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The Adventures of Capt. Duncan

The Adventures of Capt. Duncan

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 Humours of His Tartarian Guide, His Shipwreck, and Distresses In The War With Hyder Ally, &c.

Author: Mary Anne Radcliffe
Publisher: Thomas Hurst
Publication Year: 1802
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 11.5cm x 19cm
Pages: 36
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2.R345 1802

Dubiously attributed to Mary Anne Radcliffe when published in 1802, this chapbook tracks a captain’s journey across what’s east of England

Material History

The Sadleir-Black Collection edition of The Adventures of Capt. Duncan wears its history well. Despite its age, the book has maintained its blue cover, bound by a thick string. Frayed and whittled down on the sides, the cover sheets are thinner and frailer than the sheets containing the book’s text, perhaps indicating that the covers have borne the brunt of the wear and tear. The exterior cover notes an extravagant number of salesmen across England responsible for the publishing of the book. The interior cover recognizes this edition as the premium printing copy of the story, costing an additional three pence, up to a total of nine. That distinction, as a premium publication, likely enabled the cover’s survival, as this edition supplied a superior set of craftsmanship and materials.

The bluebook cover of The Adventures of Captain Duncan

With regards to the pages, The Adventures of Capt. Duncan is relatively short. Even amongst these few pages, they are uneven, jetting outward or inward, indicating some combination of both uneven page-cutting and the wear of centuries. The pages themselves are brittle, dry, and yellowed, yet firmer than the cover. When turning the pages, they tend to crunch a bit and move with rigidity.

Following the initial pages that note the book’s publication information, there is an illustration of Captain Duncan in his armor. This serves as a frontispiece, with the inelaborate title The Adventures of Capt. Duncan. On the very next page, the expansive title takes up a full page, declaring 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 Humours of His Tartarian Guide, His Shipwreck, and Distresses In The War With Hyder Ally, &c. This title uses an array of fonts, spacings, and capitalizations on the page, ranging from robotic, direct fonts, to floral and italicized fonts. On the cover, there is a similar mixing of fonts. There are variations even among the spaces between the letters within words, as well as the spacing between lines.

The rest of the book is not nearly as unique. The text itself is fairly plain. There is little spacing between lines and a 1.5 to 2 centimeter margin on the pages. The book is brief, at only thirty-six pages, in the style of gothic chapbooks. The back cover of the book shares the same physical qualities as the blue front cover: it is thin, fragile, and is more sparsely populated with printed text.

Textual History

The Adventures of Captain Duncan was one of two installations in Radclife’s New Novelist’s Pocket Magazine (Brown et al). The magazine’s publishers hoped the magazine would “contain an elegant & chaste collection of Original Novels, Tales, Romances, Lives, Memoirs, Voyages, Travels, &c. together with a judicious Selection from the Writings of those Authors, whose works have in any degree excited public notoriety” but after those first two issues, the project was abandoned (quoted in Potter 64).

The preface of The Adventures of Captain Duncan

As a chapbook, The Adventures of Captain Duncan holds a small place in the larger chapbook publishing landscape. From roughly the late 1790s to the early 1800s, Thomas Hurst published gothic chapbooks from his office at 32 Paternoster Row. He was integral in many of the gothic chapbooks published between 1798 and 1803, including The Adventures of Captain Duncan. Hurst spearheaded the serial Radclife’s New Novelist’s Pocket Magazine, and was also the exclusive seller in England, while the rest of the magazines were sold in Scotland (Potter 64). Another gentleman, Thomas Brown, joined Hurst in publishing Radcliffe’s New Novelist’s Pocket Magazine, as well as The Marvelous Magazine (Potter 64–5).

As the eighteenth century turned to the nineteenth, chapbooks were sold with practices that echo modern multi-level marketing schemes. The primary distributor (Thomas Hurst, for example) would collect a group of subordinates to sell the chapbooks, with the option to sell the books individually or further distribute them to other sellers (Potter 67). Booksellers’ advertisements in newspapers and such reveal an extensive network of this wholesale distribution (Potter 67–8).

Mary Anne Radcliffe was billed as the writer, compiler, and editor of Radclife’s New Novelist’s Pocket Magazine. Her name immediately begets ambiguity with its similarities to the well-known Gothic novelist Ann Radcliffe, but that is not where the issues end. Mary Anne Radcliffe was certainly a real person. She was born Mary Clayton of Nottingham. She was well educated, considering her status and gender (Brown et al). At the mere age of fourteen, she married Joseph Radcliffe, giving her the fateful Radcliffe name. Following her marriage, she dotted across England between Edinburgh, London, and Nottingham (Brown et al). Mary Anne Radcliffe certainly wrote as well. The works most clearly attributable to her are The Female Advocate; or An Attempt to Recover the Rights of Women from Male Usurpation and Memoirs … in Familiar Letters to Her Female Friend. Scholars have doubted her other attributed works, however, which include an array of gothic novels as well as translations of foreign novels (Brown et al).

The frontispiece for The Adventures of Captain Duncan

Most modern scholarship focuses on Mary Anne Radcliffe’s larger Gothic novels rather than her chapbooks, but they reveal a larger practice of misattribution, where certain publishers attached Mary Anne Radcliffe’s name to books in an attempt to sell more—relying on her proximity to Ann Radcliffe’s name (Garside et al). Some of Mary Anne Radcliffe’s attributions are more suspect than others. One such novel, Radzivil, was attributed to her several years after publication. The Fate of Velina de Guidova, which is a translation from Russian that is set in France, was attributed after an even greater wait (Brown et al). Both novels focus on material entirely distinct from The Female Advocate and point to a different author entirely (Brown et al).

Radclife’s New Novelist’s Pocket Magazine has fewer suspect circumstances but still exists within the context of those other misattributions. The magazine correctly identifies Mary Anne Radcliffe’s address and she was attributed at the time of publishing (Brown et al). Some modern scholars are skeptical of Mary Anne Radcliffe being the true author or editor of the pocket magazine, but it nevertheless holds a sharper connection than her other attributions (Garside et al). Whether Mary Anne Radcliffe truly wrote and edited for the magazine or someone else did, The Adventures of Captain Duncan remains a valuable part of the history of chapbooks in England.

Narrative Point of View

The Adventures of Captain Duncan switches between an unidentified third-person narrator and the first-person narration of Captain Duncan, through what appears to be a set of direct statements from Duncan. The third-person narrator functions as an interpreter of those notes. Both styles delve into the captain’s emotions, but his first-person interjections serve as sharper confirmations of the preceding paraphrases of the narrator.

Sample Passage:

As the Captain became familiarised to his Tartar guide, he found him a fellow of infinite humour and much humanity, well acquainted with the world, and endeavoring all he could to alleviate the gloom that frequently clouded his countenance. One principal object with him seemed to be to impress the Captain with an idea of his high importance as a messenger belonging to the Sultan, and that his authority wherever he came was not to be disputed. “ Thus,” says Capt. Duncan, “  whenever we stopped at a Caravansera, he immediately called about him, in the name of the Sultan, for fresh horses, victuals, &c. And though the utmost submission was shown to his will, he nevertheless frequently exhibited his muscular powers by unmercifully belaboring all indiscriminately with his whip, and I was afraid to interfere, fearful that he might think it necessary to give me a flogging to avoid suspicion.” (15)

These two modes of narration function within the larger historical implications of The Adventures of Captain Duncan, an international story that has the power to shape English understandings of lands and cultures beyond England. The reports of Captain Duncan thus operate as a historical primary source within this fictional text. This adds a sense of realism, because it seems as though these could be the words of a real man, who had a real story, who is being studied by a real person. Additionally, several times throughout the book, there are extended passages explaining local customs, none more prominently than when the text explains that during Hajj, in Mecca, the worshippers “enter the former [Masjid al-Haram], and, walking seven times round the little building contained within it, say, ‘This is the house of God and of his servant Abraham’” (10–11). These insights into other cultures gain veracity the same way Captain Duncan’s own story does: through the book’s presentation of his journals as a primary source within the narration.

Summary

Captain Duncan’s journey begins as any journey does: with a departure. In May 1781, he receives word that he must go to India to help sort out his father’s affairs. Duncan leaves his spouse and two daughters in England. Rather than directly sail around the Cape of Good Hope, he travels over land, across Europe and the Middle East en route to India. He dots between European cities like Brussels, Venice, and Augsburg. In Augsburg, Duncan finds himself in a church when a friar indulges him in drink, issuing vague religious proclamations about his journey. The friar is welcoming, joyful, and telling stories that keep Duncan enthralled before continuing his journey.

The title page of The Adventures of Captain Duncan

He reaches a fork in the road at Venice, deciding whether to travel directly through Syria or through Egypt. After opting for a boat ride to Egypt, he meets a young English woman he hopes to bring with him to India, but her guardian stops his pursuits. When he lands in Alexandria, he still heads through Syria, taking his longest stop at Aleppo. His journey is largely defined by the different British people he meets along his travels, and Aleppo is no different. Those expatriates offer comfort, refuge, and rescue to Duncan throughout his trek. He connects with a large, traveling caravan going towards Mecca; one large enough to withstand bands of robbers along their path. It eventually links up with a few more caravans, each boasting legions of soldiers and beasts to fortify their trip.

Once he reaches Mecca, he meets yet another woman who wants to run away, this one suffering in the clutches of an older husband. With their plan hatched, Captain Duncan is quite prepared to sneak away, but the British Consul hears of this scheme and shuts it down. Duncan even faces local legal trouble resultant from his infringement upon a legal marriage, but the Consul smuggles him out of town with a Turkish guide.

The captain quickly irritates the overbearing guide with his mocking of the guide’s sense of seriousness and superiority, leading to some scuffles over horses and such. He specifically objects further when the guide traffics several women via their traveling party, but to no avail. They eventually reach Mosul, where their partnership ends and the captain links up with an Armenian merchant to assist him in his travels. The merchant brings him to the last leg of his journey, where he boards a ship to take him to India.

However, calamity strikes and they misjudge the monsoon patterns of the waterway and condemn their ship to ruin. Despite battling the waters and waves, the ship collapses when a hurricane forms and the crewmates subsequently drift across the sea. They wash ashore at Hydernagur, where Indian locals, who do not take kindly to British colonizers, capture them.

This page introduces traveling actions of the story

When leader Hyder Ally finds out that Captain Duncan is the son of the renowned Colonel Duncan, he wishes to turn Captain Duncan to his side in the war. At first, it comes in bribes, where Hyder offers men and money, but it later comes in threats, where Hyder’s men temporarily hang and torture Captain Duncan, before eventually conceding.

Duncan has a British companion in these troubles, one Mr. Wall. Mr. Wall came on this journey out of financial necessity; he was in love with a woman, and his previously wealthy father had wasted his riches on some poor investments, leaving him destitute and unable to wed. He came to India to try to recoup some wealth, enough to get married. But Mr. Wall never returns to England and dies in Hydernagur, shackled at the feet to the still-living Captain Duncan.

There is still another English expatriate, however, for General Matthews marched into town to save Captain Duncan from his captors. After gaining freedom, Duncan enlists as a negotiator between British and Jemadar forces, who are an independent sect of forces who revolted from Hyder Ally’s son, Tippoo Sahib. The British military wants Jemadar’s support to help gain a valuable garrison to fight back against Sahib. Successful in these negotiations, Captain Duncan continues on his journey, moving farther across India before even venturing out to China. He finally returns to England some three and a half years later.

Bibliography

Brown, Susan, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy, eds. “Mary Ann Radcliffe: Writing.” Orlando: Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Online, 2006. http://orlando.cambridge.org 3 November 2021.

P. D. Garside, with J. E. Belanger, A. A. Mandal, and S. A. Ragaz. “The English Novel, 1800–1829: Update 4 (June 2003–August 2003).” Cardiff Corvey: Reading the Romantic Text 12 (Summer 2004). http://www.romtext.org.uk/reports/engnov4/ 3 November 2021.

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

Radcliffe, Mary Anne. The Adventures of Captain Duncan. London, Hurst, 1802.

Researcher: Yusuf Ragab Hacking

The Affecting History of Louisa

The Affecting History of Louisa

The Affecting History of Louisa, the Wandering Maniac, or, ‘Lady of the Hay-Stack;’ So called, from having taken up her Residence under that Shelter, in the Village of Bourton, Near Bristol, in a State of Melancholy Derangement; and supposed to be a Natural Daughter of Francis I. Emperor of Germany. A Real Tale of Woe.

Author: Unknown
Publisher: A. Neil
Publication Year: 1804
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 10cm x 17cm
Pages: 36
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2.A388 1804

This 1804 chapbook, a shorter version of George Henry Glasse’s English translation of L’Inconnue Histoire Véritable, connects the life of Louisa, a deranged wanderer of Bourton, England, to her greatest loss—the social denial of her identity as the natural daughter of Francis I, Emperor of Germany.

