains thirty-eight pages, and the page sizes vary slightly. The upper and lower margins range from about 1.5 centimeters to 2.5 centimeters. “Castle Spectre” is written on the top margin of every page, and there are page numbers in the upper corners. The text is small and tight, and the inner margin is very narrow. On the left pages, the words run almost into the spine. On some pages, the text is fading and in certain instances, can be seen through from the back of the page. The pages are speckled with light stains, but none that obscure much text. The bottom margins of a few pages contain signature marks, such as B3, C, and C3. These marks indicate how the pages should be folded together, as the book was printed on one large sheet and then folded and trimmed. This binding technique also explains why the pages vary in size. There are nine blank pages at the end of the book. These pages seem newer and are larger; they were likely added to make the book slightly thicker, as it is difficult to bind such a thin book.

An index card is loosely placed in the front of the book, containing the title and publishing information. It appears to be written in Michael Sadleir’s handwriting and was likely used for cataloging purposes. The note indicates that the book was originally unbound, but then mounted on modern board and engraved. This explains the discrepancy between the wear of the cover and that of the pages. “Louisiana” is written on the upper left corner; Sadleir presumably got the book from someone who lived there. A line on the bottom of the card indicates his belief that the plot was plagiarized, as he notes the book is “a theft of title and idea.”

Michael Sadleir’s cataloguing card inserted within *The Castle Spectre*

Textual History

The Castle Spectre by Sarah Scudgell Wilkinson was printed by Bewick and Clarke for T. and R. Hughes in 1807. According to Michael Sadleir’s handwritten note, the copy in the University of Virginia Sadleir-Black Collection was originally unbound and then rebound as a stand-alone chapbook. It appears there is only one edition, the 1807 version, but some other copies are bound in volumes with other chapbooks. According to WorldCat, there are six copies of this edition located at Dartmouth Library, Columbia University Library, and the National Library of Wales, among others. As of 2021, there are no digital copies of the story, though GoogleBooks has information about the title, author, and publishing company.

The title page of *The Castle Spectre*, which features slight pencil markings and stains

Wilkinson’s The Castle Spectre; or, Family Horrors: A Gothic Story is often misinterpreted as being inspired by Matthew Gregory Lewis’s play The Castle Spectre. Though part of the title is the same, the actual plot, characters, and setting are entirely unrelated. The confusion has arisen because Wilkinson published two chapbooks with similar titles: The Castle Spectre; or, Family Horrors: A Gothic Story in 1807 and The Castle Spectre: An Ancient Baronial Romance; Founded on the Original Drama of M. G. Lewis in 1820. This second text, The Castle Spectre: An Ancient Baronial Romance, is in fact based upon Lewis’s play (as accurately suggested by the subtitle), with the same characters, setting, and plot. By contrast, the 1807 chapbook, The Castle Spectre; or, Family Horrors, remains separate and unrelated except for its similar main title.

Though the two Castle Spectre texts by Wilkinson are entirely separate, they are frequently confused for one another. For instance, Franz J. Potter notes in The History of Gothic Publishing that Wilkinson “also adapted two versions of Matthew Lewis’s melodrama ‘The Castle Spectre’ publishing The Castle Spectre; or, Family Horrors (2.58) in 1807 with Thomas Hughes, and The Castle Spectre; An Ancient Baronial Romance, Founded on the Original Drama M. G. L. (2.57) in 1820 with John Bailey” (119). In his section on the “Family Horrors” version of Wilkinson’s chapbook, Frederick S. Frank notes that she “transformed Lewis’s Gothic drama, The Castle Spectre [l-219], back into a Gothic novel” (171). Franz J. Potter similarly states that this “Family Horrors” version was “founded on Lewis’s The Castle Spectre. A Drama in Five Acts” (Gothic Chapbooks 39). Even an article in UVA Today makes this common error, stating “Lewis’ work was regularly plagiarized and used in this way, as it is in ‘The Castle Spectre, or, Family Horrors: a Gothic Story,’ by Sarah Scudgell Wilkinson” (McNally).

Many sources that make the claim of a link between The Castle Spectre and Matthew Lewis’s play cite Montague Summers’s Gothic Bibliography, which lists The Castle Spectre by Sarah Wilkinson without specifying the subtitle or a publication date. Summers’s entry reads: “Castle Spectre, The. By Sarah Wilkinson. Founded upon Matthew Gregory Lewis’ famous drama, The Castle Spectre, produced at Drury Lane on Thursday, December 14^th, 1797” (268). Of the libraries that own The Castle Spectre; or, Family Horrors, many list M. G. Lewis as an author, and these library catalogs frequently reference Summers’s Gothic Bibliography, echoing his statement that the story is “Founded upon Matthew Gregory Lewis’ famous drama ‘The castle spectre’.” Some libraries note the link to Lewis’s play based upon The National Union Catalog Pre-1956 Imprints, and this source also cites back to Summers’s Gothic Bibliography. It is possible Summers’s entry for The Castle Spectre was misunderstood to be about the “Family Horrors” version, when it was meant to reference the “Baronial Romance” version, which specifically claims to be founded upon Lewis’s play. Whatever the reason, this misunderstanding has spurred many sources, including library catalogs, to erroneously note a connection between the plot of Lewis’s The Castle Spectre play and Wilkinson’s The Castle Spectre; or, Family Horrors chapbook.

It should also be noted that some sources discuss a similarity between the two distinct chapbooks Wilkinson wrote under the titles The Castle Spectre. Diane L. Hoeveler, for instance, suggests that Wilkinson was plagiarizing herself in these two chapbooks, indicating she believes the plots to be “virtually identical and indicate how authors as well as publishers had no qualms about ‘borrowing’ literary texts from others as well as themselves” (14). Hoeveler writes, “Wilkinson’s The Castle Spectre: An Ancient Baronial Romance is actually her second attempt to capitalize on the popularity of Lewis’s 1797 drama The Castle Spectre”, naming as the “other version” The Castle Spectre; or, Family Horrors: a Gothic Story (14). Yet while it is true that Wilkinson used the same main title for two different books, they are not “virtually identical”: the plots, characters’ names, and setting of the story have no similarities. A potential reason for the similar titles was that Wilkinson used the phrase “Castle Spectre” precisely because of its popularity at the time to attract readers, despite the “Family Horrors” version being a unique story.

On a separate note, the title page of The Castle Spectre; or, Family Horrors includes a portion of a poem by John Langhorne. It appears to be an edited stanza from a longer poem entitled “Fable VII. The Wall-flower” from his collection of poems, The Fables of Flora (Johnson 447). It is unclear whether the poem was adapted by Wilkinson or the publishing company, but the poem alludes to the idea of remembrance and telling the stories of the dead. This theme reflects in the story of Gertrude’s death and Richard’s journey of avenging her.

Narrative Point of View

The Castle Spectre is, for the most part, narrated in the third person by an anonymous narrator who is not present in the plot. There are a few occasions throughout the story when the narrator speaks in first-person plural, referencing the history of the story and its translations. The narration follows the knight, Sir Richard, throughout the entire story, and much of the chapbook contains dialogue and interpolated tales spoken by a variety of the characters with whom Richard interacts, such as Douglas. The narrative focuses more on plot and less on characters’ thoughts, and the sentences are often long and descriptive. There is a bit of insight into Richard’s feelings, but the narrator does not discuss other characters’ emotions unless the characters reveal their feelings aloud in dialogue. There is also an instance where Sir Richard and Sir Kenelm exchange letters, which are printed within the text in quotation marks; both Sir Richard and Sir Kenelm refer to themselves in the third person in their letters. At times when Elenora (also known as Gertrude) appears as a ghost, she also refers to herself in the third person during her tales.

Sample of Third-Person Narration:

The moon, emerging from a black cloud just as he entered, enabled him to ascertain he was in a grand spacious hall, in the centre of which stood a large banquetting table He seized an extinguished taper, which he with difficulty lighted by the friction of some wood he found on the hearth. He had now an opportunity to observe the place more accurately. The table was laden with viands, some in a putrid state, some mouldering to powder; and to his eager view appeared vases filled with the juice of the generous grape. In a corner of the apartment he beheld the body of a man extended in death on the floor, the boards of which were stained with congealed blood. A murder had been committed here but a short time before. The sight of this did not alarm him; he knew not fear, but emotions of pity rose in his breast, for the unfortunate object before him, and a desire to develope the mysteries of the place he was in, prevailed over ever other consideration. (6)

Sample of First-Person Plural Narration:

But we must not anticipate in our story too much, and the Scottish manuscript from whence we translate, mentions some transactions that will better appear hereafter. In the mean time we must observe that after much consultation on these transactions, Lord Mackworth advised Sir Richard to appoint a meeting with Sir Kenelm at midnight. (16)

Sample of Sir Richard’s Third-Person Letter to Sir Kenelm Cromar:

Sir Richard, brother to Lady Gertrude, returning from the Holy Wars, finds his venerable father mouldering into dust, brought to the grave by grief for the untimely fate of a beloved daughter, whose fair fame was basely called into question, and her dear life sacrificed to lawless love. —Sir Kenelm must account for this, and inform Sir Richard what is become of a dear sister. For which purpose Sir Richard challenges Sir Kenelm to meet him, in single combat, near that castle-gate where he, Sir Kenelm, banquetting with his new bride, beheld the injured shade of Lady Gertrude, when, for a slight offence, he stabbed his cupbearer. Eight days hence, exactly at the hour of twelve, Sir Richard will be there, with two of his most trusty friends. (16)

Sample of Sir Henry Mackworth’s Interpolated Tale:

At his return to Palestine, finding I was in confinement, his generosity and friendship made him hazard his life to rescue me from my confinement. He succeeded beyond our most sanguine expectations. We continued together some time. We had but one heart, one purse, and were a pattern of friendship throughout camp and country. Clemena was often the subject of our conversation. I ventured to hint the inclination I felt for her, from his description and the picture I had seen. ‘Alas!’ said he, ‘I dare not flatter you with the least hope of success; my sister has been educated in a convent, and ever been intended by our parents for a nun, their fortune being too small to support us both in a manner suitable to our rank…’ I remonstrated with Vertolini on the cruelty of secluding a beloved sister, for life, within the dreary walls of a convent… (33).

The various types of narration in The Castle Spectre allow for a deeper exploration of different characters’ actions and emotions, as well as greater detail on the setting and history of the story. The Castle Spectre utilizes several techniques to augment suspense. On numerous occasions, the names of the characters Richard meets are not revealed until the end of that individual’s story, and the reveals often occur casually amidst the dialogue or narrative with little emphasis. The reveal of the characters’ names has a great impact on the entire plot, and the narration’s nonchalant delivery augments the suspense and adds an element of surprise. As a result, many key details and surprises are revealed suddenly and without foreshadowing. Though the narrator does not touch on characters’ feelings often, the dialogue provides greater insight into the different characters’ personalities and emotions. Because so many different plots are embedded into the chapbook, the story is both engaging and, at times, confusing: the chapbook is extremely fast-paced because so much action is packed into each sentence, and in some cases it is difficult to follow the story and to distinguish who is speaking or who characters are because the plot jumps back and forth in time or between the different story lines. The moments of first-person plural narration detail the story as if it were true by discussing the sources from which the story was translated. These moments where the narrator speaks as “we” directly to the reader, along with the detailed setting and long rambling sentences, all conspire to make the story oral in feel, as if being told to a friend.

Summary

The Castle Spectre follows the knight Sir Richard over a period of several years. The story begins on a stormy night in the Scottish Highlands. Sir Richard is traveling to his father’s castle in the Grampian Mountains after a four-year deployment to the Holy War in Palestine. He seeks shelter to ride out the storm, but no one will take him in. In a flash of lightning, he sees the turret of a castle; he sounds his bugle numerous times with no response, so he dismounts his horse and tries the door. By chance, the door is unlocked, and Richard enters the banquet hall of the castle. With only the moon and occasional flash of lightning to guide him, the knight explores. The hall is filled with food and drink that appears to have been placed there recently. In the corner of the hall lies the dead body of a man; the floor is soaked with congealed blood. Sir Richard vows to unravel the mystery of the catastrophe that occurred.

Sir Richard tours the rest of the castle, which is magnificently decorated in gothic splendor. No one is to be found and all is silent. He comes upon a great bed, and as he is exhausted from his journey, he jumps in and falls into a deep sleep. At one o’clock, a bell rings and Sir Richard wakes to the curtains of the bed being ripped open. Standing at the foot of the bed bathed in blue light is a veiled woman in a white dress. As he approaches her, the woman’s veil falls off and a stream of blood gushes from a wound in her side. Richard looks into the woman’s face, and it is none other than his sister! He calls to the apparition “by her name Elenora” (though later in the story she is referred to predominantly as Gertrude, with no explanation given for the shift in name) (7). Elenora the apparition stands, not speaking, while holding her hand over the seemingly fresh wound in her side. After repeated prodding, Elenora explains the story of her brutal murder in the castle, revealing that two years after Richard left, she married the owner of this castle, and in a fit of frenzy he stabbed her (while she was pregnant) and left her corpse in a rubbish pile. Left to rot without a proper Christian burial, she haunts her murderer and his new wife. The scene that Richard came upon in the banquet hall was the remnants of their wedding, which was ruined when Elenora appeared and terrorized the guests. Finally, with a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning, Elenora vanishes in a swirl of blue flame.

Shocked and overcome with emotion, Sir Richard decides to leave and avenge his beloved sister. He lets his horse take the reins on the way to his father’s estate and does not realize the horse has gone down the wrong road. They come upon a cottage where he is treated with great hospitality. The owner, Douglas, tells the story of his childhood and time as a soldier, where he saved the life of the “worthy nobleman, under whose banners I had enlisted” and was thus assured protection and this cottage (11). Douglas explains that the nobleman has died and his son is at war; he fears thar if he does not return, Sir Kenelm Cromar will take over his estates and leave Douglas and his family to live out their days in poverty. During this story, Douglas reveals the name of his former nobleman to be Duncan, and Sir Richard reveals that Duncan was his father! This means that Sir Richard is the son who has now returned home; the Douglas family rejoices. Douglas’s story also reveals that Sir Kenelm’s first wife was Elenora (now predominately referred to as Gertrude in the story). Upon Gertrude and Kenelm’s marriage, Ally (Douglas’s daughter) moved into the castle where Sir Kenelm “began to take great liberties with her” (12). Douglas says Lady Gertrude is now missing and so is Ally. Because of Gertrude’s ghost’s daily visits, Sir Kenelm and his new wife have moved to his hunting lodge so the castle remains uninhabited. Sir Richard thanks Douglas and promises him a life of friendship and protection.

When he finally arrives home, the servants rejoice at the return of their young lord. They tell the knight all that has happened and grieve for the good young lady Gertrude and their master Duncan. Enraged, Sir Richard vows to avenge her and lay her body to rest in a Christian burial. He seeks out his father’s friend, Lord Mackworth, and tells the man the story. Richard decides to challenge Sir Kenelm to single combat, with Mackworth’s assistance. As part of their agreement, Mackworth wants Sir Richard to marry his daughter and Sir Richard agrees. Sir Kenelm accepts Richard’s request, mentioning that though it is illegal to fight in this manner, he will do it anyways to honor the memory of the venerable Duncan. Meanwhile, Kenelm sends a letter to the king, requesting that he send men and imprison Richard before the fight occurs. Instead, the king decides the two men will have an impartial hearing at his court and he will support whichever cause is more just.

It is now the night of combat, and the marshal Lord Glencairn asks if any last-minute accommodations can be made. Richard declines, unless Sir Kenelm will admit to murdering Gertrude and surrender to public justice. Kenelm refuses, saying that Gertrude abandoned him for a lover, and Richard is about to stab him in rage when suddenly, they are both commanded prisoners and summoned to the king’s court. Before they leave with the soldiers, the clock strikes one and in a swirl of thunder and lightning, Gertrude appears. She shares her story and explains that three times now she has prevented Kenelm from murdering his new wife. She requests a proper burial, asks Mackworth to protect Richard, and vanishes in a thick blue flame amidst a crack of lightning and tremendous peal of thunder. Richard breaks the silence and tells the soldiers to bring them to the court, so that he can share the full story in front of the king. The hearing occurs, and Kenelm is found guilty and sent to prison; he later has a public trial and is condemned to death. Gertrude’s remains are recovered and she has a proper burial; all the churches in the surrounding area hold masses in her honor and her final wish is granted.

Finally, Richard goes home. He keeps his house open to serve his father’s tenants, and the neighboring nobility congratulate him on his return from the war and for bringing Kenelm to justice. Nevertheless, Sir Richard is unhappy; he mourns the loss of his father and sister and misses his lost love Lady Jane. The story now shifts back many years, before Richard went to the Holy Land. He fell in love with Mackworth’s daughter, Jane, and she waited for him to return from the war. In the four years of his absence, Jane denied many marriage offers from wealthy prospects, one of them being Lord Glendour. Finally, Richard returns and they are set to marry. We learn that two years before Richard left, Mackworth’s son went to war and never returned. They mourned his death, and Mackworth received Richard as a son and the heir to his estates and domains. As they prepare for the wedding at the Mackworth estate, Richard returns to his familial castle, and in his absence, an unfortunate event occurs. One evening, Jane is kidnapped while on a walk through the gardens. Mackworth sends news to Richard, who vows never to return until he finds his love. He searches for weeks with no sign of Jane, until he comes across a hut offering refreshments to travelers. The man inside mentions that a gagged woman and man had come through just before and were on their way to Italy. Richard chases them to the river’s edge and resolves to follow them. For years, he traverses all of Italy, hopelessly searching convents for his lover. He falls ill and almost dies from grief, but dreams of Jane and vows to recover and free her.

A sample of the body text of *The Castle Spectre*

The story jumps back in time to Jane’s kidnapping, and it is revealed that Lord Glendour, one of Kenelm’s friends, fell madly in love with her and kidnapped Jane to be with her. He requests her hand in marriage, but she refuses. She tricks him into allowing her to pass the time in a convent in Italy, where she is watched over by the Lady Abbess and not allowed to leave. Back in the present, Richard meets an English man in the middle of Venice. They become friends and visit the man’s villa. Richard recognizes someone in one of the family pictures and asks the man to share the story of why he left England. The man says the story is long, but he has written it down for his children and will one day give Richard a copy to read. After months of visits, Richard reads the man’s story and is surprised by the similarities between them. The man, Wentworth, was the eldest son of a noble house in England. He fell in love with a peasant girl Louisa, and though he was promised to marry a noble woman Anna, he runs away with his lover. He fakes illness and tells his father he will go to the Holy War; Louisa goes with him, and they marry and have a son and daughter. He returns from the war and vows to sort out his betrothal to Anna. Leaving his wife and children in the protection of her father, he goes back to his paternal castle. He sets a plan for his brother, William, to marry Anna instead, and it works. Elatedly, Wentworth returns to the cottage and is devastated to find Louisa and his infant son missing. They were tricked by a letter claiming to be from him, and Wentworth suspects his own father to have sent it. For five years, Wentworth and his daughter travel the world, though nothing can make him forget Louisa. Receiving word of his father’s ill health, he returns to England. On his death bed, Wentworth’s father reveals he sent Louisa to a convent in Italy, but she escaped. Wentworth and his daughter go back to Italy to search for her, but he never finds Louisa. He lives like a recluse in his villa, and this is where Richard reenters the story.

Richard again visits Wentworth. The man reveals he is Richard’s uncle but used a fake family name so that he may retire in peace, away from the nobility. Richard explains that during his search for Jane, he saw Louisa and her son in the Pyrenees. Together, Richard and Wentworth begin their journey to the mountains to find the long-lost wife and son. They come across a cottage that Richard had visited before and reunite with Louisa and the son. Wentworth, now revealed to be called Sir George, decides to return to his family home in England. Richard promises to join them, if they can spare a few weeks for him to search for Jane.