Material History

The title page for The Affecting History of Louisa.

The Affecting History of Louisa, the Wandering Maniac, or, ‘Lady of the Hay-Stack;’ So called, from having taken up her Residence under that Shelter, in the Village of Bourton, Near Bristol, in a State of Melancholy Derangement; and supposed to be a Natural Daughter of Francis I. Emperor of Germany. A Real Tale of Woe. If you are still here after reading this vehement title, congratulations—you have what it takes to dive into this 1804 gothic chapbook.

This “shilling shocker” is more popularly known as The Affecting History of Louisa. Though an unsung art by many, this novel does possess a special role at the University of Virginia by existing as an individualized, treasured lens of history in the Sadleir-Black Collection presented by Robert K. Black. The Sadleir-Black Collection’s version of the novel is a fragile, well-worn 10cm by 17cm. A beautiful yet dreary illustration adorns the primary page of the coverless and boundless novel. There is evidence of past stitching and binding of the pages, which possibly suggest that the novel was removed from a larger accumulation of gothic novels. 

The pages of Robert Black’s The Affecting History of Louisa are brittle, yellow, and stained, yet they hold many secrets to the publishing and history of the unique novel. Throughout a series of 36 pages (the pages are numbered; however, the numbering begins six pages in with 8, and ends with 38), there are details including catchwords (a repeated/prewritten word located on the following page of a subsequent paragraph) and signature marks (numerical/alphabetical markings) which were used to assist the bookbinders and printers and to ensure correct book assembly on their part.

The frontispiece for The Affecting History of Louisa.

The precision and care that went into the assembling of the book is also reflected in the structured form of the printed words. With 1.5 cm side margins and a 2.5 cm bottom margin, the dainty 2 mm letters with their didonesque font are able to flow across the page and make an impact through their meaning more so than through their appearance. Several of the letters do attempt to make their own statements by being unconventional compared to current norms. Throughout the novel, the character “s” is depicted in multiple forms; sometimes taking on the conventional “s” form, but also sometimes being printed as a long S that looks more like an “f.” This printing trend began to dwindle following the eighteenth century. Between the cultural switch, there were some words where the flow of calligraphy followed the shape of a modern day “s,” and several words still followed that of an “f.” The printing of this novel simply adhered to those social norms of orthography. 

Not only does the interior of this chapbook portray the textual effects of social change, but the exterior does as well. On the cover page of the novel, there is a small, handwritten “5” on the top-left corner. This handwritten “5” could represent several things: perhaps a monetary value, or perhaps a set volume in a more mass pamphlet. Either way, it is evident that this novel has had its experiences with society. The Affecting History of Louisa appears to have been worn and appreciated by previous readers. 

Textual History

The Affecting History of Louisa is a petite chapbook with an extensive title within its first pages: The Affecting History of Louisa, the Wandering Maniac, or, “Lady of the Hay-Stack;” So called, from having taken up her Residence under that Shelter, in the Village of Bourton, near Bristol, in a State of Melancholy Derangement; and supposed to be a Natural Daughter of Francis I. Emperor of Germany. A Real Tale of Woe. There is no author listed for this chapbook.

This image presents an advertisement for a drama by James Boaden titled The Maid of Bristol, which inspired the reiteration of its story via this chapbook. 

The initial ambiguity of the chapbook’s authorship stems from the fact that the original work was a French text titled L’Inconnue Histoire Véritable; moreover, English translations included many different titles and forms. George Henry Glasse, a scholar and clergyman, first translated this text into English as A Narrative of Facts. A second edition of Glasse’s translation appeared in 1801 as Louisa: A Narrative of Facts, Supposed to Throw Light on the Mysterious History of “The Lady of the Haystack.” This book was popular enough that it “quickly reached a third edition” (Vian and Ellis). There exists another edition of Glasse’s translation with yet another title, A Narrative of Facts: Supposed to Throw Light on the History of the Bristol-Stranger; Known by the Name of the Maid of the Hay-stack. Translated From the French, which includes an introduction signed by Philalethes. 

Glasse’s translations also inspired a three-act play called The Maid of Bristol, dramatized by James Boaden. Boaden was a dramatist whose works revolved around the gothic genre. While The Maid of Bristol is not well-known for its popularity today, the play is still accessible and available for purchase online. The Affecting History of Louisa, the Wandering Maniac is a shorter chapbook version of Glasse’s translation and was, in particular, “induced” by the popularity of Boaden’s play; the advertisement in this chapbook states, “Mr. Boaden having, with so much success, dramatized the following interesting Tale, under the title of ‘The Maid of Bristol,’ induced us to present the Public with the original Narrative; which we are enabled to do, from the most authentic documents” (Affecting History 6). The Affecting History of Louisa, then, arrived on the publication scene after many translations and iterations of the original French text that aims for a genuine, historically accurate account of the mystery at the center of the story: the true natural daughter of Francis I. 

Narrative Point of View

The Affecting History of Louisa is narrated from a third-person perspective. The frame narration opens and closes with an anonymous third-person narrator who presents part of Louisa’s history with an objective and occasionally empathetic tone. 

Sample of Third-Person Frame Narration:

Some few years ago, a young woman stopped at the village of Bourton, near Bristol, and begged the refreshment of a little milk, There [sic] was something so attractive in her whole appearance, as to engage the attention of all around her. (7)

This third-person frame narration also introduces two other embedded narratives. The first embedded narrative is an oral account by a man from Bristol who spoke with Louisa directly. The chapbook’s narrator explains that the “respectful gentleman in Bristol … has favoured us with some authentic memoirs” and then includes this oral account for several pages (15). The narrative demarcates the Bristol man’s oral narrative with quotation marks at the beginning of each paragraph. 

Sample of Bristol Man’s Oral Narrative about Louisa: 

“I should have conceived her,” says the writer, “to be about five-and-twenty; and notwithstanding the injuries which her situation and mode of life must inevitably have occasioned in her looks, she had still a very pleasing countenance. Interesting it certainly was in a high degree; but it is not easy to say how much this impression was to be attributed to the previous knowledge of her story. She had fine, expressive, black eyes and eye-brows; her complexion was wan, but not fickly; her under jaw projected a little, and I fancied I could distinguish something of the Austrian lip; but it was not decidedly marked. Her nose had nothing particular; her hair was very dark, if not black, and in length about a year and a half’s growth, not being thick, but coming down on her forehead; her arm and hand were delicate, with small long fingers.” (9)

The Bristol man’s oral narrative ends without additional commentary from the chapbook’s frame narration. Then there is a line indicating a break in the narrative, and then an italicized description of how a French narrative was found that suggests Louisa is La Fruëlen, and that the chapbook will now include the translation of this narrative. This translated narrative is presented in the third person and focuses on La Fruëlen’s tale for the next twenty-two pages. 

Sample of Translated French Narrative of La Fruëlen’s Tale: 

When the priest came to take her from her house in Bohemia, he told her, that he was going to conduct her to a convent in France. Ignorant as she was, the little which Catharine and her mama had told her of a religious life, taught her to consider a convent as an horrible prison, from which there was no escape: and this idea had so disturbed her mind, that from the moment of her quitting her habitation in Bohemia, she had formed the project of flying, as soon as possible, from such captivity. (28)

By addressing the story with a frame narrative that includes two separately sourced tales (one an oral memoir, and one a translation from a French text), the story of Louisa becomes a type of reality or history that the reader is discovering. The frame narrative works well to connect the woman who claims to be La Fruëlen to the story of the late Emperor, as well as connecting that woman to Louisa, which ultimately connects their stories in a complete manner, defining the tragic, affecting history of Louisa. 

Summary

The first page of this chapbook.

The Affecting History of Louisa is introduced as a recent tale of woe, as the narrative begins, “Some few years ago” (7). The reader is introduced to a woman of the past, in the village of Bourton, England, who is begging for milk. She is described as being young, attractive, and elegant despite her begging state. While she is beautiful, it is evident that over the years, she has experienced hardship, sickness, exposure to the natural elements, and misery. Due to the fact that no one is aware of the nature of her origin, they call her Louisa. She is infamous for her obsessive connection to sleeping in an old haystack rather than a home. As a woman who has experienced multiple episodes of insanity, there have been multiple times when Louisa has been relocated to different hospitals and villages. Despite being relocated, she always manages to find her way back to the haystack. Louisa did not put her worth in items, but spent her days interacting with the village children and going about on her own. 

After a while in the village, she is finally relocated to the village of Bitton in Gloucestershire, England, to be supported by Miss Hannah Moore and her sisters. It seemed evident that Louisa is a foreigner, so Miss Moore attempts to find out which country she is from. Miss Hannah Moore arranges for a Bristol man to visit and speak with Louisa in different languages. First, when the man speaks French, Louisa seems confused—but when he speaks German, she becomes over-emotional. When she can finally gain her composure, she denies knowing the language. The chapbook’s third-person narrator explains that this Bristol man “favoured us with some authentic memoirs” and goes on to include several pages of the Bristol man’s account of Louisa (9). The Bristol man describes Louisa as having fine, expressive black eyes, a pale complexion, a slight jut of the jaw, dark hair, delicate features, and lips that were perhaps Austrian. The Bristol man speaks to Louisa in the way a man speaks to a child. She is not dumb, but slow. He wants to know more of Louisa’s origin. While she is very guarded, he discovers that she responds well to kindness, and he learns that she is fixated on two people called mama and papa, that she understands French, that she is amused at his German, and that she has a large mark or wound on the lower part of her head behind the ear.

This page shows the introduction to the narrative translated from French.

In the next section, the chapbook begins with italicized narration explaining that a “Narrative made its appearance on the Continent” showing “so many striking coincidences” that suggest that Louisa is actually La Fruëlen, the natural daughter of Francis I, the late Emperor of Germany (15). The narrative goes on to include the entirety of the supposed translation of this originally French narrative, which begins in 1768. The narrative first introduces the Count M. de Cobenzel, the imperial minister at Brussels. He receives a letter stating that he should not be surprised if his advice and friendship are sought after. The letter is written in French, and signed La Fruëlen from Bourdeaux. He receives other letters encouraging him to support La Fruëlen, from people such as Le Comte J. de Weissendorff from Prague and Le Comte Dietrichstein from Vienna. Cobenzel begins to write with La Fruëlen, offering his support. At the beginning of 1769, the Court of Vienna informs Versailles that La Fruëlen should be arrested and taken to Brussels to be examined by Cobenzel and the First President, M. de Neny, for being an imposter. The Court of Vienna had discovered Fruëlen’s existence because the King of Spain had received a letter encouraging him to defend her, which he then shared with the Emperor, who shared it with the Empress, who called for her arrest. 

As La Fruëlen arrives in Brussels, she is met with an unsigned letter encouraging her that there is an attempt to save her so she should not despair. Cobenzel and M. de Neny question her and her origin. They describe the woman who goes by La Fruëlen as being tall, elegantly formed, with simple and majestic brown hair, fair skin, and fine dark eyes. She also speaks French with a German accent. The two men dive into the story of her childhood. She explains how she is uncertain of her birthplace, but knows she was educated in Bohemia, and grew up in a sequestered house in the country under the care of mama, Catherine, and the priest – who opposed her learning to read and write for unstated religious reasons. She describes how a stranger in huntsmen clothes would visit periodically, and while he was a stranger to her, he seemed to know her. On one visit, she noticed a red mark on his neck, and when she questioned him about it, he explained that it was the distinction of an officer, and implied that she is the daughter of one. After their conversation, the man had to depart again, but promised to return soon. This promise was broken thereafter because he had fallen ill and could not travel. The novel goes on to explain how this is historically accurate to the life of the late Emperor. On his final visit, he leaves her with a photo of himself, the Empress, and her mother. On his departure, he makes her promise to never marry and that she will be and taken care of and happy. 

After this story, the woman called Louisa describes her departure from Bohemia. First, because she is scared to share her story in front of everyone, she conjures a grand lie that seems too good to be true. Cobenzel catches her in her lie, and she is forced to tell the truth in hopes of regaining his trust. The truth behind her departure from Bohemia is that her priest had planned for her to move to a convent, but she decided to run away instead out of fear of the stories she had heard about convents. She hid in the barn of a generous farmer who provided her with the necessities she required. She still needed to gain distance from Hamburgh, though, so she journeyed to Sweden. On this journey, she injured her head with a nasty cut and required a surgeon to heal it. She then joined a compassionate Dutch family who was journeying to Sweden as well. Once she reached Stockholm, she left the travelers and stayed in the house of a German woman. She became great friends with this woman, but one day, she overheard from her hairdresser that the imperial minister of Stockholm was wondering about an escaped girl. Her fear of poverty overcame her fear of the Convent, so she turned herself in to M. de Belgioioso. He took good care of her. He first gave her housing and money, and then he invited her into his own house for safety. Within those walls, she saw a portrait of the late Emperor Francis, and fainted. They struggled to wake her and she had a bad fever, which was almost fatal. 

The final page to this “real tale of woe.”

La Fruëlen’s story becomes tragic as she explains how her supply of financial aid was cut off suddenly, and she accumulated a great amount of debt. In order to gain support, she herself wrote the letters to the people addressed at the beginning of this explanation, including Cobenzel and the King of Spain. She claimed, however, that not all the letters were forged by her, and that several had truly been sent.

Ultimately, M. de Neny is in denial that she is in fact the daughter of the Emperor. He believes that she is truly just a merchant’s runaway daughter. M. de Neny declares that she should return to her city and face her debtors as a punishment for her lies and sins. Cobenzel disagrees, however, he is near death. The day before Cobenzel dies, he receives an anonymous letter saying not to dismiss La Fruëlen, however, the note is burned and dies with him. Four days after Cobenzel’s death, La Fruëlen is released from prison, given a little bit of money for travel, and abandoned to her wretched destiny. 

At this point, the translation of the French narrative ends and the original chapbook narration resumes. This narration explains that “poor Louisa is no more” with her death on December 19, 1801 (37). The final resolution to this tale is announced in the simple fact that Louisa was discovered under the haystack in the year 1776.

Bibliography

The Affecting History of Louisa, the Wandering Maniac. London, A. Neil, 1804.

Boeden, James. The Maid of Bristol: A Play in Three Acts. New York, Printed and Published by D. Longworth, 1803.

Glasse, G. H. A Narrative of Facts: Supposed to Throw Light on the History of the Bristol-Stranger; Known by the Name of the Maid of the Hay-stack. Translated From the French. Printed for Mr. H. Gardner, Mr. Bull, Mr. Lloyd, Messrs. Evans and Hazell, and Mr. Harward. 

Glasse, G. H. Louisa: A Narrative of Facts, Supposed to Throw Light on the Mysterious History of “The Lady of the Haystack.” P. Norbury, 1801, wellcomecollection.org/works/a4226rdm/items?canvas=5&langCode=eng&sierraId=b22021437.

L’Inconnue Histoire Véritable. 1785.

Vian, Alsager and Mari G. Ellis. “George Henry (1761–1809).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. July 9, 2020. Oxford University Press. https://doi-org.proxy01.its.virginia.edu/10.1093/ref:odnb/10803.

Researcher: Abigail Grace Kiss

The Haunted Castle

The Haunted Castle

The Haunted Castle

Author: Unknown
Publisher: T. Maiden
Publication Year: c. 1799
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 11cm x 18cm
Pages: 48
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2 .L34 H 1799

Follow along with the endeavors of Julian in this chapbook, written circa 1799, to reveal secrets about his past in an unsettling castle.

Material History

The title page of The Haunted Castle

The front cover of The Haunted Castle presents nothing other than bounded cardboard binding; the cover includes no text nor images. The side of the book features a small, red, leather bound print stating The Haunted Castle at the top of the novel. Other than this small print on the side, there is nothing else on any of the binding. The title of the book appears at the top of the first page in large cursive script, resembling handwriting. The author’s name does not appear on this page with the title; in fact, the author’s name never appears anywhere in the novel. The rest of the title page is blank, leaving empty, unused space. The publication date also does not appear anywhere. The second page includes a strange piece of text, printed upside down at the bottom of the page in near illegible print, which most likely translates to “sixpence novel.” This suggests that the novel was made cheaply, as also suggested by the cover. The back of this page, includes a detailed, full-page graphic of a castle that’s printed in only black and white. The illustration presents a number of knights guiding a woman outside the large entrance of the castle. A caption in thick, bold capital letters stating “Promnelli Castle,” appears below the illustration. 

The following page introduces the start of the novel, with the title appearing once again at the top of the page. The text of the story, running 48 pages long, does not contain separate chapters.

A strange page following the title page, with upside down printing suggesting the novel’s price

The pages are in very fragile condition, nearly falling apart with each turn of a page. Pages 11 and 12 are even missing from this particular copy. The cardboard binding of the book however, which is 11 cm by 18 cm, appears to be in significantly better condition than the pages inside the novel. After the conclusion of the text, several blank, thicker pages were added to this copy of the book to make the binding easier. Printer notes, such as “A2” or “C3,”appear at the bottom of many pages. These were used as a mechanism for the printer, so that they would know how to assemble and fold the pages correctly when putting together the book.

While not tiny, the print of the book is small and slightly faint. The pages also include thin margins along all sides. Most, but not all, words that have an S are printed with the long S, which looks like an f and mimics handwriting, making the novel more difficult to read. With the exception of the illustration at the start of the text, throughout the story there are no other images included until the last page. Beneath the last paragraph of text, a small depiction of another castle sits right under the final paragraph, with “Printed by T. Maiden, Sherbourne Lane” placed beneath it. This last page also includes one of the only signs of any previous owners or readers. Marked in light pencil, just to the left of the image of the castle, is “1702.” There are no other comments found in the book that can help interpret the meaning of this simple note. The bottom left corner of page 22 also features a faded stain of an unidentifiable substance. These two markings are the only signs of any prior use. 

Textual History

The author of The Haunted Castle is unknown, but most likely resided in England, since the book was published and printed in London. Thomas Maiden, Sherbourne-Lane, printed the book for Ann Lemoine, a British chapbook seller and publisher (Bearden-White 103). According to Montague Summers’s Gothic Bibliography, two other books, also titled The Haunted Castle, were published around the same time. Summers lists The Haunted Castle. A Norman Romance by George Walker as well as The Haunted Castle written by August Lafontaine (originally written in German); this latter version is contained in the collection In Tales of Humour and Romance (Summers 348). All three of these texts, however, are distinct and not related in any way. 

The frontispiece of the c. 1799 edition of The Haunted Castle that is housed in the Sadleir-Black Collection. The 1801 edition (digitized by HathiTrust) includes a different frontispiece.

The University of Virginia Special Collections Library holds the anonymously written The Haunted Castle, which Montague Summers suggests was published in 1799. This copy appears to be the first printing and has not since been digitized online. Another edition, which can be found digitized online in HathiTrust, titled The Haunted Castle; or, The Child of Misfortune, was published in 1801, as stated on its title page. These editions are nearly identical but have just a few differing qualities between the two texts. First, both titles have the segment The Haunted Castle, but the first printing includes only this piece; the longer, The Haunted Castle; or, The Child of Misfortune, was added when the book was republished in 1801. The earlier edition consists of 48 pages, while the copy from 1801 has only 44. This 1801 copy also opens with a line that appears a few sentences into the first paragraph of the earlier version. The large, detailed image that appears before the start of the novel also differs in the two versions; the illustration in the HathiTrust (1801) copy looks more applicable to the text itself as it presents a man with an expression of fear facing an apparition of a woman. The illustration in the University of Virginia’s copy shows a woman, surrounded by knights, in front of a castle with the print “PROMINELLI CASTLE” at the foot. A second, and much smaller, image of a distant castle can also be found in both versions, with just a few distinctions concerning layout. In the earlier text, this drawing appears after the final paragraph, while in the 1801 version it sits on the title page. This suggests that some text was cut and re-edited before the novel was republished in 1801. The HathiTrust copy also does not incorporate the start of a short piece at the end titled, “IVAR AND MATILDA.” The earlier edition includes just a page and a half of this story before concluding the entire book. It is completely unrelated, and was likely the start to another chapbook in a larger collection. 

Another copy of the chapbook, not digitized online, can be found in a four-volume compilation, also published in 1801, known as English Nights Entertainments. While there is not much knowledge on this edition, information provided by The Women’s History Project states a matching number of pages as the copy in the University of Virginia’s library, as well as the same publisher and publishing city. Bearden-White’s compilation notes about English Nights Entertainments also mention “IVAR AND MATILDA” appearing on pages 47 and 48, as they do in the University of Virginia copy.

No scholarly study of The Haunted Castle can be found, which may be a result of lack of information the text itself provides. There is no evidence of any advertisements when the book was released or that it has been adapted into any other forms. After the 1801 copy, there are not any other publications or reprintings that are publicly known. The book also does not have any prequels are sequels.

Narrative Point of View

The Haunted Castle is narrated by a third-person, anonymous narrator that does not appear anywhere in the text. This narrator solely follows the story of the protagonist, Julian, and his endeavors after suddenly departing from his previous lodging, where he has spent his entire life. The narration is very descriptive, using lots of adjectives and long sentences to convey the plot information to the reader in the most detailed way; it sometimes details Julian’s emotions but never explores his thoughts and rather mainly focuses just on his actions. The story is told in chronological order of events, with no jumps back or forth in time, but is narrated in the past tense. 

Sample Passage: 

To participate in some of these scenes, the disconsolate Julian, expelled from the asylum which had fostered his infancy, without fortune or friends, and only a few ducats in his pocket, with some necessary linen, and no other guardian than his integrity, nor other companion than his horse, set out from Warsenburg upon a long and doubtful journey. As he passed the drawbridge to go out, an old domestic of the family saluted him, and knowing he was taking his departure for good, crossed himself, and wished him the most prosperous adventures. (1)

While the narrator includes descriptive accounts of Julian’s adventures, the narration does not include any dramatic irony or foreshadowing. Therefore, the narration always requires the reader to follow along with Julian and includes no additional insight to what is going to happen next on his journey. Paired with this, the incorporation of long sentences also creates a further eagerness to know the fate of Julian and his trustworthy friend, Conrad. This technique also helps create an enticing and engaging format. An example of these long sentences appears in the sample passage above, which while multiple lines long, actually consists of only two sentences. All of these aspects make the story feel even more gothic, because anything that happens comes as a total surprise and feel very sudden. The pace of the novel also feels much faster because of the long sentences, since so much plot and description are compacted into one single sentence.

Summary

The opening page of text of The Haunted Castle

The story, told by a third-person narrator, mainly focuses on the life and journeys of the protagonist, Julian. It begins in Suabia, Germany, where Julian leaves the asylum in which he lived his entire life and embarks on an uncertain course. No details are given on his sudden departure. After traveling throughout the day, Julian encounters a small cabin, where he eats dinner and chooses to stay the night. However, while he tries to sleep, he is consumed by his own thoughts, which are interrupted by the sound of people talking in the front of the cabin. Julian realizes that one of the voices belongs to Count Warsenburg, from the asylum, who has come in search of Julian so that he will return. While listening to the conversation, Julian decides to escape through the window and runs through the night through a valley until he reaches a forest in the morning. He takes a brief rest before he continues to run and then finds several cottages, where he briefly eats before departing again.

Continuing to travel through the forest, Julian reaches a clearing, where there is a lawn with a large castle at the end. It spontaneously starts storming when Julian first encounters the castle. A peasant passes by him, so Julian asks if there is anywhere he can go to seek shelter. He ends up running to the drawbridge of the castle and discovers that the door is already half open, so he enters. The foyer is infested with bats, dirt, and cobwebs, and has military objects and portraits of German emperors hanging on the walls along with marble checkered floors and large windows. Julian notices that the castle is uninhabited but fully furnished, although everything is in a state of decay. He explores the rest of the castle and then decides to sleep in one of the bedrooms. He notices a family portrait above the chimney.

The closing page of The Haunted Castle

At midnight, he wakes up to screams of distress and perceives a man at the foot of the bed; the man wears a loose dress covered in blood, and Julian thinks he looks like the man from the portrait. The phantom leads Julian out of the room to a dark narrow passage where Julian then feels a cold grip around his wrist. The two enter a dungeon where a woman lies on the ground, covered in blood, with three children around her. The woman hugs him, but the narrator then cuts to Julian waking up the next day. 

After leaving the castle, he runs into the same peasant, Conrad, as the day before. The two stick together and end up going to a funeral of an unidentified woman. They are informed that the deceased is Jemima, the Lord’s daughter. Julian is distraught, because it is revealed at the end of the novel that Jemima is his former lover. 

That night, Julian returns to the castle, intrigued. Again at midnight comes another cry of distress from someone. The phantom appears, and Julian realizes that it is his father, who tells him that his whole family has been murdered and mentions the name Marquis of Vicanze. The next day, Julian learns that the Marquis now resides in Italy, so Julian and Conrad decide to search for him. They encounter a man at an inn, who reveals that the Marquis is there. Julian’s aunt appears, and it is revealed here that Julian’s family haunts the castle, and that he survived only because the Count found Julian floating in a river, rescued him, and raised him as his own. The Marquis, however, murdered the Count, and now Julian wants vengeance. 

Julian returns to the castle and arranges a funeral for all of the murder victims. While searching a passage beyond a trap door, Jemima appears. Both Julian and Jemima are thrilled to see each other and discover that they are both alive; Jemima explains that her death was staged, because she was trying to escape the control of her father. The novel ends with a meal shared by Julian and Jemima, in which she reconnects with father and brother to create a happy ending.