One night on his return to the Italian villa, Richard sees two criminals attacking a man. He intervenes, and they admit they were hired by Count Vertolini to kill him. Richard and the man go back to his house, so they may speak safely. The young man then explains his story: he came from England to fight in the Holy War and had a father and sister at home who he had not heard from in years. During the war, he became great friends with an Italian man, Vertolini, who had a sister named Clemena. The man falls in love with her, but is then taken prisoner in Palestine. Four years later, Vertolini bribed the soldiers and freed his friend, and they carry on their travels together. The Italian man reveals his sister is promised to a convent, so she cannot be with his friend despite his love for her. They meet the sister in Italy, where he becomes even more enamored. Clemena admits she does not want to join the convent, but it is necessary for her honor. Vertolini vows to save her before she takes the veil, and the siblings try in vain to convince their father to free her. The father, Count Vertolini, refuses the young man’s wedding proposal, and advises him to leave Italy immediately. It is now revealed that the young man is Sir Henry Mackworth, Lord Mackworth’s long lost son and Jane’s brother.

Back in the present, Richard and Henry plan to rescue Clemena. While at the convent, a girl hands the knight a note telling him to return at midnight to find something of great importance. He listens, and that night, finds Lady Jane at the convent! She explains her story and begs him to free her. Richard and Henry return to the convent to demand her release, but the Lady Abbess refuses. The next day, Henry interrupts the veiling ceremony and saves Clemena from the convent. Richard goes back to England with Henry and Clemena, where he hurries to find Mackworth. Together, they apply to the king and receive his royal mandate to imprison Lord Glendour. The king sends word to the Pope, and Mackworth and Sir Richard go back to Italy to retrieve a freed Jane. With Richard’s lover in tow, they return to England. Wentworth lives in his castle with his family, there are numerous weddings, Glendour dies in a convent, and Sir Richard is blessed with years of happiness with Jane, Henry, Wentworth, and the others. They all live happily ever after.

Bibliography

Frank, Frederick S. “A Gothic Romance.” Horror Literature: A Core Collection and Reference Guide, by Marshall B. Tymn, New York City, R.R. Bowker, 1981.

Hoeveler, Diane L., “Sarah Wilkinson: Female Gothic Entrepreneur” (2015). Gothic Archive: Related Scholarship. 7. https://epublications.marquette.edu/gothic_scholar/7.

Johnson, Samuel. The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper: Including the Series Edited with Prefaces, Biographical and Critical. United Kingdom, J. Johnson, 1810.

McNally, Katie. “Fearsome Ink.” UVA Today, 29 Apr. 2016, http://news.virginia.edu/content/fearsome-ink-uva-library-boasts-worlds-finest-collection-english-gothic-literature. Accessed 4 Nov. 2021.

The National Union Catalog Pre-1956 Imprints. Vol. 664, London, Mansell, 1968. 754 vols.

Potter, Franz J. The History of Gothic Publishing, 1800–1835: Exhuming the Trade. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Potter, Franz J. Gothic Chapbooks, Bluebooks and Shilling Shockers, 1797–1830. University of Wales Press, 2021.

Summers, Montague. A Gothic Bibliography. The Fortune press, 1941.

Wilkinson, Sarah Scudgell. The Castle Spectre; Or, Family Horrors: A Gothic Story. Printed for T. and R. Hughes, 1807.

Wilkinson, Sarah Scudgell, and Lewis, M. G. (Matthew Gregory). The Castle Spectre: An Ancient Baronial Romance; Founded On the Original Drama of M. G. Lewis. Published by J. Bailey, Printer, 1820.

Researcher: Abby Minkin

Monkcliffe Abbey

Monkcliffe Abbey: A Tale of the Fifteenth Century, To which is added, Lopez and Aranthe; or, The Suicide. By the same author

Author: Sarah Scudgell Wilkinson
Publisher: Kaygill
Publication Year: 1805
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 11cm x 18.5cm
Pages: 22
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2 .E575

Set in a secluded castle in 1517 northern England, Sarah Wilkinson’s 1805 chapbook includes romance, jealousy, friendship, and mystery.

Material History

Monkcliffe Abbey, A Tale of the Fifteenth Century, To which is added, Lopez and Aranthe; or, The Suicide. By the same author was published in 1803 by Kaygill & Adcock, and written by Sarah Wilkinson. It was printed by W. Glindon in Haymarket, London, and sold for sixpence. The extant copy was originally printed as a chapbook, but later rebound into a collection of similar stories entitled The Entertainer, vol. 4. A handwritten table of contents, including titles, authors, and publishers, is included on the front endpaper. Page numbers are not included; due to the separate origins of each story, the numbers (along with fonts, margin sizes, and layouts) restart with each new chapbook. This volume of The Entertainer contains six chapbooks and sixteen unique stories, including Canterbury Tales.

The handwritten table of contents on a blank page at the beginning of *The Entertainer, vol. 4*, which includes *Monkcliffe Abbey.*

This copy is bound in a kind of thick cardboard material, covered with paper, and decoratively mottled in black and brown, protected by a clear plastic jacket for use in the library. It measures approximately 18.5 centimeters long by 11 centimeters wide. The spine is embossed in gold with the title, The Entertainer, which appears nowhere else in the book, and with embellishments on the spine’s edges and middle. This copy was bound with twine and glue, which is now quite delicate. The edges of the cover and spine are somewhat broken in, especially on the bottom of the spine, where the cardboard cover is beginning to crack off. Inside, the paper is yellowed and thin, but not brittle. Although the paper is discolored, it is not frequently stained—some small, splattered marks appear at intervals. The paper has an almost fabric-like texture, and is delicate while maintaining flexibility. Some pages are torn and folded, likely accidentally—none are dog-eared or torn completely out. In this copy, Monkcliffe Abbey is printed in a small serif font, with margins of two centimeters at top and bottom and one centimeter on the sides. Page numbers are found on the top outside corner of each page, printed in the same serif as the prose. The story is twenty-two pages long. The title page of the Monkcliffe Abbey chapbook lists the full title, including the addition of The Suicide. Every other instance of the title’s printing abbreviates it to only Monkcliffe Abbey, both on the first page of the story and in the handwritten table of contents. The author’s name is written as “S. Wilkinson” on the title page and in the table of contents, and as “Sarah Wilkinson” on the first page of the story. The title page also includes two illustrations, a larger one representing two women discovering a monk, and a smaller one under the title, with a man, right arm raised, walking up to a woman playing a sort of lute. The larger image has created a shadow of itself on the title page opposite. In the front of the book, an address card is inserted. Formal script on the front reads “Mrs. M.T.H. Sadler,” with an address included on its bottom left corner. The back reads “Oswick the Outlaw,” which has been handwritten in blue ink.

Textual History

The first page of *Monkcliffe Abbey,* including altered letters— “a” to “u” in the name “Barnett.”

Monkcliffe Abbey is one of Sarah Wilkinson’s lesser-known gothic stories, frequently left unmentioned in lists of her work and life achievements. There are two copies available through the library system at the University of Virginia. One of these copies, primarily discussed here, was published by “Kaygill, etc.” in London, in 1805, and rebound into a collection of gothic novels at a later date. The other was printed across the Atlantic, by James Oram in New York City, two years later. The full novel is also available online through scans of the collection America’s Historical Imprints. This online version is the later, American printing. There does not appear to be much discrepancy between the two copies, other than the specifics of their publication and their titles: the version published in New York by James Oram is entitled Monkcliffe Abbey, or, the History of Albert, Elwina, and Adeline, while the one published in London by Kaygill uses Monkcliffe Abbey: A Tale of the Fifteenth Century instead.

Monkcliffe Abbey is very rarely mentioned, either in collections of gothic works or works by Sarah Wilkinson, who was a prolific author of the genre. One exception can be found in The Gothic Ideology: Religious Hysteria and Anti-Catholicism in British Popular Fiction, 1780–1880, where Diane Hoeveler discusses the text’s use of the abbey as a gothic trope:

The title page for *Monkcliffe Abbey* and a second text, *Lopez and Aranthe.*

“Sarah Wilkinson’s ‘Monkcliffe Abbey’ (1805) is an example of a chapbook that uses the abbey in order to dwell on the usurpation theme. Very specifically dated to 1517, the action begins the year that Sir Archibald Barnett retires to the former Carthusian abbey in the north of England with his wife and two daughters Adeline and Elwina… The abbey is the setting for a traditional romance between the daughters and their suitors, one of whom is fleeing a friend turned foe who disguises himself as a cowled monk in order to inhabit one of the ‘haunted’ wings of the abbey (Wilkinson, 2009: 185). An architectural description of the abbey suggests the antiquarian investment in the theme by a writer as simple and straightforward as Wilkinson. The ruined abbey functions in this chapbook as little more than a picturesque setting, but it possesses considerably more ideological freight in a work by such a writer as Nathan Drake.” (218–19)

The story is also mentioned in Gothic Fictions: Prohibition/Transgression by Kenneth Graham, in a list of Gothic illustrations. The illustration from Monkcliffe Abbey is the same title page engraving found in its London-printed edition, of “Adeline and Elwina in the typical Gothic situation of startled discovery” (Frank 287). This illustration is reprinted in Franz Potter’s collection of gothic chapbooks, many written by Sarah Wilkinson, Literary Mushrooms: Tales of Horror and Fiction from the Gothic Chapbooks, 1800–1830.

Narrative Point of View

Monkcliffe Abbey is narrated in the third person, past tense, and without a framing story. The narrator is never mentioned or alluded to within the novel. The text is fairly straightforward, but sentences are lengthy and full of information. The narration focuses equally on dialogue, action description, and omniscient insight into the characters’ inner thoughts and feelings.

Elwina presently observed that the hand writing was the same—with the paper she had found in the chapel.—she was struck with horror and astonishment, when she reflected, that, perhaps, this victim of sorrow ere now had died through grief; or, perhaps, had committed some rash deed!—But, fearful of indulging her thoughts in this dismal place,—she deposited the paper with the picture on the shelf,—and returned with emotions of sorrow. (18)

One striking aspect of this narration is its use of punctuation. Especially in the above, quite active example, the exaggerated, slicing punctuation marks create a sense of quickness, motion, and finality. Throughout the text, this visual aspect—literally slicing between sentence fragments—is seen in more active scenarios, mirroring the choppy, frightened thoughts of the characters and creating a fast-paced feel.

The time for Albert’s departure being arrived, he claimed a gift from each of the ladies. Adeline presented him with a scarf of her own work, which he instantly bound round his bosom: Elwina presenting him with a ring from her finger; and, in a faultering voice, besought him to remember her father.—There was something so tender and pathetic in her manner, that it touched the strings of Albert’s heart,—at once with pity and respect for the lovely maiden. (15)

In more tender or calm scenes, such as this second example, the use of dashes has been reduced, although not completely halted. The more flowery, emotional, and flowing language of the second example serves to slow down the scene, emphasizing the tender and soft qualities of the characters in that moment. Even though the story is narrated in the third person, the omniscience of the narrator and the careful use of punctuation creates a sense of immersion.

Summary

The frontispiece for *Monkcliffe Abbey.*

Monkcliffe Abbey tells the story of a family living in seclusion in a sixteenth-century abbey according to the wishes of Sir Archibald Barnett, a retired warrior, and his wife, Lady Barnett. Along with their two young daughters and a small domestic staff, they live completely shut off from the outside world; no one is allowed to enter, and those who inhabit are only allowed to travel a short distance from the grounds of the abbey. Adeline Barnett, the eldest sister, is beautiful, but obscenely vain and arrogant. The younger sister, Elwina, is fair and sweet, and her generous character outshines her physical appearance. The girls enjoy walking in the country surrounding the abbey, and on one of their walks, they discover a knight lying in a puddle of his own blood. They frantically find help at a nearby cottage, and they return to the abbey while the knight is treated. After they explain the situation to their parents, Sir Archibald leaves for the cottage, only to discover the knight to be Albert de Clerville, a family friend. He brings Albert back to the abbey to recover in peace. Once Albert is well, he tells the whole family the story of his injury. His friend, Edward Barry, held a jealous grudge over Albert for his acquaintance with the beautiful Duchess Sophia Clifford. After dueling Barry multiple times and denying the requests of Lord Clifford to marry his daughter, he left the Clifford estate. On his journey, a helmeted knight stabbed him in the heart.

While walking home one night, Elwina is startled by the figure of a hooded monk walking slowly in front of her. After running home, she is too agitated to explain her situation, and faints. The next day, Albert and Elwina decide to explore the chapel within the abbey, when the head servant, Margaret, rushes in to declare Lady Barnett dead of “an apoplectic fit” (14). As Elwina and Adeline are talking that evening, they see guards rushing towards the abbey. Sir Archibald is arrested due to apparent treasonous acts, and is taken to jail. Albert is left to plan the funeral of Lady Barnett and to watch over the house, but once the funeral is over, he leaves.

Sample text from page 18 of *Monkcliffe Abbey.*

Elwina is taking a walk some time later when, distracted, she wanders into an abandoned cell block in the abbey. To her surprise, someone appears to be living in one of the cells. She heads back to the chapel, and there finds the same monk she had seen before. He calls out to her, and they run into each other, falling and hitting their heads on the stone floor. Once Elwina wakes, she finds Margaret, and they investigate the cell together. There, the supposed monk reveals himself to be the knight Edward Barry, who believes he killed Albert after stabbing him in the heart. Elwina is unsure whether Albert is dead or alive, but to her relief, Albert returns to the abbey with Sir Archibald, no longer incarcerated, who has been given the title “Earl of Monkcliffe.” Adeline gets married to an unnamed man, and once Albert realizes his feelings for Elwina, they are married as well. The story ends with Elwina and Albert staying at Monkcliffe Abbey, in “a pattern of domestic virtues” (22).

Bibliography

Baines, Paul. “Wilkinson, Sarah Scudgell (d. c. 1830), Writer.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/45868.

Brown, Susan, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy, editors. “Sarah Scudgell Wilkinson.” Orlando: Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present. Cambridge University Press Online, 2006. <http://orlando.cambridge.org/>. Accessed 10 November 2021.

Frank, Frederick S. “Illustrations from Early Gothic Novels.” Gothic Fictions: Prohibition/Transgression, edited by Kenneth Graham. AMS Press, 1989, pp. 270–87.

Hoeveler, Diane Long. “Ruined Abbeys: Justifying Stolen Property and the Crusade against Superstition.” The Gothic Ideology: Religious Hysteria and Anti-Catholicism in British Popular Fiction, 1780–1880, University of Wales Press, 2014, pp. 197–246.

Potter, Franz J., editor. Literary Mushrooms: Tales of Horror and Fiction from the Gothic Chapbooks, 1800–1830. Zittaw Press, 2009.

Wilkinson, Sarah Scudgell. Monkcliffe Abbey, a Tale of the Fifteenth Century. Kaygill Etc., 1805.

Wilkinson, Sarah Scudgell. Monkcliffe Abbey, or, the History of Albert, Elwina and Adeline, to which is added, Lopez and Aranthe, or, The Suicide ; also, the beautiful little tale of the Abbey of Clunedale. James Oram, 1807.

Researcher: Grace C. Webb

The Secret Oath

The Secret Oath: Or Blood-stained Dagger, a Romance

Author: Mary Anne Radcliffe
Publisher: Tegg and Castleman
Publication Year: 1802
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 11cm x 18cm
Pages: 68
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2.E575

This story written by Mary Anne Radcliffe in 1802 follows a family left destitute after the French Revolution and their quest to start a new life. The only thing in their way is a string of murders.

Material History

The Secret Oath or Blood-Stained Dagger, a Romance is the second story in volume one of The Entertainer. Seven stories make up the volume, each containing seventy-two pages, except for The Secret Oath (sixty-eight pages) and Frederic Staun, or the Revenge of Disappointment (four pages). Each time a new story starts, the page numbers restart, with the exception of Frederic Staun, or the Revenge of Disappointment, which continues pagination from the previous story, The Secret Oath, to result in a total of seventy-two pages. Each story has seventy-two pages because it matches the method of folding used to bind books at this time. The volume is bound in brown, acid-splattered leather and has gold lettering of The Entertainer on the spine. The text block has blue speckles for decoration. The Entertainer vol. 1 measures 18cm in height, 11cm in width, and 3cm in thickness.

In the front cover, there is a handwritten table of contents and a list of exact duplicates also in the Sadleir Black Collection. Overall, the pages of the book are in good condition. All the text in The Secret Oath is readable apart from a small hole with a diameter of about 0.5cm on page 61, but this does not affect the overall understanding of the text. The pages inThe Secret Oath or Blood-Stained Dagger, a Romance and Frederic Staun, or the Revenge of Disappointment are a slightly darker brown than the rest of the stories. This discoloration is caused by different types of paper used in the volume.

The pages in The Secret Oath use a consistent font and single-spaced lines. The margins differ due to folding techniques. The left-hand pages have side margins of 1cm while the right-hand pages have side margins of 0.5cm. The top margin for a page is either 1 or 2 cm. Each page has the title The Secret Oath on the top. The margin at the bottom of all the pages is 1cm. At the bottom of some right-hand pages, there are signature marks that indicate how the book should be folded. They start with “Ii” and end with “Oo3”. On the last page of the story, the word “Frederic” is present as a catch word for the book maker to know which story goes next. Frederic Staun, or the Revenge of Disappointment was added after The Secret Oath to make the section 72 pages for folding purposes.

At the start of The Secret Oath, there is a title page that reads “The // Secret Oath // or // Blood-Stained Dagger, // a Romance” with a black and white illustration of a house in front of the woods. To the left of the title page, there is another illustration depicting a character reaching for a dagger while looking at a statue of a woman and her baby. This black and white illustration of a woman bled on to the title page and can be seen in a faint brown outline.

Textual History

This edition was printed by J. H. Hart and published for Tegg and Castleman in London on November 1, 1802. There is another edition of this chapbook in the University of Virginia Special Collections Library printed by T. Plummer and published for T. Hurst in London on November 1, 1802. The chapbook has many existing editions both in libraries and as online scans. For instance, there is a version in volume one of the second edition of The Marvelous Magazine published by T. Hurst.

Handwritten table of contents in the flyleaf and endpaper of *The Entertainer*

The author of The Secret Oath is not present on the title page or frontispiece. However, another chapbook entitled Monkish Mysteries; Or, the Miraculous Escape: Containing the History and the Villanies of the Monk Bertrand; The Detection of His Impious Frauds, and Subsequent Repentance and Retribution includes a printed note that says: “The whole written, adjusted and compiled solely for this work, by Mrs. Mary Anne Radclife, of Wimbledon in Surrey, author of the Secret oath, or blood-stained dagger” (Radcliffe Monkish Mysteries 2). This connects Mary Anne Radclife, usually spelled “Radcliffe,” to the The Secret Oath. There is another book in the University of Virginia Special Collections Library that includes the same note connecting Mary Anne Radcliffe to The Secret Oath called The Adventures of Capt. Duncan, A Journey From Europe, Over the Arabian Deserts, to the British Settlements in India; : Containing, Among Other Particulars, an Account of the Perils He Experienced in Those Terrific Regions, the Eccentric Humors of His Tartarian Guide, His Shipwreck, and Distresses in the War With Hyder Ally, &C (Radcliffe Adventures 2).

Mary Anne Radcliffe was born in 1746 to James Clayton and Sarah née Bladderwick (Grundy). Her father died when she was four, and she was educated at Bar Convent in York, England. After fourteen years of life, she married Joseph Radcliffe, age thirty-five, in an elopement and had eight children with him throughout their marriage.