Bibliography

Bearden-White, Roy. How The Wind Sits: History of Henry and Ann Lemoine, Chapbook Writers and Publishers of the Eighteenth Century. Laughing Dog Press, 2017. 

English Nights Entertainments. London, Ann Lemoine, 1801.

“English Nights Entertainments. The Haunted Castle; or, The Child of Misfortune.” The Women’s Print History Project. https://dhil.lib.sfu.ca/wphp/title/13553 

The Haunted Castle. London, T. Maiden, [c. 1799]. 

The Haunted Castle; or, The Child of Misfortune. A Gothic Tale. London, T. Maiden for A. Lemoine, 1801. HathiTrust, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uiuo.ark:/13960/t1qg3f098. 

Lafontaine, August. The Haunted Castle. In Tales of Humour and Romance. American ed. New York, R. Holcroft, 1829. 

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

Walker, George. The Haunted Castle. A Norman Romance. Minerva-Press, William Lane. 

Researcher: Reny Horner 

The Magician, or the Mystical Adventures of Seraphina

The Magician, or the Mystical Adventures of Seraphina

The Magician, or the Mystical Adventures of Seraphina. A German Romance.

Author: Unknown (possibly Delwyn)
Publisher: Minerva Press
Publication Year: 1804
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 11 cm x 17.7 cm
Pages: approximately 31
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2 .E575

Sometimes published with Arabian Lovers, this chapbook takes place in Germany and centers around Seraphina, a pious girl who must resist the temptation and power of a mysterious man who claims to be her promised husband.

Material History

The Magician, or the Mystical Adventures of Seraphina. A German Romance. To Which is Added the Arabian Lovers, a Tale is a collection of two Gothic stories grouped together, referred to as The Magician and Arabian Lovers at the tops of the pages of the respective stories. From the outside, the book has a marbled, brown leather binding. This marble effect was a common trend for binding books, in which a weak acid would be used to create the marbled appearance. There are no prominent illustrations on the front or back, but the spine of the book is decorated in gold-leaf illustrations of wreaths and flowers as well as some gold-leaf horizontal stripes, separating the illustrations and symbols. On the spine, the book is referred to as The Entertainer and the number three, potentially indicating the volume or edition number. Also, the edges of the pages are speckled with blue ink. This is the result of a book decoration method in which the speckles would be hand-painted onto the edges of the paper. The book is roughly 11 centimeters wide, 17.7 centimeters long, and 2.2 centimeters thick.

Inside the book, there are five other stories, printed with different fonts and margins than The Magician and Arabian Lovers. The book starts with The Magician and Arabian Lovers, followed by the five additional stories. Each of the stories also restarts the page numbering instead of a continuous numbering throughout all of the stories. Some of the stories have frontispieces with illustrations, although The Magician and Arabian Lovers does not. There is even a frontispiece in hand-painted color for one of the stories, although the rest of the frontispieces are black-and-white. This suggests that the book was a collection of different chapbooks, a common practice at the time. The pages of the book are speckled with small grey bits of paper and yellowed with age. Overall, the pages feel worn and delicate, with the paper being thin enough to see through to the back of the page. The Magician takes up approximately 31 pages of the overall book, which is roughly 290 pages. There are also some marks of ownership inside the book, including a handwritten table of contents in the front in what appears to be Michael Sadleir’s handwriting. The table lists the stories inside the book, along with publication years and potential author names, but those are unclear. Additionally, there is a “J Phillips” written on the half-title page for The Magician.

The full table of contents in Michael Sadleir’s handwriting

Focusing specifically on The Magician, the font and margins are consistent across the text. The bottom margin is wider than the top, with a fair amount of white space around the main text on each page. In terms of spacing, the words are on the tighter side and the font is also a moderate size. There is a half-title page for only The Magician before the full-title page which contains the complete title for both The Magician and Arabian Lovers. The half-title page and full-title page are formatted differently, with different line breaks in the title and fonts. There is no author printed on the full-title page, however, the title page does list the publication location and year, 1804. While there is no frontispiece for these two stories, there is a small illustration of flowers at the end of The Magician.

Overall, the book itself externally appears to have a relatively nice, higher quality binding and attention to detail on the outside, as seen by the marbled leather and speckled pages. Inside the book, the quality of the paper feels cheaper and worn with time. The book is also inconsistent with its formatting throughout the different stories, so at one point the stories may have been separated. 

Textual History

The half-title page for The Magician

In 1803, The Magician was published by itself as part of a collection of stories in an earlier version of The Entertainer (Frank 136). Even earlier than that, The Magician was published under the title The Story of Seraphina in Literary Leisure with a date in 1800 printed above it (Clarke ii, 78). At the top of this version of The Story of Seraphina there is a headnote from the author explaining that he found the story in “the hand-writing of poor Delwyn” and that he did not know if the story was a German translation or something Delwyn wrote himself. Additionally, the author anticipates that it will be well-received since the author notes that “perhaps it may not be unacceptable to my readers” (Clarke 78). It seems that this could be the basis of why The Magician is referred to as a German story. However, no author is mentioned in both of the University of Virginia’s copies and there are no known precise German origins beyond this headnote.

As the title The Magician: Or the Mystical Adventures of Seraphina. A German Romance. To Which Is Added the Arabian Lovers, a Tale suggests, the two stories were originally published separately in the early eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There are two versions of the publication at the University of Virginia library, one of which is simply the two stories in a small chapbook. The other version (described above) is in a collection of other stories in a book named The Entertainer. Both versions at University of Virginia are from 1804. Around the world, the two stories are published together in chapbooks owned by multiple libraries, with versions appearing from 1803 and 1804.

The full-title page for both stories

While it is unclear exactly at which point the two stories were first published together, the Minerva Press certainly did so in 1804, which is the year printed on the copy in the University of Virgina’s edition of The Entertainer. The Minerva Press was an extremely popular Gothic publishing company created by William Lane (Potter 15). Not only did Lane’s company publish Gothic literature, but they also had circulating commercial libraries, which helped boost the popularity of Gothic texts (Potter 15; Engar). However, these libraries were still not affordable to the poorest demographics, although they certainly made the Gothic more accessible to the general population (Potter 15). The Minerva Press was often criticized for the cheap quality of its publications and “lack of literary excellence” (Engar). Books printed at the Minerva Press were made using cheap, flimsy materials and sometimes contained errors. Furthermore, publications from the Minerva Press were often re-bound by others (Engar).

There does not seem to be a significant presence in modern academic scholarship of The Magician. Considering that the stories were published by the Minerva Press, this could be due to their lower quality production and the company’s reputation (Engar). There are, however, copies of both The Magician and Arabian Lovers available for sale online. One paperback version lists the two stories together with the same title as The Entertainer does, with no authors listed. This version is sold on Amazon and was printed in 2010, although the description of the book does note that it “is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.” There are digital versions of archival copies of The Magician and Arabian Lovers as a paired story from 1803available online, found on Google Books.

Narrative Point of View

The Magician is narrated by a third-person narrator who is not present in the plot. Early on in the story, the narrator supplies additional details about the backgrounds and personalities of some of the minor characters such as Bianca. The narrator often focuses on thorough descriptions of the surroundings, especially scenes of luxury and opulence. When describing the environment, the narration is flowery and elegant with longer sentences. The narrator supplies Seraphina’s feelings and thoughts quite frequently, although the mysterious man’s thoughts are kept hidden. Unlike the long-winded descriptions, however, the narration style alternates between a choppier or longer style depending on Seraphina’s mood and the tone of her thoughts. Additionally, the narration provides dialogue from Seraphina’s various conversations.

Sample Passage:

This mixture of menace and submission terrified Seraphina, who found herself completely in his power, in a room most luxuriantly fur-nished, where not a single being but themselves appeared, and where every thing bespoke the uncontrouled voluptuousness of the master. In a few minutes a small table, covered with the most exquisite dainties, appeared in the recess, and Seraphina gazed in wonder. Her lover besought her to take some refreshment. She had not eaten since she quitted the hotel with her aunt in the morning, and she really wanted food. She suffered him, therefore, to persuade her, but she took merely some sweetmeats, and resolved to forbear touching salt while she staid; for, dazzling as was the magnificence with which she was surrounded, she had no wish but to escape. She felt restrained in eating too, as her strange companion still retained her fingers in his energetic grasp. At length, he prevailed on her to drink a glass of wine; wine; it was exquisite, but Seraphina was alarmed, and insisted on diluting it with water. (23–24)

By using third-person narration, the chilling power and demeanor of the mysterious man is amplified. Even “surrounded” by the “magnificence” and material comforts of the castle, Seraphina is unable to truly enjoy anything since “she had no wish but to escape.” The third-person narration aids the story from this viewpoint, since spending more time on the setting is the narrator’s choice, while Seraphina is more focused on her escape and emotions for the majority of the story. The narrator continues to describe the environment and explore Seraphina’s thoughts as the man attempts to convince her to consent to him, both by threatening her with his wrath and by offering her all the luxuries at his disposal. However, Seraphina continuously feels “restrained” from enjoying any of the material comforts surrounding her by her fear of the mysterious man, which is evident in her paranoia in eating or drinking too much of the food he provides her. By continuously describing the environment, the narration serves as a reminder of how Seraphina is not only emotionally surrounded by the man’s presence, but how she is also physically enclosed in this extravagant space, itself a reminder of his authority. Not only does Seraphina feel restrained, but the man physically restrains her by constantly holding her hand every time they are together, which the narrator emphasizes by how he “still retained her fingers in his energetic grasp” in this passage and throughout the rest of the text. What the man truly plans for Seraphina is hidden from her and the narration, so the fear and uncertainty she experiences becomes more palpable. Seraphina is constantly surrounded by “the mixture of menace and submission” the man exudes, through his threats and his physical presence in the form of the perpetual handholding. The narration bolsters this fear by providing insight into her feelings and continuously contrasting the luxurious environment with the man’s unsettling, constant presence that haunts Seraphina even when she is alone.

Summary

The story of The Magician, or the Mystical Adventures of Seraphina begins with the yearly fair in Francfort in 1464. The Italian Lady Bianca d’Alberto attends the fair with her sixteen-year-old niece, Seraphina, who is also Bianca’s adoptive daughter. Bianca’s husband, the Colonel, and his brother, Seraphina’s father, were both serving in the army when Seraphina’s father died. The Colonel promised his dying brother that he would adopt Seraphina and kept true to his promise before also passing away, leaving Bianca to raise the “pious and innocent” Seraphina (2). While in Francfort, Bianca and Seraphina go to see a conjurer with a nefarious reputation who performs supernatural acts such as transformations and fortune telling.

As they watch the show, the magician, Gortz, amazes the crowd. At one point, a sudden, unidentified voice shouts Gortz’s name, but the show continues. Gortz focuses on Seraphina and offers to reveal her future husband. Seraphina refuses, but Bianca pushes her to listen to Gortz. However, Seraphina believes that this type of magic is evil and does not want to participate. At one point, Seraphina sees a regally dressed man across the room, staring intently at her. When Gortz makes a magic circle around a fire and tells Seraphina to enter the circle, she hesitates, only to see an illusory version of herself get up. The fake Seraphina enters the circle and chaos erupts, smoke and shrieks coming out of the circle. Everybody, including Bianca, runs away, leaving Seraphina alone with Gortz’s body when the smoke clears. She attempts to leave, at first trying the door and then piling benches up to reach the windows, but fails.

The last page of The Magician with a small illustration of flowers

Seraphina again sees the noble, “majestic” man from earlier and they stare intently at each other (13). He holds her hand, refusing to let go, and tells her that he will take care of her. The man reveals that he’s sent the fake Seraphina with her Aunt and that he is extremely powerful. He then gives Seraphina an ultimatum: either become his friend and wife or face his power if she refuses. However, Seraphina already has a childhood friend, Ferdinand, at home interested in marrying her. The man even claims that Seraphina’s father promised her to him when he died in the army. At this point, Seraphina faints and wakes up in his castle and the man again appears before her. Seraphina asks the mysterious man for some time and he gives her a week to decide, telling her that he knows what she thinks, so she cannot deceive him. Once he leaves, a servant attends Seraphina, but she is too scared to even cry. Eventually, she speaks aloud, asking where she can go in the castle. The man appears before her, dressed magnificently, and takes her around the castle. Seraphina is stunned by the many servants, jewels, and luscious flowers they pass by. The man leads her to an empty room, still holding her hand even as she eats. He orders for people to start dancing as entertainment. As they watch the dancing, the man tells her that she must consent to him if she wants to see his true self. At this point, Seraphina decides that his power must come from an evil source and to refuse him at the end of the week.

For the rest of the week, the man holds many exquisite events for her like plays and tournaments. He continuously holds her hand and confesses his love throughout the week, but Seraphina remains disgusted and fearful. Once the week finally ends, he meets Seraphina and asks if she’ll stay with him. Seraphina refuses, saying that she will never give in to magic and then “those sacred names” (29). Immediately, Seraphina wakes up in a bed in Francfort with her aunt. Bianca reveals that she has just received word from Italy that Ferdinand has finally gotten permission to marry her and Seraphina has been sleeping the whole time after the magic show. The story ends with a statement on how upholding virtue will ultimately result in happiness.

Bibliography

Clarke, Hewson. Literary Leisure: or, The Recreations of Solomon Saunter, Esq. [Pseud.]. vol. 2, W. Miller, 1802.

Engar, Ann W. “The Minerva Press; William Lane.” The British Literary Book Trade, 1700–1820, edited by James K. Bracken and Joel Silver, Gale, 1995. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 154. Literature Resource Center.

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, and Jack G. Voller, Greenwood Publishing Group Inc., 2001: 133–146.

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

 “The Magician; or The Mystical Adventures of Seraphina. A German Romance. To Which Is Added The Arabian Lovers, a Tale.” Amazon, Minerva Press, for Lane and Newman, 2010.

The Magician: Or, The Mystical Adventures of Seraphina. A German Romance. To Which Is Added The Arabian Lovers, a Tale. Minerva Press, 1803. Google Books.

 The Magician: Or, the Mystical Adventures of Seraphina. a German Romance. to Which Is Added the Arabian Lovers, a Tale. London: Printed at the Minerva-Press, for Lane and Newman, 1803. Print.

The Magician: Or the Mystical Adventures of Seraphina. A German Romance. To Which Is Added the Arabian Lovers, a Tale. Printed at the Minerva Press, for Lane and Newman, 1804.

Researcher: Jennifer Li

Statira

Statira

Statira: Or, The Mother; A Novel

Author: [Mrs. Showes]
Publisher: Minerva Press
Publication Year: 1798
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 11cm x 18cm
Pages: 200
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2 .S53 S 1798

This 1798 novel written by Mrs. Showes examines the strength of marital versus motherly love in the face of jealousy and deception.

Material History

The marble paper cover of Statira with quarter leather binding

A copy of Statira; Or, the Mother. A Novel by the “Author of Interesting Tales” is found in the Sadleir-Black Collection of Gothic Fiction at the University of Virginia. The title and author of the novel appear as stated above on the title page. However, the University of Virginia library catalog has listed the author as Mrs. Showes. There is no indication on the book itself that the author of Statira; Or, the Mother is a woman.

The cover of Statira holds no markings other than this shortened title stated on the spine in gold lettering. The cover is merely an abstract pattern made of marbled paper, a decorative technique that dates back to 118 CE and was commonly used for book binding in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries due to its simple and inexpensive method of production involving only water, ink, and paper. The book is held together sturdily by quarter sheep binding that can be identified by the grain patterns on the leather. However, a descriptive insert in this copy, likely placed by Michael Sadleir himself, states that the book is bound by quarter calf leather. To have “quarter” binding is to have leather that extends across the spine as well as a small portion of the front and back covers. The descriptive insert is comprised of an index card and handwriting in pen, including all of the information stated on the title page such as the official title, the author’s pseudonym, the publisher “Minerva Press,” and the dedication “for William Lane, 1789.” The official dedication on the title page reads, “For William Lane Leadenhall-Street.”

This insert was written by the book collector Michael Sadleir

This copy of Statira is evidentially aged, but remains in good condition. Vertical seams along the leather binding indicate that it has been read more than once. The pages between the front and back covers are thin, brittle, and yellowed, but all pages are present and untorn.

The print of the text appears to be an average size and font, corresponding to the text one would find in a twenty-first century printed book. However, this copy utilizes the “long s” form of the lowercase letter S. This is not uncommon to find in books printed in the eighteenth century. A “long s” resembles an f without the midline. It was derived from the appearance of written text, in which cursive writing sometimes altered the appearance of the s depending on its location in a word and the surrounding letters to which it would be connected. Therefore, an s at the beginning of a word almost always appears normally, while some appear in the form of a long s in the middle of a word. This copy of Statira includes no illustrations of any kind. Both the fourth and fifth chapters in this edition of are labeled “CHAP. IV.,” though this is the only indication of a printing error. The tops and bottoms of the pages also include notations that are not found in contemporary books. These notations involve a lettering and numbering system that may appear as “B2”, “B3”, “C1”, etc. The purpose of this system is to serve as a map that informs the printer of how the pages should be arranged in the physical production of the book.

Textual History

Statira: Or, The Mother was written by Mrs. Showes and published in 1798 by the Minerva Press. Mrs. Showes previously released a collection titled Interesting Tales that was translated from German and published anonymously in 1797 by Minerva Press. This volumecontained multiple short stories including “Biography of a Spaniel,” “The Mask,” “The Florist,” “The Robber,” “The April Fool,” and “The Idiot.” Statira lists the authorship as “by the author of Interesting Tales.”

The title page of Statira

It was not uncommon for fictional works by female authors to be published anonymously in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Minerva Press, founded by William Lane in 1780, was the largest fiction publishing company from the time of its founding until the early 1800s. The company is well known for its role in giving a voice to women by routinely publishing their work. The Minerva Press published more literature written by female authors than any other publisher at this time (Peiser). The attention given to female authors by this company likely explains the vast amount of anonymously published work that they released. Each novel printed by The Minerva Press in the year 1785 was published anonymously, as were half of the novels in the year 1800 (Engar).

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, gothic fiction grew increasingly popular among the public. These novels would commonly include a female protagonist, castles, romance, a villain, and supernatural elements. Recognizing the popularity of such stories, Minerva Press primarily printed gothic literature. However, the repetitive nature of the works released by the company was received with some criticism, along with the quality of the printed stories. One review of a Minerva production posted in the August 1797 edition of Monthly Mirror states “If we merely apprize our readers that there exists a novel bearing the title above mentioned, we think we shall do sufficient honour to the Wanderer of the Alps [1796], and the author ought to thank us for not proceeding any further” (Engar).

Statira falls within the classic pattern described above that some deemed monotonous. The novel features a female protagonist, a castle setting, romance, and a villain. Even so, the book seems to have received respectable reviews. The London periodical The Critical Review, or, Annals of Literature, published in April of 1799, included a review of Statira. The review stated, “This volume contains two novelettes, nearly of the same length, founded on the passion of jealousy. That which is entitled Statira is the more instructive; the other is extravagant and feeble. They seem to have been translated from German” (473). The archival digital copy of Statira on Eighteenth Century Collections Online appears to be the same edition that is found in the University of Virginia Sadleir-Black collection. This review is the only indication that there may be an alternative edition of Statira which was originally printed in German.

Narrative Point of View

Statira is told from the third-person point of view by an omniscient narrator who is not characterized in the novel. The narrator communicates the thoughts and feelings of every character in the story, and uses these elements to both enrich and advance the plot. The language used by the narrator is eloquent yet straightforward, often utilizing compound sentences in which many ideas are connected by colons, semicolons, or commas. The narrator also utilizes an active voice, seemingly guiding the reader’s interpretation of the events in the novel.

Sample Passage of Third-Person Narration:

But let no one censure the Count of Countess with precipitation or asperity; for the former was not a barbarian, although he may appear so at first sight—he was an unhappy misguided man, a tool in the hands of a villain that used the power he has over him for the basest purposes; and let those that are inclined to blame in credulity, remember, that a sickly constitution often occasions a debility of understanding, and that apathy and peevishness, the usual attendants of illness, naturally render the weakened mind   susceptible and suspicious, open to fraud, and inclined to jealousy; and that the fawning sycophant who makes a proper use of such opportunities, seldom fails gaining his purpose. This may be offered as some excuse for the Count’s conduct, but surely much more may be said in the Countess’s favour. A patient endurance of unmerited injuries, although it may be suffered long, will weary at last, and is always limited to a certain point; but tried beyond that, the weaker sex often exceeds the stronger in stability and resolution. (59)

While dialogue and verbal expression are often used as tools to understand characters, this passage demonstrates the role of the narrator to convey the characters’ perspectives in the absence of conversation. However, the limited dialogue in Statira does not prevent the reader from understanding the characters’ thoughts and feelings due to the role of the third person omniscient narrator. The narrator conveys the characters’ thoughts and feelings in a manner that provides the reader with a complete picture of the events taking place by offering multiple perspectives. For example, this excerpt offers a possible justification for each of the characters’ actions in light of their impending separation.

This novel also includes an interpolated found in chapter eight, when the third person omniscient narrator is replaced by Clara as she is asked to recount the story of a beautiful woman in a painting.

Sample Passage from Interpolated Tale:

“If you know her story Clara, I wish you would relate it to us; —by doing so you will oblige my friend and me.” “I will do so with pleasure; but it is long, and I fear will tire your patience. However if you are disposed to listen to me, I will satisfy your curiosity.” They seated themselves near the gate, and Clara related as follows.


“That beautiful woman was daughter to Baron Kirchberg, who lived some centuries ago, in the unfortunate times of the feuds that subsisted amongst the Nobles of Switzerland.” (81–82)

Clara’s narrative continues for the duration of the chapter, describing the story of a young man and woman who ultimately separate due to jealousy and misunderstanding despite being very much in love. In Statira, the Count and the Countess experience very similar issues that result in their separation. One effect, then, of the interpolated tale in this chapter is that it invites parallels between the two stories. Additionally, the fact that this story is shared between characters allows the Count to hear and interpret this story in the context of his own life.

Summary

Statira: Or, The Mother recounts the story of a dedicated wife and mother in the face of jealousy and deception. The novel introduces the female protagonist, Statira, as a beautiful young woman who is sought after by many esteemed men. She respectfully denies their affection because she is in love with Count Harton. When the couple turns thirty the two marry, eventually having two daughters and a son. They are exceptionally happy in their domestic life for many years, until a deep sadness overcomes Statira upon the death of her parents. Just as she starts to recover from her depression a year later, the Count falls gravely ill. While his physical health ultimately improves, his mental health remains deteriorated. The Countess spends her days accompanying him in his gloom, trying relentlessly to lift his spirits.

Here, the narrator introduces the novel’s primary antagonist: Count Harton’s servant and presumed friend, a man by the name of Murden who aims to undermine Statira’s efforts. Murden has long dreamed of gaining control of the Count’s property and wealth. The servant has always envied Statira and viewed her as a threat to his agenda. He seizes the opportunity presented by Count Harton’s reduced state to eliminate Statira as a threat and establish himself as Harton’s primary companion. Murden’s plan is to convince the Count of Statira’s infidelity and encourage the Count to indulge in an extended trip to Italy. Murden successfully plants suspicion in Harton’s mind regarding his wife’s loyalty by insinuating that she is having relations with another servant, a man she does indeed respect as he is a close family friend who once saved her parents from a carriage crash.  This jealousy builds until the Count publicly and aggressively accuses his wife of her nonexistent crime.

This page shows the use of the long s in print, as well as the letter D which illustrates the system that informs the printer of how pages should be arranged in the production of the book

A ruined reputation, along with a now dysfunctional domestic life, puts Statira in a state of misery and total isolation. Despite her attempts to convince her husband of the truth, he remains resentful and cold towards her. Resigned and distraught, she flees the estate with her eldest daughter. Her abandonment is received poorly, seemingly confirming her guilt, and Harton demands a divorce. Recognizing that there is no chance of finding love between her and her husband again, the divorce is finalized. Devastatingly, she loses custody of her children and is left entirely alone. The Countess initially returns to her hometown, but later decides to explore Europe. She never returns, and few people receive letters from her. The Count promptly departs for his planned trip to Italy, leaving his children with a distant relative.

On his way to Italy, the Count visits his friend’s sister, who is a nun at a convent in Switzerland. During his visit, he inquires about a painting of a woman hanging on the wall. The nun tells him the woman’s unfortunate story in its entirety. Idela was the daughter of a Baron by the name Kilchberg, and deeply in love with her husband Henry Toggenburg. In a battle with Kilchberg and Toggenburg’s enemy, Henry was captured and arranged to be executed. Idela resolved to find her husband, determined to either rescue him, die with him, or die for him. With elaborate disguise and deception, she took his place as prisoner accepting that she would either die in his place or be granted mercy. Fortunately, she was shown grace and convinced her husband’s executioner to show him forgiveness. Despite this demonstration of love and sacrifice, a simple misunderstanding one year later caused Henry to question Idela’s faithfulness. In a fit of rage and jealousy, he attempted to murder her. Upon realizing his error, he begged her for forgiveness, but Idela declared that she was no longer his. She spends the remainder of her life in the convent where Harton now sits, considering for the first time the possibility of his wife’s innocence.