Her most known works include The Female Advocate (1799), Radcliffe’s New Novelist Pocket Magazine (1802), and Memoirs… in Familiar Letters to her Female Friend (1810). Some of these works are similar to The Secret Oath in the sense that they are sensationalized stories written for cheap entertainment, but others follow a feminist perspective on life and create arguments about more serious topics such as the shrinking job market for women and the risk of prostitution. Radcliffe was advertised in newspapers as an elegant entertainment writer, and her Radcliffe’s New Novelist’s Pocket Magazine was sold for six-pence at the time of its release (“Advertisements and Newspapers” 4). This magazine, which is more like a collection of stories, includes The Secret Oath. Radcliffe’s New Novelist’s Pocket Magazine was published by Thomas Hurst.

Isobel Grundy suggests that Radcliffe requested that her name remain out of some of her pieces, but that this was not always respected. Specifically, Radcliffe’s name was put on The Female Advocate despite her wish to remain anonymous. This connected her to Radcliffe’s New Novelist’s Pocket Magazine and other chapbooks. Her publisher was also known to switch published works with a different author’s name to Radcliffe’s name after the first edition of a book had been published. For example, The Mysterious Baron (1808) was switched from Eliza Ratcliffe to Mary Anne Radcliffe after its initial print (Grundy). The reason for these changes is unknown, but it is likely that the publisher was using the similarities between Radcliffe’s name and the more famous Ann Radcliffe, author of A Sicilian Romance (1790), to catch the eye of readers. Another possibility is that Radcliffe used a false name for some books in order to remain more anonymous.

After having eight children and publishing many works focusing on topics from thrilling murders to the issues of women, Radcliffe died of a health decline in August of 1818 and is buried in Old Calton cemetery, Edinburgh (Grundy).

Narrative Point of View

The Secret Oath is narrated in third-person past tense. The narrator is omniscient and never appears as a character in the text. The narration focuses on characters’ actions and emotions and uses long sentences separated by commas for each thought. The narrator does not focus on the setting and does not use descriptive language to describe the environment. The focus is on the actions of characters in the story and the feelings of each character.

Sample Passage:

They entered the old cabriolet, and after a rude journey arrived at Maschere, where they entered an Inn, and a surgeon was sent for to dress the Marquis’s wounds. – He pronounced it impossible to proceed on the journey without endangering his patient’s life ; in consequence of which, the Marchioness hired some apartments at a farm-house, on the road to Caffagiolo, contiguous to his surgeon. De Montfort had mental as well as bodily wounds to struggle with : he con-sidered himself as the murderer of Dorville–he, who had preserved his life, and illuminated the gloom of exile with the balm of friendship. – His daughter also felt a perpetual pang in the reflection that Dorville, whom she esteemed more than any man living, had been slain by her father’s hand ! (33–4)

This excerpt demonstrates how the narrator focuses on the emotions and actions of each character over any other aspect of the story. With its third-person point of view, the narration takes away any bias that a first-person perspective would have, but this does not take away all of the suspense. Omniscient narration here gives an insight to all the characters’ feelings and experiences, which tie into the universal knowledge of the narrator, but some details are left out throughout the novel to maintain suspense. How a person is feeling is not left a secret, but their fate is unknown until an action comes to determine it. This stylistic choice keeps the story mysterious while also providing insight to each character’s interiority.

Summary

A Secret Oath or Blood-Stained Dagger, a Romance follows an ex-Marquis named Albert de Montfort, his wife Madame de Montfort, and his daughter Serina. The book describes how the family is forced to flee from Paris, France in 1792 during the French revolution. After fourteen years of poverty following their escape, de Montfort accepts an invitation from his deceased father’s godson, M. Dodier, to stay at his chateau until the family can get back on their feet. De Montfort is hesitant to accept because M. Dodier received the de Montfort family fortune after the death of Albert de Montfort’s father, and there is a lack of trust between the two men. Serina convinces her father to accept the invitation and the family moves to the chateau. The house is completely empty except for Aquilina and Orsano Cormazzo, the mysterious caretakers of the property.

Frontispiece for *The Secret Oath* depicting Serina de Montfort

One day, de Montfort comes home covered in blood after gambling with friends. He claims that he was trying to save a dying man in the woods. Law enforcement accuses him of the murder, and they discover evidence in Madame de Montfort and Serina’s rooms that also connect them to the crime. De Montfort and his family are taken to prison in a faraway town, but one by one they avoid their sentence with the help of various people. Serina’s helper saves her under the condition that she marry Argand, M. Dodier’s son. Next, Madame de Montfort is released after the murder victim is revealed to have survived. She reunites with Serina after hearing rumors of her location. De Montfort was the last to be released. On the way to find his family, the living victim of the attack, Dorville, offers to help find his wife and daughter because he feels bad that de Montfort was sent to prison for no reason. De Montfort accepts, and eventually they find Madame and Serina. De Montfort makes it clear that Serina will not be marrying Argand because he does not want the man who took his family inheritance to take his daughter too. M. Dodier kicks the family out of the chateau, and Dorville offers to let the family stay in his mansion a few cities away.

They travel through France to get to Dorville’s home. Dorville and Serina become close. While staying in an apartment overnight, Serina wakes to a man in a black mask holding a dagger above her heart. The masked man realizes he has the wrong person and claims that if she keeps this visit a secret then her father may live, but if she says anything he will kill her father and Dorville. Serina swears the secret oath, and the man gives her an ebony crucifix with the word “Remember!” carved on the back as a reminder of her promise (21).

After her visit by the mysterious man, Serina goes to a church to confess. After she divulges her oath, the abbot demands that she stay in the church for six months to pray in darkness. She has no escape from her punishment and is brought to a garden to pray. In this garden, a mysterious man helps her escape. Once the pair is over the wall, there is a fight between new attackers and Serina’s helper. Serina’s helper reigns victorious in the fight. However, Serina’s father was planning on saving her too, and when he sees the man and Serina surrounded by bodies, de Montfort attacks the man and kills him. Serina sees that her helper was Dorville. She is extremely sad but must run from the church to avoid another imprisonment.

The family adopts the false name of Berthier to protect their identity. With the help of an attorney named Cattivo, they purchase an apartment and stay out of the public eye. Since the family has no money, de Montfort uses a ring that he won while gambling as payment. Cattivo takes a liking to Serina and demands her hand in marriage. The family says no, and Cattivo threatens to blackmail the Berthiers unless Serina marries him. They still say no, so Cattivo takes de Montfort to court and accuses him of stealing the ring that was used to pay for the apartment. The ring is found to belong to a Count Cuculli, a man de Montfort used to gamble with. The count arrives at court, recognizes de Montfort as the accused “M. Berthier”, and drops all charges because he trusts de Montfort’s integrity.

After de Montfort is released from jail, he receives a note that he should go to the count’s mansion. De Montfort runs over to the mansion and finds his wife and daughter. They tell de Montfort that the count discovered a plot to hurt Serina. The count decided to keep watch over their room while de Montfort was in jail awaiting release. Men came and attacked the two ladies, but the count stabbed one attacker, who was later revealed to be M. Dodier, and saved the women. Serina and Madame de Montfort stayed with the count until de Montfort was released. They continue to stay with the count as a family.

One day, Serina is basking in the sunlight when Dorville appears and starts talking to her. He rambles about how he is married to a sickly woman and how he was manipulated by another woman named Maria. Serina is in near hysterics that he is alive, so they agree to meet the next day and talk once she has calmed down. The next day, Dorville says that he never left his home until now, so the man that de Montfort killed in the church garden was not him. However, during this time, he was forced to marry a sickly woman even though they did not love each other. Serina is crushed that Dorville is married, but de Montfort is happy that Dorville is not dead and invites him to stay with them in the count’s house.

Sample text of page 63 of *The Secret Oath*

After talking all night about Dorville’s journey, the two men make connections about the past. During the time de Montfort thought he was dead, Dorville visited the house of Monsieur Beaulieu, a wealthy man with a much younger wife named Maria. Dorville was seduced by Maria and almost fell for her. However, he realized that she only wanted his money. Maria was known to have many men in her life, one of note being Cattivo. He confessed that he loved Serina to get out of the relationship. After this story is told, the men figure out that Maria is the person who is responsible for the attacks on Serina. Her jealousy has made her vengeful. It is revealed that she enlisted Cattivo to kill Serina. The men decide to go to the house of Maria to confront her.

At the house, Dorville learns nothing from Maria. While they talk, de Montfort witnesses the murder of Monsieur Beaulieu, Maria’s husband. De Montfort is accused of the murder. Dorville pressures Maria to testify in court on de Montfort’s behalf, and she agrees. She clears de Montfort’s name and blames the murder on Cattivo, the attorney who sold the Montfort’s their old apartment and who is also Maria’s lover. After Monsieur Beaulieu’s death, the men bring the rest of the Montfort family to the house of Monsieur Beaulieu. The motive behind some attacks is unclear until M. Dodier shows up to the house and asks to confess his crimes. He suffers from a stab wound that was inflicted a few days ago and fears that he will die. He admits that the entire plot to kill de Montfort was based on revenge because de Montfort said that his son could not marry Serina. He attempted to kill de Montfort in the woods of the chateau, but he accidentally attacked Dorville. This left a witness to his crimes, so M. Dodier tried to eliminate Dorville again, but this time he accidentally went to Serina’s room. He was the masked man that made her swear the secret oath. Before M. Dodier could say more, he died of the stab wound the count gave him while protecting Serina. In the end, Maria tries to flee the country with Cattivo to avoid imprisonment for her murder plot, but Cattivo murders Maria because she accused him in the trial of her husband’s death. Serina and Dorville get married after Dorville’s first wife died of sickness, and the entire family moved to England in search of financial prosperity.

Bibliography

“Advertisement and Notices.” Northampton Mercury, 28 Aug. 1802, 1–4. British Library Newspapers, link.gale.com/apps/doc/GR3218890636/BNCN?u=viva_uva&sid=bookmark-BNCN&xid=a13a0781. Accessed 4 Nov. 2021.