The Count returns from his trip to find his estate in shambles and that he is in great debt.  Murden has since passed away, but the Count deduces that Murden was in fact deceitful as his wife suggested. He also receives a letter from his relative reporting that his children have smallpox and are close to death. Harton rushes to his children’s side, and joyfully finds them in better health thanks to the unremitting care of their new governess, Madame Laborde. The Count, wishing to thank Madame Laborde, learns that she has since contracted smallpox and is near death according to the physicians. The Count enters her room regardless and finds none other than Statira, who composed a new identity in the hopes of filling out her role as a mother to her children. She dies of her illness later that evening, joyful that she gets to claim her children in front of her husband in her final moments. Count Harton spends his days lamenting her loss and coping with the severity of his transgression.

Bibliography

Engar, Ann W. “The Minerva Press; William Lane.” The British Literary Book Trade, 1700–1820, edited by James K. Bracken and Joel Silver, Gale, 1995. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 154. Literature Resource Center.

Peiser, Megan. “Review Periodicals and the Visibility of William Lane’s Minerva Press.” Research Society for Victorian Periodicals, 26 Sept. 2016. http://rs4vp.org/review-periodicals-visibility-william-lanes-minerva-press-megan-peiser-university-missouri/

Showes, Mrs. Interesting Tales. London, Minerva Press, 1797.

Showes, Mrs. Statira; Or, The Mother. A Novel. London, Minerva press, 1798.

“Statira, or the mother. A novel, by the author of interesting tales.” 1799. The Critical review, or, Annals of literature Vol. 25, 1799: 473.

Researcher: Janie Edwards

Falkner

Falkner

Falkner: A Novel

Author: Mary Shelley
Publisher: Saunders and Otley
Publication Year: 1837
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 3 volumes, each 12cm x 19.4cm
Pages: 953
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2 .S52 F 1837

In this 1837 three-volume novel, set in multiple countries across Europe, Shelley grapples with the issues of one man’s guilt and his attempt to resolve it by adopting a young orphan girl.

Material History

The title page of Falkner, with Rebow’s signature in the upper right corner

Falkner is a lesser-known novel by the famed Mary Shelley. The version held in the Sadleir-Black Collection is the first edition of the text, which was published in 1837 and presents the novel in three volumes, which was a common means of publication at the time. While the spine lists the title as solely the word Falkner, the title page of the novel calls it Falkner: A Novel. We know that this was written by Mary Shelley; however, her full name is not stated in any of the three volumes. The title page in each volume simply says, “By the author of ‘Frankenstein;’ ‘The Last Man,’ &c.”. This is followed by a quote from “Rosalind and Helen” by Percy Shelley (1819). It reads,

“there stood
In record of a sweet sad story,
An altar, and a temple bright,
Circled by steps, and o’er the gate
Was sculptured, ‘To Fidelity!’”

Each volume in this set measures approximately 12 centimeters by 19.4 centimeters and is approximately 2.3 centimeters deep. The volumes are half-bound with leather; this means that the spine and corners are bound in leather, but the rest of the book is not. The leather on the spine is decorated with gold gilding. The cover is covered with blue marbled paper that is noticeably faded around the center on each volume. The edges of the pages within the volumes are also marbled blue.

A bookplate from the personal library of John G. Rebow

The pages within these volumes are of medium thickness; they are not thick, but they are also not extremely thin. Volume I consists of 322 pages, volume II is 312 pages, and volume III is 319 pages, which add up to a total of 953 pages in all. While this sounds like a lengthy read, it feels surprisingly short. There is a lot of white space on the pages, and the margins are wide, which makes each page a quick, short read. The font is not too large or too small, adding to the ease with which the novel can be read. Some pages throughout these volumes have letters or letter/number combinations at the bottom. These are printer notes, used to help the printers print, fold, and order the pages correctly. It should also be noted that in the back of Volume I, there is a front and back page of advertisements from the publisher.

These particular volumes are interesting because they each have a personal bookplate in the front, indicating that they once belonged to John Gurdon Rebow. His signature can be found on the title page of each book as well. The bookplates have call numbers, “D. 2.” written on them that most likely indicate their shelving location in Rebow’s personal library. This can be interpreted as the book being shelved on shelf 2 of bookcase D.

Overall, these particular copies of the volumes of Falkner are unique in their own ways. While clearly a matching set in the color of their marbling, the volumes are worn to varying degrees. The pages are slightly yellowed from time. The volumes clearly show their age, particularly the first volume due to some tearing where the spine was originally bound, but they seem to be in relatively nice condition for books that are centuries old.

Textual History

Falkner is the final novel written by Mary Shelley before her death. Shelley was born in August 1797 and died in February 1851. Her two most well-known works of her career are Frankenstein and The Last Man, both of which are mentioned on the title page of Falkner.

A page of advertisements from Saunders and Otley, printed in the back of Falkner volume 1

Falkner was first published in 1837 by Saunders and Otley in London. This edition was published in three volumes and was printed by Stevens and Pardon, Printers. In the same year, Falkner was published in one volume by Harper & Brothers in New York. (The Sadleir-Black Collection also houses a copy of this one-volume edition.) In addition to these versions, Falkner is also contained in various collections of Mary Shelley’s works, including The Novels and Collected Works of Mary Shelley (1996), edited by Pamela Clemit. In 2017, Falkner was translated into an Italian version, titled Il Segreti di Falkner, or Falkner’s Secret. There are also online editions of this novel. The 1837 edition published by Harper & Brothers has been archived online on the HathiTrust website.

Many advertisements and reviews of Shelley’s Falkner can be found in periodicals published near the time of its first publication. There is a brief advertisement combined with a brief review that can be found in The Standard, in an issue from March 1837. There is a shorter advertisement in an April 1837 issue of John Bull. Overall, the reviews of Falkner seem to be positive. It is ambiguous whether overall positivity is due to the actual success of Falkner or Shelley’s fame from her prior works. The Metropolitan Magazine, in a March 1837 issue, states, “The only fault that we can find with [Falkner] … is, that its tone is too universally sombre” (67). The Literary Gazette in London references “the talent of the writer” in its review of the novel (66). A combination advertisement and review in The Athenæum gives a short, concise summary of the plot of the novel without giving away the ending. At the end of the summary, it explains, “we have thus imperfectly shadowed out the mystery of the novel, but we must leave the unraveling of it to Mrs. Shelley,—satisfied, that if you put yourself under her guidance, you will own that your labour has not been in vain” (75). Many of the reviews show that the novel was often well-received in its time, yet there are some reviews that are not so kind to Shelley’s work. The Examiner contains a much less favorable review of Falkner in February of 1837: “The story of Falkner, faulty as it is, makes a small part of the book, which is swollen out with tedious reflections, and prosing explanations of motives and feelings. It will practice the reader in the art of skipping” (101).

Falkner has been discussed and written about by scholars in regard to varying subjects. Scholars have discussed Falkner both on its own and in the context of Shelley’s works, beginning in the late twentieth century and leading into the twenty-first century.

Narrative Point of View

The story of Falkner is predominantly recounted by an unnamed third-person narrator. The narration is third-person omniscient as the narrator gives insight into the characters’ thoughts and feelings. The narrator also withholds some information. Sentences largely vary in length; some are short and brief, while others are lengthy and feel quite winded. There are moments throughout the novel when the narrator also invokes a first person plural perspective. In these instances, the narrator switches to using a “we” pronoun, rather than the third-person perspective that is used in the majority of the novel.

Sample Passage:

We are all apt to think that when we discard a motive we cure a fault, and foster the same error from a new cause with a safe conscience. Thus, even now, aching and sore from the tortures of remorse for past faults, Falkner indulged in the same propensity, which, apparently innocent in its commencement, had led to fatal results. He meditated doing rather what he wished, than what was strictly just. He did not look forward to the evils his own course involved, while he saw in disproportionate magnitude those to be brought about if he gave up his favourite project. What ills might arise to the orphan from his interweaving her fate with his — he, a criminal, in act, if not in intention — who might be called upon hereafter to answer for his deeds, and who at least must fly and hide himself — of this he thought not; while he determined, that, fostered and guarded by him, Elizabeth must be happy — and, under the tutelage of her relations, she would become the victim of hardhearted neglect. These ideas floated somewhat indistinctly in his mind — and it was half unconsciously that he was building them a fabric for the future, as deceitful as it was alluring. (Volume I, 78–79)

In this passage, the narrator begins using the first person “we.” This allows a generalization—“We are all apt to think”—that relates Falkner to people as a whole. As the narration moves from the first person plural to third person, the opening generalization also paves the way for the narrator’s access into Falkner’s mind. The narrator goes into Falkner’s head and follows his train of thought. This passage is quite long, but it is composed of a mere six sentences. The statement in the middle of the passage, “What ills might arise … the victim of hardhearted neglect,” is one to note because it is the longest sentence given. The third-person point of view allows this sentence to feel akin to stream of consciousness. The dashes between the different parts of the sentence break it up and make it possible to see how each of Falkner’s thoughts connect to one another as he debates what to do with his new charge. The thoughts that do not cross his mind can also be learned through the narrator, in the sentence that notes, “of this he thought not.”

Summary

The marbled cover of Falkner

Falkner follows the story of a young girl named Elizabeth and begins in the town of Treby. Struck with consumption, her father passes away, and her mother dies a few short months later. Just before her death, Elizabeth’s mother begins writing a letter to a woman named Alithea entreating her to take in her daughter and explaining that she does not want Elizabeth to be taken in by her late husband’s family. She dies before she can finish the letter, so it is never sent. The landlord, Mrs. Baker, reads the letter, and takes in Elizabeth, hoping that the girl’s family will one day come looking for her and will reward Mrs. Baker for her kindness. While staying with Mrs. Baker, Elizabeth often goes to her mother’s grave to play, study, and pray, all while feeling close to her mother.

One day, a stranger by the name of John Falkner shows up in Treby and spends a lot of time out of town by himself. He feels guilty because he killed someone, so he goes to the graveyard to kill himself. He makes the mistake of sitting on Elizabeth’s mother’s grave to kill himself, and the young girl stops him. He worries for a young girl out by herself and opts to walk her home. When he meets Mrs. Baker, she tells him Elizabeth’s story and shows him the letter. He is struck by the realization that the woman he killed is the same woman that Elizabeth’s mother was writing to. Upon realizing this, he feels guilty and decides to take Elizabeth with him on his travels, so they leave together for London. Elizabeth begins calling Falkner “papa.” Falkner feels that Elizabeth will be happier with him than with her distant relations, so he chooses to keep her with him. They meet a friend of Falkner’s who tells them that Mr. Neville’s wife has run off with a mysterious lover, and that Mr. Neville is going after them.

Elizabeth and Falkner balance each other’s personalities well: he makes her feel safe, and she is always able to calm his temper. They have been traveling together for years when Falkner decides to hire Miss Jervis, who serves as a governess for Elizabeth. While in Baden, Germany, Elizabeth meets a sad young man, Mr. Neville; his mother was the same Mrs. Neville that ran away from her husband and eloped. Realizing that this boy is the son of Alithea weakens Falkner. He feels guilty for what has become of the boy’s life. He feels that he does not deserve to live, but he no longer wants to kill himself; he decides to join the war in Greece with the goal of dying in battle and wants Elizabeth to return to her family. Elizabeth refuses to leave him, so she stays nearby, and they part from Miss Jervis. Elizabeth desires to save Falkner, but she misses the Neville boy.

While a soldier in Greece, Falkner does not take care of himself because he is still trying to die. He falls ill and is injured in battle by a musketball. The surgeon recommends that he be taken to a place with less dingy air, so they take him to a coastal town. Elizabeth stays by his side until he begins to get better. Falkner decides that since she has saved his life twice, he no longer wishes to die but wants to live for Elizabeth and her happiness. He tells her that he has written of his crime so that she can learn of it in his words after his death.

The pair travels to Italy and meets a group of English people, including Lady Cecil, for whom Miss Jervis is the governess. Falkner and Elizabeth then travel to a different part of Italy where they happen across the young Mr. Neville, which causes Falkner more stress. When they arrive in London, Elizabeth gets sick from the stress of worrying about Falkner. Hearing of the girl’s illness, Lacy Cecil comes to invite her and Falkner to stay with her for two months. Elizabeth goes, but Falkner declines; he promises to join them later. Lady Cecil tells Elizabeth about her brother, Gerard, because she believes they would get along quite well. Elizabeth returns to health while she is staying with Lady Cecil and soon learns that Gerard is none other than her beloved Mr. Neville. He begins to share the supposedly scandalous story of his mother’s disappearance, but relinquishes that duty to Lady Cecil.

Lady Cecil tells Elizabeth the story of the young and beautiful Alithea Neville. She was young when she married Boyvill—formerly Mr. Neville—, but she did her wifely duties well. The two had a son and daughter together; Alithea doted upon the boy, while her husband loved the little girl. Sir Boyvill left for two months for business, and when he returned, his wife and son were out of the house. A storm came that night, and the pair had not returned. Upon searching, they found young Gerard ill in the road, and he said that mamma had been taken off in a carriage with a man named Rupert. It was determined that Alithea had been kidnapped or may be dead. Sir Boyvill, however, believed his wife to have left willingly with the man; Gerard disagreed. He believed that she was either dead or in prison. Sir Boyvill and Alithea’s daughter died less than a year after her mother’s disappearance. Boyvill felt that his wife’s affair had hurt his honor, so he filed for divorce from the missing woman. This meant that Gerard had to testify against his mother; he did but did not want to. The boy ran away to search for his mother, but his father found out and brought him home. Gerard continued to believe his mother was innocent but dead, so he was determined to find her grave. During this time, Sir Boyvill met and married Lady Cecil’s mother.

Now, Gerard is still searching for the truth behind his mother’s disappearance. He leaves Lady Cecil’s home when a man from America claims to have knowledge of his mother. Lady Cecil believes his goal is futile, but Elizabeth supports him in his search. When he comes back from his meeting with Hoskins, the American, he announces that his mother is dead. Hoskins told him about an Englishman named Osborne, who helped a man bury his lover twelve years ago after she drowned in a river, so he wants to go to American to meet Osborne. Elizabeth writes to Falkner about the situation, and he asks her to come home at once.

This page shows how a chapter is denoted and begins

Falkner learns that Lady Cecil desires Gerard and Elizabeth to marry. He believes this to be a good union, but he wants to distance himself from Elizabeth and seek out her biological family. He finds them, but he learns that her father brought dishonor to the family by leaving the church and marrying a poor woman, so her grandfather does not want her. When Elizabeth returns home to Falkner, he worries about what she will think of him considering her new love for Gerard and wonders how much she has changed, but she approaches him with the same love and admiration as before. Gerard comes to say goodbye before he leaves for America, but Falkner tells him not to go because the man he is looking for is standing in front of him. Falkner admits that his name is Rupert Falkner and that he killed the boy’s mother. He gives his written account of the event to Elizabeth and tells her to read it and share it with Gerard.

Falkner’s story tells of his abusive father and his mother’s death when he was a young boy. His father developed a drinking problem and died, so he was taken in by his uncle. His parents called him Rupert, but his uncle called him John, so he mostly went by the latter. He began to visit a woman named Mrs. Rivers and her daughter, Alithea. Mrs. Rivers was distantly related to his mother, and the two women grew up together, but they lost touch when they got married. He spent a lot of time with Mrs. Rivers and her daughter, and the former was always impressing upon him the need to be a good person. In spite of this, Falkner had a temper at school and ended up getting in a fight. He was sent off to the East Indian military college, where he stayed for two years. Alithea wrote to him to let him know that her mother was dying, so he ran away from school to visit and was present when Mrs. Rivers passed. He desired to marry Alithea but was rejected by her father, so he stayed in India as a soldier for ten years. He received word that his uncle and cousin had both passed away, which meant their inheritance became his. When he returned to England, he learned that Alithea’s father had died, but she married in the time he was away. He met her husband, Mr. Neville—now Sir Boyvill—and hated him.

A man by the name of Osborne knew of Falkner’s newly acquired wealth and asked him to assist with his passage to America. Falkner agreed and decided to go to America with him. Before they left, he met with Alithea and learned that she did not love her husband, so he asked her to come to America with them. She said no because she was married and had two children. Falkner thought he could convince her to run away with him, and he asked Osborne to drive the carriage and gave him the instruction not to stop driving until they reached their destination. He went to her house, and walked with her and her young son toward his carriage. Upon talking with Alithea, he changed his mind and decided Alithea should stay with her family. Once they reached the carriage, however, he swept her into it, and Osborne drove them away. She started having convulsions and looked unwell, but Osborne followed his instruction and would not stop. They reached the hut Falkner planned to stop at, and Alithea appeared to recover. He laid her on a couch and stepped outside with Osborne to ready the carriage to return her home with her family. He found Alithea’s body shortly after, drowned in the river. He surmised she had woken up and, in a moment of terror, attempted to cross the stream and return home. The men buried her body, Osborne went off to America, and Falkner ended up in Treby, where he met Elizabeth so long ago.

Elizabeth finishes reading this account and sends it and a letter to Gerard so he can finally learn the truth of his mother’s disappearance. She begs him to be kind to her father, for although he did bad things, he did not kill his mother. Falkner, certain that Gerard will kill him for his crimes, sends proof of Elizabeth’s birth to her family and tells her that they will take her in soon.

Gerard reads Elizabeth’s letter, but he gives Falkner’s written account to his father to read first. Believing that Falkner killed his mother, Gerard contemplates killing the man, but worries about the pain it would cause Elizabeth. Upon reading the letter and finding his wife innocent, Sir Boyvill has Gerard promise that he will avenge her death. Boyvill then leaves home, and Gerard follows soon after to find him. When he finds his father in their old home of Dromore, he is with a group of men from town, and they are uncovering Alithea’s remains. Sir Boyvill plans to have his wife’s remains formally interred and wants a trial for Falkner.

This page of text shows an example of printer notes, located at the bottom of the page

Elizabeth is out of the house when men come to escort Falkner to prison, so she does not know what has happened. Lady Cecil arrives at their home with another woman, who turns out to be Elizabeth’s aunt. The ladies entreat Elizabeth to go home with them, but she insists on visiting her father because she has just learned of his imprisonment. Her aunt offers her a place in her home as a member of the family, but Elizabeth rejects the offer, stating that she is not a part of their family. She is and will forever be Elizabeth Falkner. Gerard returns and pleads with Elizabeth to go with her family and not to go see Falkner. He admits his love to her, but even this is not enough.

Falkner misses the girl while he is in prison, but he cannot bring himself to write to her. He is surprised when Elizabeth shows up at the prison, but her arrival makes him feel suddenly free. Elizabeth spends most of her time with him in the prison; when they are not together, neither of them feel happy or well. The grand jury decides that Falkner will go to trial for his crimes, but the trial is postponed until they can get Osborne back to England. Someone goes to get Osborne, but he has not yet arrived, and people are getting impatient. During this time, Elizabeth, who has not heard much from Gerard, catches him following and watching her. Falkner learns that Osborne is refusing to come to his trial.

On learning this, Elizabeth wants to travel to America to convince Osborne to come. Gerard decides to go in her place, creating more tension with his father. Gerard finds Hoskins in an attempt to learn of Osborne’s whereabouts and learns that he is already in England under a false name. The appearance of Gerard scares Osborne away, and Gerard assumes the man has boarded a ship to return to America. He plans to follow the man. Osborne visits Falkner and Elizabeth in the prison under his false name. He does not plan to testify in the trial and help Falkner, but Elizabeth changes his mind, and he agrees to come forward. Elizabeth writes a letter to Gerard about the situation, so he does not leave for America.

Gerard writes another letter to Elizabeth to let her know that his father is dying. This means the trial may be delayed again. Sir Boyvill soon dies. Gerard tells them that before he died, his father declared that Falkner is actually innocent. Elizabeth cannot enter the trial with him, so they are forced to separate for a while. The trial begins, and Gerard declares in his testimony that Falkner is innocent. Elizabeth spends her time at home crying and waiting for the results of the trial until her aunt comes to visit and give her support.

Finally, Falkner is found to be innocent and is released. Elizabeth’s aunt offers her home as a place for Falkner and Elizabeth to stay, and they graciously accept. During this time, Elizabeth and Gerard miss each other dearly, but neither knows how to approach the situation, due to their circumstances and Elizabeth’s loyalty to Falkner. Gerard writes to the pair of them, asking if Elizabeth can be his and stating that he will take her and Falkner as a pair of sorts. Falkner writes back to say that if Gerard will come and take his daughter, he will remove himself from their lives. Gerard does not wish to tear Elizabeth from this man whom she loves, so he marries her and makes the best amends he can with Falkner. They all stay together for the rest of their time. Gerard and Elizabeth have a happy life and children of their own, but Falkner never forgives himself for his faults.

Bibliography

“Falkner: A Novel.” The Athenaeum, 484 (1837): 74–75.

“Falkner.” Examiner, 1515 (1837): 101.

“Falkner.” The Literary Gazette: A weekly journal of literature, science, and the fine arts. 1046 (1837): 66–68.

“Falkner.” The Metropolitan magazine, 1833–1840 18.71 (1837): 65–67.

John Bull (London, England), Issue 853 (Monday, April 17, 1837): pg. 191. New Readerships.

Shelley, Mary. Falkner: A Novel. London, Saunders and Otley, 1837.

Shelley, Mary. Falkner: A Novel. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1837. Print.

Shelley, Mary. Falkner: A Novel. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1837. HathiTrust, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/dul1.ark:/13960/t5q822n9w.

The Standard (London, England), Issue 3068 (Thursday, March 09, 1837): pg. 1. British Library Newspapers, Part II: 1800–1900.

Researcher: Kenzie M. Hampton

Koenigsmark the Robber

Koenigsmark the Robber

Koenigsmark the Robber, or, the Terror. of. Bohemia, in which is Introduced, Stella, or, the Maniac of the Wood, a Pathetick Tale

Author: H. J. Sarrett
Publisher: Tegg and Castleman
Publication Year: c. 1803
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 3 volumes, each 10.5cm x 8cm, 4 cm deep
Pages: 80
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2 .M356 1802 v.3 no.1

This chapbook translated by H.J. Sarrett and published around 1803 tells a story of murder, magic, and a maniac. A knight and his lover once separated by death may never be reunited as long as the town’s robbers are still on the loose.

 Material History

The full title of this book is Koenigsmark The Robber or the Terror of Bohemia in Which is Introduced Stella of the Maniac of the Wood, A Pathetick Tale. The cover of this edition is 10.5 cm by 8 cm and the entire novel is 4 cm deep. The front cover of this book has fallen off and is separated from the rest of the intact book; however, the cover is still included with the text. The cover is dark, chocolate-brown leather, including the binding. The leather is smooth and waxy from years of use and direct contact with skin whose oils can smooth the texture of the leather. On the spine, there are golden floral designs. The combination of leather binding and gold accents on the spine could mean this book was printed for long wear and quality. The pages are thick and smooth, similar to the texture of the average paper in a twenty-first century novel. It is sturdy and unstained, yet the paper is slightly yellowed, most likely due to age. The pages all  have small margins, about 1 cm on each side. The text fills up most of the pages. It is a small font and closely set. Most page edges are slightly worn with very few tears.

A handwritten partial table of contents for this compilation of tales appears in the opening leaves of the volume. Though Koenigsmark the Robber is the first tale in this book, whoever wrote this list did not list it here.

Koenigsmark, The Robber is the first book that appears in a compilation of seven stories listed in the following order: Koenigsmark, The Robber (1803), Phantasmagoria: Or the Development of Magical Deception (1803), Ildefonzo & Alberoni, or Tales of Horrors (1803), Ulric and Gustavus, Or Unhappy Swedes (1803), Blanche and Carlos; Or the Constant lovers: including the adventures of Valville and Adelaide, A Mexican Tale. (1803), Maximilian and Selina; Or, the Mysterious Abbot (1804), and The Voyages and Discoveries of Crusoe Richard Davis, the Son of a Clergyman in Cumberland (1801). Koenigsmark, The Robber is the only story within this book that has the author printed on the title page. The rest have no author mentioned within the book and do not appear to be by the same author as Koenigsmark, The Robber. The first six books are all printed by Tegg & Castlemen, whereas Blanche and Carlos was printed by S. Fisher. The stories do not have any evident relationship to one another except that they were published within a short time period (1801–1804) and are all of the Gothic genre. Koenigsmark, The Robber is 80 pages long.

When you first open the book, there is a bookplate with the name “Richardson Harrison” printed on it. As you turn the page, there are four blank leaves, two containing a handwritten table of contents numbered 1 through 7, correlating with the seven stories compiled together in this book. The only numbers that are filled out, though, are numbers 4 and 6.

Frontispiece and title page for Koenigsmark the Robber

Situated after the handwritten table of contents and as the first book in the volume, Koenigsmark opens with a frontispiece featuring an illustration from one of the last scenes in Koenigsmark when Koenigsmark is stabbed. Beneath the scene are the words, “Koenigsmark the Robber.” in a large font, and underneath it reads “Published June 1st 1803 by Tegg & Ca”, the publishing company for the book, Tegg and Castleman. The title page is adjacent to the frontispiece. The title covers the majority of the page and multiple lines; each line of text is a different font than the previous one. The author’s name, H. J. Sarrett, is printed in italics immediately beneath the title in a similar-sized font, as well as details about the author’s other works.

Throughout the rest of the story there are no other decorative elements: no captions, images, or texts other than the story, page numbers, and the abbreviated title, Koenigsmark, the Robber, at the top of each page.