Grundy, Isobel. “Radcliffe, Mary Ann (b. c. 1746, d. in or after 1810), Writer.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 23 Sept. 2004, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/37876. Accessed 4 Nov. 2021.

Radcliffe, Mary Anne. The Adventures of Capt. Duncan, A Journey From Europe, Over the Arabian Deserts, to the British Settlements In India; : Containing, Among Other Particulars, an Account of the Perils He Experienced In Those Terrific Regions, the Eccentric Humors of His Tartarian Guide, His Shipwreck, and Distresses In the War With Hyder Ally, &C. London, T. Hurst, 1802. Nineteenth Century Collections Online,
https://search.lib.virginia.edu/sources/uva_library/items/u4351511. Accessed 4 Nov. 2021.

——. Monkish Mysteries; Or, the Miraculous Escape: Containing the History and the Villanies of the Monk Bertrand; :The Detection of His Impious Frauds, and Subsequent Repentance and Retribution. Nottingham, T. Hurst, 1802. Nineteenth Century Collections Online, https://search.lib.virginia.edu/sources/uva_library/items/u4351072. Accessed 4 Nov. 2021.

——. The Secret Oath: Or Blood-stained Dagger, a Romance. London 2nd ed., vol. 1, Printed for T. Hurst, 1802. Nineteenth Century Collections Online, https://search.lib.virginia.edu/sources/uva_library/items/u835942. Accessed 4 Nov. 2021.

——. The Secret Oath: Or Blood-stained Dagger, a Romance. London, Tegg and Castleman, 1802. Nineteenth Century Collections Online, https://search.lib.virginia.edu/sources/uva_library/items/u835019. Accessed 4 Nov. 2021.

Researcher: D. Smith

The Monastery of St. Mary

The Monastery of St. Mary: Or, the White Maid of Avenel. A Scottish Tale.

Author: Emilia Grossett
Publisher: J. Bailey
Publication Year: Unknown
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 10.8cm x 17.4cm
Pages: 24
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2 .G76 M n.d.

This early nineteenth-century chapbook by Emilia Grossett is a Scottish tale featuring various encounters with the mythical White Maid of Avenel. The story is believed to be plagiarized from The Monastery by Walter Scott.

Material History

The Monastery of St. Mary by Emilia Grossett is a short text, only twenty-four pages in length. The size of the pamphlet is only 17.4 by 10.8 centimeters. The pages are yellowed with age and relatively thin. The font appears to be one that is standard to today’s texts, similar to Times New Roman. The pamphlet is not bound by any sort of cover, though pamphlets from this era were frequently bound with a leather cover or bound with other similar pamphlets together as a bunch.

The title page for *The Monastery of St. Mary*

Since this copy of the pamphlet is unbound, the first thing that the viewer sees is the label that reveals that it is from the Sadleir-Black Collection at the University of Virginia. On the backside of that page is the only illustration that can be found in this pamphlet. The illustration is in color, and it shows a man in a kilt and a woman wrapped in a white sheet. The man’s brightly colored pink socks have bled through the page, and the ink can be seen on the previously mentioned cover page. The pink marking caused by the bleeding of the sock color seems irregular and is likely not visible in most other copies of this pamphlet. After the illustration comes the pamphlet’s title page, which states the full title, The Monastery of St. Mary: Or, the White Maid of Avenel. A Scottish Tale,followed by the author’s name and the publishing information. On this title page, a faint mark of the previous illustration can be seen as though it was printed onto the page like a watermark. This mark is most likely sun damage or staining, and not an intentional addition to the text.

One noticeable and possibly confusing part of the book to the untrained eye is the page numbers. The standard page numbers, which number up to twenty-four on the final page, are in the top corner of the text. There is a second set of numbers, however, that appears at the bottom of the first five odd-numbered pages. These numbers have the letter A in front of them (A2, A3, etc.) and are useless to the reader, but very important to the printer of the text. When pamphlets like these were printed in large sheets and then folded and cut into the order that they were meant to be read in, the printer used these numbers to ensure that the pages were configured correctly.

Some final details that one might notice when looking through the pamphlet include the publishing information and the price. The price is listed on the title page as sixpence. The publishing information appears on the title page below the price, and on the final page below “The End.” This reveals that the pamphlet was published in London, despite its advertisement as a Scottish tale.

Textual History

One of the most important things to note about Emilia Grossett’s chapbook, The Monastery of St. Mary, is that it was almost certainly plagiarized from Walter Scott’s 1820 novel, The Monastery. Both the novel and the chapbook have the same characters as well as the same plotlines, except for the chapbook being a simplified version of the plot due to its brevity in length. This makes it difficult to find information about the chapbook specifically, because any mention of the character names or locations in the chapbook almost always lead to mentions of Scott’s novel.

The frontispiece for *The Monastery of St. Mary*

There is a beautiful frontispiece in The Monastery of St. Mary, but unfortunately the illustrator’s name is either unlisted or illegible. The illustrations of similar scenes such as one titled Halbert Glendinning’s First Invocation of The White Maid of Avenel in an 1821 London edition of Walter Scott’s The Monastery were done by a man named Richard Westall, but they are clearly not by the same illustrator as the chapbook version because Westall’s work looks much more polished and professional than the frontispiece in The Monastery of St. Mary (Font 130).

Under the caption of the frontispiece, the publisher of the chapbook is listed as “J. Bailey.” This was a publisher who operated out of London at 116 Chancery Lane. According to E. W. Pitcher, Bailey was active at that address from the years 1809 to 1815, however there is also evidence pointing to Bailey publishing before 1809 and after 1815, including this chapbook which, though undated, was presumably published after the 1820 novel that it plagiarizes (Pitcher 78, Koch 75). According to the British Museum’s archives J. Bailey was active in publishing from 1799 to 1825 when the press was eventually shared with at least one other man by the same surname, William Bailey, suspected to be his son (“J Bailey”). J. Bailey is listed as the publisher for many gothic chapbooks and pamphlets from the early nineteenth century, among other small literary works and informational handbills (Bonnets 41).

Emilia Grossett is a fairly mysterious author with not much credited work in the literary field. There are a couple texts that have her listed as the author, however, including The Spirit of The Grotto from 1799, and The Freebooter’s Wife from 1819 (Summers 56). The latter title is listed as a book, not a chapbook, published as one volume. Montague Summers’s Gothic Bibliography and several library catalogues, including WorldCat, spell the author’s surname as “Grosett” as opposed to “Grossett” as it appears on the title page of The Monastery of St. Mary. Grossett’s other known texts were not published by J. Bailey.

Narrative Point of View

The Monastery of St. Mary is written in the third person by an anonymous narrator who is not a character in the text. The narrator mostly focuses on the dialogue and events that transpire throughout the world of the story, but they occasionally exhibit omniscience by describing the characters’ thoughts or feelings that are unvoiced in the story. The language used by the narrator is modern enough that it reads very easily, with the exception being the dialogue, which sounds a little more antiquated than the general writing style in the text. As would be expected, the text uses British spelling which is noticeable in instances such as writing “pedlar” instead of “peddler.”

Sample Passage:

Father Philip, eager to acquaint the Abbot of the discovery he had made, rode homeward as quick as his mule would carry him ; and in spite of the haste he made, the moon had risen before he reached the banks of the river, which it was necessary for him to cross to reach the Monastery. As the Monk came close to the water’s edge, he saw a female sitting under the remains of a large broken oak tree, looking on the current, and weeping most piteously ; surprised to see a female there at that time of night, yet supposing her grief arose from her wish to cross the river. Father Philip politely addressed her, and offered to carry her across on his mule. (5)

This excerpt demonstrates the narrator’s use of the third person, the description of scenery and events in the story, and insight into the characters’ (in this case Father Philip’s) thoughts and emotions in response to events or other characters in the text. This description of the internal reaction that the woman causes in the monk offers a clearer idea of how the character feels about the White Maid of Avenel than just a description of her appearance would. In the description of the woman, the narrator also offers an interpretation of her emotional state, that she is “weeping most piteously,” which seems to be the way that Father Philip perceives the woman and not necessarily just a description of what she is doing.

Summary

The Monastery of St. Mary is set on the border of Scotland, where the magnificent Monastery of St. Mary sits on the bank of a river. Simon Glendenning and his family live in the Tower of Glendearg, which is located a few miles from the monastery in a hidden glen. Despite the tower’s inaccessible nature, Simon is called to war and dies at the battle of Pinkie. His widow Elspeth surrenders her tower and is pitied by the Englishmen.

The widow of Sir Walter Avenel, whose husband was killed in the same manner as Simon Glendenning, has been forced from her home by the Englishmen and is roaming helplessly around the country with her children. They find shelter in the home of a shepherd, Martin, and his wife, Tibb, but their cattle have been killed and they will soon starve if they stay there. The group decides to take a chance and go to the Tower of Glendearg, hoping that Elspeth will welcome them due to Lady Avenel’s high status, which she does.

Lady Avenel intends to return to her mansion once the country is more peaceful, but Julian Avenel seizes possession of the mansion. Therefore, Lady Avenel stays at Glendearg where her health gradually declines due to the death of her husband. Elspeth sends Martin to fetch the priest at the monastery so that Lady Avenel can confess before she dies. The priest emerges from her chamber after a long wait and is in a foul mood. He says that he suspects the house to “be foul with heresy” (5). Elspeth is alarmed but admits that Lady Avenel often reads out of a black book. Father Phillip is horrified when he sees that it is a book of holy scriptures, which is a sin when possessed by anyone but a priest. He takes the book from them.

On his way back, the priest reaches the river and sees a woman weeping on the bank. He calls out to help her. She leaps on the back of the mule and leads it into the water, then dunks the priest in the water thrice and throws him on the bank where he lies unconscious. Once he is found, the book of scriptures is gone. His jumbled story is questioned by many people, including Father Eustace, who goes to Glendearg to enquire about the priest’s visit.

Father Eustace is informed of a strange figure who returned the book, which he again confiscates. On his way back, the priest’s mule stops suddenly at a turn in the road and hears an unbodied female voice whispering to him. He is then thrown from his mule, unconscious, and wakes up in the dark. Upon returning to the monastery, the priest learns that a trooper had gone to confession after seeing a white woman on the path where he intended to murder Father Eustace that night. The trooper, named Cristie of the Clinthill, accepts a gold cross from the father before departing. The priest realizes that the book is once again gone.

Days later, Halbert Glendenning goes out alone and summons the White Maid. She helps him retrieve the book, then disappears. Halbert returns to the Tower with the book, and finds a miller and his daughter, Mysie. Soon after their arrival, Cristie of the Clinthill and Sir Piercie Shafton arrive, hoping to find hospitality there since the knight is fleeing death in England. Halbert and the knight clash with one another, due to their mutual superiority complexes.

The next day, Halbert is once again offended by Sir Piercie, and goes to summon the White Maid. She gives no advice but hands him a token to use when Sir Piercie boasts again. Upon returning to the tower Halbert is once again offended by Sir Piercie, so he presents the token. It works, and the knight is immediately calmed, but realizes Halbert’s power over him and says that it will cost the boy his life. They agree to duel in the woods the following morning. When the morning comes, they go to the site of the enchanted fountain to fight. They find in its place a neatly dug grave and shovel, which Halbert denies preparing.

They duel, and despite the knight being a more skilled fighter than Halbert, the latter stabs Sir Piercie, apparently killing him. Halbert tries to summon the White Maid, but nothing happens, and he screams curses at her for putting him in this position. Fleeing, Halbert finds a man in the valley who he drags back to the site of the duel, hoping to save the knight. They find the grave filled, but the only trace of the knight is his doublet that was laid down before the duel. The stranger, named Henry Warden, listens to the story and advises Halbert to find shelter at the castle of Julian Avenel instead of returning home.

At the castle they find Julian accompanied by a young woman, Catherine, who is unmarried although pregnant. This offends Henry because he is a preacher, and he advises Julian to marry the woman. Julian is enraged by his advice and throws Henry in the dungeon. Halbert is locked in a bedroom to stop him from interfering. Halbert escapes his room through a window.

Meanwhile, the inhabitants of Glendearg are alarmed that Halbert and Sir Piercie have yet to return, and they send Martin out to look for them. Martin finds the grave, the bloodstains, and the doublet. Martin returns and is telling the others what he found, when Sir Piercie walks into the apartment wearing blood-stained clothes. This leads them to believe that Halbert is dead, and Edward decides to get revenge for his brother’s death. He confines the knight to a guarded room until the grave can be searched the following morning. Father Eustace arrives at the castle and requests a private meeting with Sir Piercie, who admits that Halbert wounded him and he fell unconscious, before waking up with the realization that his wound had miraculously healed.

The final page for *The Monastery of St. Mary*

It is forgotten that Mysie’s bedroom is within the larger room in which the knight is being held, and she overhears his conversation with Father Eustace. Mysie takes pity on the knight and decides to save him. She goes to the door and whispers to Edward that she is trapped. Edward opens the door and Mysie and the knight exit the apartment, undiscovered by Edward due to the lack of light in the stairwell. The knight flees with Mysie on a horse but is almost immediately seen and shot at by Edward. They manage to escape, and they eventually stop in a village to rest. Mysie disguises herself as a man.

Meanwhile, Halbert has found an inn in which to stay and there he meets a pedlar who knows where to find the recipient of Henry Warden’s letter, Lord Moray. The two men agree to travel together the following morning, and they find themselves before the Earl of Moray. The Earl is informed that the Monastery of St. Mary is surrounded by English troops who are searching for Sir Piercie Shafton. Halbert is instructed to lead the men to the monastery and advise the two sides to wait until the Earl arrives to fight. The Earl and Sir John Foster arrive simultaneously, and the former announces that his purpose was fulfilled, since they had captured Sir Piercie. Upon closer inspection, they discover that the person they captured is in fact Mysie.

All of the troops arrive in procession at the monastery, in search of Sir Piercie. The knight advances from the crowd and says that he is leaving England with his bride, Mysie. Halbert and Mary Avenel marry and regain possession of the Castle of Avenel. They live there with Elspeth, Martin, and Tibb happily ever after. Edward joins the Monastery of St. Mary and beholds the last sight of the White Maid of Avenel, whose fountain eventually dries up and is never seen again.

Bibliography

Koch, Angela. “‘The Absolute Horror of Horrors’ Revised: A Bibliographical Checklist of Early-Nineteenth-Century Gothic Bluebooks.” Cardiff Corvey: Reading the Romantic Text 9 (Dec 2002), pp. 45–110.

BONNETS. 1819. The British Stage and Literary Cabinet 4, (35) (11): 41–2.

“J Bailey.” The British Museum. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/AUTH227817. Accessed 27 Oct. 2020.

Font, Lourdes M. “Five Scenes from a Romance: The Identification of a Nineteenth-Century Printed Cotton.” Metropolitan Museum Journal, vol. 22, 1987, pp. 115–132.

Grosett, Emilia. The Freebooter’s Wife: Or, the Hag of Glenburne; A Scottish Romance. W. Mason, 1819.

Grossett, Emilia. The Monastery of St. Mary: Or, the White Maid of Avenel. A Scottish Tale. J. Bailey, 1820.

Pitcher, E. W. “Pirates and Publishers Reconsidered: a Response to Madeline Blondel.” The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, vol. 75, no. 1, 1981, pp. 75–81.

Summers, Montague. A Gothic Bibliography. The Fortune press, 1941.

Researcher: Rain J. Eguiguren

The Mystic Tower

The Mystic Tower, or, Villainy Punished. A Romance.

Author: Unknown
Publisher: Printed for Kaygill by W. Glindon
Publication Year: 1800
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 10.75cm x 17.5cm
Pages: 42
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2.M894 1800

Published in 1800 without identifying an author, this shilling-shocker set during the Holy Wars tells a tale of romance, murder, terror, and mystery.

Material History

One’s first impressions upon introduction to the Sadlier-Black Collection’s edition of The Mystic Tower, or, Villainy Punished. A Romance. most likely will include the frail binding holding together the forty-two time-worn pages, as well as the curious lack of a cover. Upon closer inspection, one can find a few remnants of what seems to be tan leather stuck to bits of dried glue along the spine of the chapbook. This suggests that the book was once a part of a collection of works, bound together for sale by the publisher. Once the first blank page, acting as the cover, is turned, an intricate frontispiece is found to inhabit the reverse. The image of a man and a woman moving away from an oncoming knight is central to the illustration, and is surrounded by detailing of weaponry and armor. Beneath the image the shortened title, The Mystic Tower, is revealed, instead of a caption, creating a sense of mystery around what might be occurring in the preceding scene.

The peculiar intrigue of these yellowed pages continues onto the title page where “The Mystic Tower, or, Villainy Punished. A Romance” is emblazoned in a combination of different fonts across the top half of the page, yet there is no author to be found. Instead, there are a few curious clues that follow, some indicating themes present in the story and others towards the origins of the work itself. Just below the title is another illustration, this time depicting a woman standing in the doorway of a low-ceilinged room with a look of astonishment on her face as she looks down upon a knight emerging from the floorboards. Following this is an excerpt from Shakespeare’s Macbeth that reads, “’Tis done! The scene of life will quickly close; Ambition’s vain, delusive dreams are fled, And now I wake to darkness, guilt, and horror…..I cannot bear it!…………….” Both the foreshadowing illustration and the ominous quote allude to the drama that is to come throughout the novel.

Tracking down the page, again, there is a note that mentions this book was printed in London for “KAYGILL, at his Circulating Library, Upper Rathbone Place; MACE, New Round-court, Strand; and ADCOCK Charles-street, Fitzroy-square; and may be had of all other Book-sellers in Town or Country.” This indicates where other copies of this work could be found throughout London, specifically mentioning a few circulating libraries at which interested subscribers could obtain the book for sixpence, as denoted in fine print below the message. At the very bottom of the page, the printer, W. Glindon, and the location of his shop, 48, Rupert-Street, Covenrry-Street, are listed. Though the publisher and the location of other copies of the book are helpful hints, the author of the work remains a mystery. The aged, brittle pages that follow hold narrowly spaced text, signature marks that allowed the bookbinder to order the sheets correctly, and a handful of stains from past careless readers, but no mention of the elusive author. There are no handwritten notes, pencil marks, stains, or tears among the pages, leaving no physical clues about this particular copy’s journey through the ages.

Textual History

The Mystic Tower has no known author, which makes it difficult for scholars to trace the work’s publication history.

The frontispiece for the *The Mystic Tower*, depicting Father Austin and Matilda standing terrified by the knight.

The Sadlier-Black collection’s copy of this chapbook is one of three currently recorded copies, and was printed specifically for T. Kaygill “at his circulating library” by W. Glindon (“T Kaygill,” “W Glindon”). Both of these men were British printers and publishers whose careers flourished in the early 1800’s. Though no specific publication date is available for this text, it was most likely published between 1803 and 1807. These dates encompass when T. Kaygill was at the address listed on the title page of the book (39 Upper Rathbone Place, London) (“T Kaygill”).

Many of the primary catalogues of nineteenth-century gothic works are devoid of any information on The Mystic Tower, so there is no record of advertisements for the book or public reception of the work. Aside from being briefly mentioned in Montague Summers’s A Gothic Bibliography,Frederick S. Frank’s The Gothic Romance 1762–1820 holds the most robust assessment of the book. He claims that its hurried “penny-a-line” writing style and plot mimic John Palmer’s Mystery of the Black Tower and ensconce the chapbook as a typical low-brow shilling shocker (Frank 123). This criticism leads scholars to believe that the book was not wildly popular, and was most likely not reprinted or adapted after its original publication.

Narrative Point of View

The Mystic Tower, or, Villainy Punished. A Romance. is written with a third-person anonymous narrator whose identity is never revealed in the text. The narrator adopts an omniscient perspective and offers insights about most of the main characters, while mainly telling the story as if following Matilda along her journey. Holistically, the narration is succinct, colloquial, and typically devoid of characters’ inner thoughts. The sentences the narrator uses are very long and littered with commas, but the language is clear and reads very comfortably. Only occasionally does the narrator hint at how Matilda would feel about a certain situation through well placed adjectives and emotionally connotated verbs. The only time that the voice of the narrator changes is when Matilda reads the letter titled “The Life of Lady Malvina Fitzwalter.” In this interpolated tale presented as a letter, Lady Malvina is writing in the first person and describing how she came to be in the curious position in which the young women found her.

Sample passage of third-person narration:

“The baron and baroness having been appraised of her illness entered at this moment, when the former approaching the bed, Matilda started back, exclaiming ‘did you murder him?’ ‘murder whom?’ exclaimed de Malvern. ‘The dark spirit in the tower,’ returned Matilda; ‘what is all this?’ said the baroness, turning to Clara, who without delay told them all she knew. They made no comments on her information, but commending Matilda to her care, both retired. The simple narrative of Clara, sunk deep in the mind of the baron, his reflections in supportable; the many reports he had heard in spirits that wandered in the ruined tower, and about the walls of the castle, rushed on his mind and in a convulsive agony he threw himself on a couch, groaning most piteously.” (15)

In this passage, Romaldi and Oswena are coming to check on Matilda after her encounter with the ominous knight. She is terrified and is convinced that her parents must have had something to do with the death of the de Malvern men for them to be haunted by such a terrifying being. The beginning of the passage sticks solely to the plot, describing the new baron and baroness approaching their daughter, but quickly switches to the dialogue in which Matilda makes her accusations about their involvement in the tragic deaths of the de Malverns. The narrator then resurges to describe how Matilda is put to bed by Clara, and then follows Sir Romaldi to detail the unrest he faces because of his deep-seated guilt for facilitating the death of the former Baron and his son. The focus of the passage is Matilda’s fear and her conversation with her parents, but when she is not in the scene the narrator is able to shed light on the experiences of some of the secondary characters.

Sample passage of first-person narration:

“Having the misfortune to lose my mother at an early age, I, the only child of lord Fitzwalter, was educated by an amiable woman with the utmost tenderness, and instructed in every branch of literature proper for a female mind.” (22)

This passage comes at the beginning of Lady Malvina’s letter to Matilda, explaining her rather tragic past. She speaks in the first person, using “I” frequently and colloquially, which indicates the intimacy of the contents of the letter and the authenticity of the story being told. Readers are invited to sit in the shoes of Matilda during this break from the established narrative style, since the letter reads as a direct address, which highlights the flashback being recounted in the letter.

Summary

The story begins with Sir Romaldi, a poor knight returning home from his tour in the Holy Wars, trudging towards his castle and stewing over his jealousy of his relative, the rich Baron de Malvern. The Baron and his son are still fighting in the wars, and his inner monologue reveals that if they should die before they return from fighting, he himself would be next in line to inherit their estate and riches. While he is secretly wishing that a perilous fate befalls the father and son, a ghostly figure appears in his path, murmuring a prophecy about how his grim wishes will come true. Frightened by the eerie apparition, Sir Romaldi hurries home to meet his wife, Oswena, and his daughter, Matilda.

The story then delves into a flashback, featuring Matilda. One morning she was walking in the woods near the family castle, when a hunter appears from the woods claiming that he has lost his companions and asking if he can rest with her for a while. She agrees and the two exchange pleasantries. It becomes apparent that the young hunter, named Percy, has taken a liking to Matilda, and suddenly realizes that she is the daughter of Sir Romaldi. He exclaims that he cannot be seen with her, due to some deeply ingrained fissure between their families, but that he would like to meet Matilda again in the secret of the night. She, again, agrees, but is deeply troubled by the fact that he cannot meet her father, so after their first rendezvous she tells him she will no longer come to their meeting spot. She adheres to this promise for the next two years by not returning to their clandestine spot, but one evening she passes by and sees Percy walking below the battlement. She realizes how much she misses him, but it is too late because he is leaving to fight in the Holy Wars. To remind him that her prayers are with him she gives him a crucifix necklace and bids him goodbye.

A sample of the text, from page 13 of *The Mystic Tower.*

A return to the present hones in on a conversation between Sir Romaldi and Oswena, in which he explains the eerie apparition on his journey home and she replies that he should have the Baron de Malvern and his son slain to secure the prophecy that the ethereal figure foretold. After falling into a terrified stupor, he gathers his resolve and agrees that the foul deed must be done.

Months later, a message arrives at Sir Romaldi’s castle that the Baron and his son have died, and that he is to inherit the de Malvern estate. The small family gathers their things and immediately moves into the new castle. An ominous tension falls over the household as Romaldi walks in, with the minstrels unable to play their instruments and other household servants running in terror. As Matilda is walking around her new home with her attendant, Clara, the servant girl explains to her that there is a suit of armor rumored to wander the halls of the unrenovated part of the castle at night, as well as a particular portrait whose inhabitant occasionally leaps from it to walk to the same mysterious tower, said to house the spirits of the castle. Matilda tries to mitigate the fears of Clara, but one night they are able to see a light moving in the windows of the tower which reinvigorates terror in both of the girls. They send for the family priest, who tells them they are being superstitious and foolish, but all three are then confronted with the large black suit of armor that the rumors foretold. Matilda rushes to her parents to tell them of her terrifying encounters, and asks them if they had some hand in killing the Baron or his son. They assure her that she has nothing to worry about, but they share a moment of concern knowing that these hauntings are very likely due to their nefariously plotted murder.

Tensions and fears settle, and Romaldi begins to bring suitors to the castle to eventually find a match for Matilda. She, however, is approached by a boy that gives her the crucifix she gave to Percy, with the promise that he would return it to her shortly before he came home to ask for her hand in marriage. When her father tells her that he intends to give her hand to a particularly distasteful Lord she refuses and, in his anger, he has Matilda and Clara locked in her room until the next day when she is to be wed. Clara helps Matilda escape her arranged fate through a series of trap doors and tunnels that lead from her room to the outside of the castle, and in the middle of their flight they are met again by the darkly armored knight, and are terrified but are still able to escape the walls of the castle. Matilda and Clara hide in the nearby convent, but are quickly discovered by Romaldi, and are sent a letter demanding their return home. The abbess helps the girls escape to travel to another convent, but after becoming fatigued during their journey, they come upon the benevolent and ethereal Lady Malvina. The girls are showered with Malvina’s compassion and kindness in her hidden underground dwelling in the forest.

One evening, Matilda is presented with a letter detailing Lady Malvina’s mysterious history. Reading it, she discovers that as a girl Malvina was the sole heir to a large estate, promised to be married to her lover, Sir Egbert, and had met a distressed young woman, named Josephine, in the woods and secretly took her into her own care. She lived in pure happiness until her father died, after which Sir Egbert began to act coldly towards her and Josephine left her to grieve the loss of her lover alone, which she later discovered to be the result of an affair between her two closest companions. She tried to go through with the marriage as planned, but at the altar exclaimed that her friends were and love and should be married instead, despite the great pain and sorrow it caused her. Later, when she was invited by Sir Egbert to visit them, it was revealed that he was unhappy with the ill-intentioned Josephine and asked for Malvina’s forgiveness. Having heard the conversation between the former lovers and feeling enraged, Josephine storms in and murders Sir Egbert. Suffering from such deep pain, Malvina moved into her current subterranean apartments to protect herself from accusations that she had killed Egbert and the cruel world that injured her so greatly. Matilda weeps for her friend’s losses, and feels a deep connection with her as she is the only mother figure Matilda has ever possessed.

Soon Matilda and Clara receive a letter stating that the son of Baron de Malvern has survived his time in the war, and a foray outside with Malvina results in the three women being discovered by Josephine’s men. They are taken to Josephine’s court, but Matilda is cast aside, and is taken back to the de Malvern castle. She is left by Josephine’s guard to get into the castle herself and after sleeping outside for a couple days, she manages to sneak into the castle, where she finds her father lying on the floor covered in blood. He is only able to explain that he has slain himself, her mother has been poisoned, and to apologize for his cruelty to her before he dies, and Matilda, horror stricken, is only able to find her way to a chair before she faints.

She awakes to Percy holding her and he reveals that he is the son of the Baron de Malvern and rightful heir of the title and estate. He also tells her that her father sent an assassin to kill him and his father, though he only managed to murder the Baron, and that he sent a loyal friend to watch over the castle, giving an explanation to the eerie suit of dark armor Matilda had seen wandering the castle. Matilda then tells her story leading up to the present, and concludes with her sorrow over the fate of Malvina. Percy takes Matilda to Josephine’s castle to rescue her friend but Josephine, surprised and overwhelmed by the invasion, stabs herself in the heart to avoid capture. They find Malvina in the dungeon and bring her back to safety with them, securing her innocence for Sir Egbert’s death with the king. Matilda marries Percy to become Lady de Malvern and the two live long happy lives together with their children. Malvina remains heavily involved in Matilda’s life, and is able to spend her dying breath in Matilda’s arms.

Bibliography

Frank, Frederick. “The Gothic Romance 1762–1820.” Horror Literature: A Core Collection and Reference Guide, edited by Marshall Tymn. R. R. Bowker Company, 1981, pp. 3–175.

The Mystic Tower; or Villainy Punished. London, W. Glindon, N.D.

Summers, Montague. A Gothic Bibliography. The Fortune Press, 1940.

“T Kaygill,” British Museum, https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG154036. Accessed 28 Oct. 2020.

“W Glindon,” British Museum, https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG159720. Accessed 19 Nov. 2020.

Researcher: Olivia M. Walker

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