Textual History

This edition of Koenigsmark the Robber Or, the Terror of Bohemia was published in 1803 in London by Tegg & Castleman and is credited, on the title page, to H.J. Sarrett. The book was originally written in German by Rudolf Erich Raspe and titled Koniksmark der Rauber; oderr, Der Schrecken aus Bohmen. The German version was published in 1790. H.J. Sarrett translated and adapted Raspe’s text, publishing it as Koenigsmark, The Robber in 1803. The English version by Sarrett “became the basis for a pirated chapbook purporting to be by M.G. Lewis,” the author of The Monk (Bridgwater 195). Sarrett also translated another work, The Three Monks!!!, which is mentioned on the title page of this edition of Koenigsmark.

Part of the ownership history of Koenigsmark the Robber can be traced thanks to this bookplate

There appear to be several editions of this novel published in the early nineteenth century. Montague Summers and Ann B. Tracy both identify the first publication as 1801 (Summers 380, Tracy 155). Tracy lists this edition as published by William Cole in one volume (155). The edition primarily discussed here is dated 1803, was published by Tegg & Castleman, and has 80 pages. It is collected in the third volume of a collection entitled The Marvelous Magazine and Compendium of Prodigies. There is also a shorter 38-page chapbook published by James Williams that is undated. The chapbook contains the same frontispiece as the 1803 version (but without the note regarding the 1803 publication date) and the title is slightly different: the longer version uses “A Pathetic Tale” while this 38-page chapbook uses “An Affecting Tale.” This chapbook also lists no author on the title page, and there is no link in the printed text between Sarrett and the text. This chapbook is the same story with the same plot, but the longer version goes into more detail and adds more dialogue between characters.

A separate chapbook with a different title, Koenigsmark the Robber, or, The Terror of Bohemia, including the History of Rosenberg and Adelaide, and their Orphan Daughter and attributed to Matthew Lewis was published by William Cole. This edition has only 24 pages and is not dated. Interestingly, in the longer version of Koenigsmark, the orphan daughter character is particularly minor, though here she is referenced in the title. Instead of the black-and-white frontispiece, this chapbook version has a fold-out page featuring several color illustrations (“Gothic Chapbooks”).

This work does not have any prefaces or introductions in any of the editions. Based on its multiple editions, this book appears to have garnered some interest among readers. Nonetheless, since the time of its printing, there have been no additional twenty-first-century reprintings. All editions are available online through Google Books. In scholarship, the novel is used as an example of a gothic romance text as it depicts the supernatural, betrayal, romance, and violence. Popular Romanticism, for instance, gives the chapbook version attributed to Lewis as an example of gothic chapbook form.

Narrative Point of View

Koenigsmark the Robber is narrated in the third person by an anonymous narrator who never appears in the text. The narration is laconic—often brief and to the point—and focuses on filling in gaps in the story or furthering the reader’s understanding of the scene. Throughout the novel, the narration will provide insight into the thoughts and feelings of the protagonists, but never does so for the antagonists.

Sample Passage:

By the time the two friends reached the inn, the night continued stormy, and they found many travelers who were unwilling to continue their journey in such horrid weather. “Bolfield,” said Herman, addressing the landlord, “you will oblige me, my friend, with giving us particulars of Rosenberg’s death, as you heard it from this servant. “Herman,” said the landlord, “since you request it, I will comply, though the subject distresses me. Konigsal you know, lies about twelve miles from this place, across the forest. Rosenberg wished to cross the forest that night, not heeding the representations of his servant, but replied, “that a soldier ought never know fear.” As they proceeded a distant clock struck twelve; they heard the cries of murder seemingly issuing from a clump of trees at a small distance from them. (9)

As in this passage, the vast majority of the narrative is told through dialogue among the characters. The dialogue is condensed together within paragraphs rather than being separated out by character. The third-person narration primarily functions to set the scene and to provide connection and context between instances of dialogue. This makes transitioning scenes as the story progresses rather easy to follow and clear.

Summary

On a dark and stormy night, two young men named Theodore and Herman went to spend a few hours at an inn in the woods where townspeople would meet up and relax together by smoking and telling stories. On the walk there, Herman tells Theodore a story of a young woman named Adelaide and how she lost her husband. Theodore had not lived in the village for long, so he did not know the story. Herman went on to tell him that a man named Adolphus Rosenberg was a young man who had fallen in love with General Kaempfer’s daughter. When Adolphus went to ask the general to marry his daughter, the general said he would only allow it if Adolphus became a soldier for him. He made him the aid-de-camp to the Colonel Monteculi.

A sample page of text from Koenigsmark the Robber, showing the start of the story

Soon after, they set off on a long voyage and ended up being attacked by assassins in the woods called the Banditti. Adolphus saves the general’s life and for that, Kaempfer gave him his blessing to be with his daughter. Only a few weeks later they married and later had a child. Unfortunately, Adolphus was called for another voyage soon after. Adelaide felt that it was a bad idea, and it turned out she was correct. Her husband was killed in the woods by assassins and when the news came back to the general, he told his daughter that he was sick and was stuck on his voyage.

This is all Herman knows. They have reached the inn where they ask the innkeeper, Bolfield, if he knows anything else about Rosenburg’s death. He tells them the story he heard from Adolphus’s servant: they were travelling through the woods when they heard a woman’s cries. When they went to help her, a group of assassins attacked them. Adolphus was fatally shot but the servant was saved by a passerby. Theodore and Herman are told a similar story by someone else in the inn, claiming supernatural occurrences, though Theodore and Herman are skeptical.

Later, a few of the Banditti including their leader, Koenigsmark, arrive the inn where Theodore overhears their plans to attack Kaempfer. Theodore us so moved by the stories that he wants to warn Kaempfer and protect him so that Adelaide would not be fatherless as well. Theodore gathers some friends and they set off to Koningsal, where Kaempfer resides. They tell him of the Banditti’s plan and prepare for them to arrive. When the Banditti show up, Theodore and his men attack and one of the banditti says that they were ordered there by Koenigsmark and that they should beware of him, because he is invincible. Theodore and his men set off to kill Koenigsmark.

They find Koenigsmark in the woods but Theodore is quickly captured and just as they were about to torture him, Koenigsmark’s lieutenant requested that they do not harm Theodore because he had saved his life in a previous battle. Koenigsmark obliges, but says Theodore will be his prisoner in the cave they keep secret in the woods forever.

Later that night, the lieutenant that requested Theodore to be left alone comes to him in his cell. They make a plan to break him out. The next day, the pair, as well as the guard for the cell, Steinfort, escape to Kaempfer who told them to go kill Koenigsmark.

When they return to the cell to fight, the lieutenant is shot and killed while Koenigsmark gets away. So, Theodore and Herman return to the inn where they met Stella: the. maniac of the woods. Bolfield tells them the tragic story of her lover, Raymond, being executed right in front of her after he harmed a servant for his money.

A while later, Theodore receives a letter telling him that colonel Kaempfer is dead and that Adelaide has taken her baby and run into the forest. Theodore and Herman her lying lifeless on the ground without her baby, but she is still alive. They discover that Koenigsmark took the child so they fight him. While he is distracted, Steinfort, the freed servant of Koenigsmark, finds the baby and takes it to safety. Theodore wounds Koenigsmark but keeps him alive so that he can kill him later. When Adelaide is reunited with her baby, a flash of lightening lights up the room and Rosenburg’s ghost appears. Adelaide leaves her body and joins him as a ghost—leaving the baby as an orphan.

Konenigsmark is hanged for execution when a cloaked spirit appears and stabs him, telling him that he fulfilled his promise. The town holds funerals for Colonel Kaempfer and Adelaide. Colonel Monteculi then adopts the child as his own and appoints Theodore and Steinfort as their guardians and protectors if he were to ever die. Theodore and Herman then leave for the army where they are great warriors with lots of success.

Bibliography

Bridgwater, Patrick. The German Gothic Novel in Anglo-German Perspective. Rodopi, 2013.

“Gothic Chapbooks.” Popular Romanticism. poprom.streetprint.org/narratives/90.

Koenigsmark, the Robber: Or, The Terror of Bohemia: Including the History of Rosenberg and Adelaide, and Their Orphan Daughter. Johns Hopkins Library, catalyst.library.jhu.edu/catalog/bib_2655132.

Koenigsmark the Robber: Or, the Terror of Bohemia; In Which is Introduced Stella, or, The Maniac of the Wood, a Pathetick Tale. Portsea, James Williams, n.d.

Sarrett, H. J. Koenigsmark the Robber: Or, the Terror of Bohemia; In Which is Introduced Stella, or, The Maniac of the Wood, a Pathetick Tale. London, Tegg and Castleman, 1803, in The Marvelous Magazine and Compendium of Prodigies, vol. 3. London, Tegg and Castleman, 1802–1804.

Sarrett, H. J. The Three Monks!!! From the French. [A Translation of Les Trois Moines, by M. De Faverolle, Pseudonym of Elisabeth Guénard, Afterwards Brossin, Baroness De Méré.] 1803.

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

Tracy, Ann B. The Gothic Novel 1790­­–1830: Plot Summaries and Index to Motifs. Lexington, The University Press of Kentucky, 1981.

Researcher: Lucy E. Gilbert

The Black Forest

The Black Forest

The Black Forest; Or, the Cavern of Horrors

Author: Unknown
Publisher: Ann Lemoine, and J. Roe
Publication Year: 1802
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 11.5cm x 18.5 cm
Pages: 38
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2 .B4561 1802

In this deceivingly short story with a complicated publication history, love, secrets, mystery, and murder abound. Borrowed almost entirely from the Cavern of Death, this book touches on strong gothic themes familiar amongst decades of other novels within its genre.

Material History

The marbled cover of The Black Forest

The Black Forest; Or, the Cavern of Horrors. A Gothic Romance is a German mystery, translated from German into this English version. The author of this book is unknown and the only material origins exist on a single title page which appears 10 physical pages in, following a group of blank pages and a frontispiece. The text was originally printed in London in 1802 by T. Maiden at Sherbourne-Lane for publishers: Ann Lemoine, White-Rose Court. Coleman-Street, And J. Roe, No. 90, and Hounddtich. The title page indicates The Black Forest was “Sold by all Booksellers in the United Kingdom.” This happily adorned book sold for a universal price of six-pence indicated on the title page under the publisher and printer information. On this same page, the unknown author or illustrator included an intricate watercolor and pencil drawing of a foregrounded tree with large, protruding roots accompanied by what appears to be a brick castle in the background. The drawing lacks a caption, explanation, or citation.

The book is a beautiful one, seemingly unharmed by the trials and tribulations of time. From the outside, it looks fairly untouched. The bright red binding would catch any onlooker’s eye among the stacks. The attractive binding is made of red leather and is adorned with two gold embellishments on either side of the book’s matching gilded title which reads in bold letters a shortened name: THE BLACK FOREST. Moving from the red binding to the cover, the book becomes even more impressive with its colorfully marbled display of green, blue, yellow and red swirls. The cover is smooth and in the corners lie two more triangles of matching red leather material. The Black Forest lies within two 11.5 by 18.5 cm unique covers and fills 1 cm of space widthwise. But this measurement deceives readers looking for a read of considerable length.

The frontispiece for The Black Forest depicting Sir Henry’s dream.

The book contains just 38 pages of text and one page of illustration, but despite the few pages the actual story occupies, the book holds many more physical pages following the text. The rest of them are completely blank (despite a single “g” written in pencil on one of the last). These pages, unlike the rest, appear not only blank, but completely untouched. The side of the binding which holds the blank pages is very stiff and the pages are pristine. The only thing that conveys these pages are old is their yellow staining due to aging. As for the 38 occupied pages, they are more worn and soft; some pages have yellow staining due to age and some oddly remain pristinely white. Interestingly, the text is noticeably small. The words are tightly packed onto each page and the margins are quite thin. 

Despite the single “g” written faintly in pencil on one of the final blank pages, the book has no marks of personal ownership. Prior to the main text, there is hand-drawn, hand-painted watercolor illustration in the first few pages of the book. It exhibits a skeleton holding a reddened sword near a man in formal wear and it suggests the skeleton is moving towards the man while the man backs away in fear. The image’s setting is a dark room lit by a lantern. The caption below reads: “The terror of Henry at the appearance of a Skeleton waving a Bloody Sword.” There is a very faint marking just below the right side of the illustration that reads “S. Sharpese” which is most likely the illustrator’s signature.  However, another, even fainter, marking exists on the right side under the image which may read “W. Gidell” but it is nearly indistinguishable. A third signature lies underneath the caption but the name is illegible, all that is clear is “Fig” at the start of the name. The frontispiece is protected by a single sheet of lighter tissue paper that lies over top of it. 

It appears much care was taken in the making of this book, with its hand-made watercolor frontispiece, its marbled cover, and its pleasant and pristine binding. Essentially no marks were made by reader intervention and the book remains very close to its original condition, so it seems that much care was also taken in the usage of this book. Whether the story excites or not, this now 200-year-old book is one with much to say beyond what the actual text communicates.

Textual History

The Black Forest: Or, the Cavern of Horrors. A Gothic Romance. From the German is listed in the Sadleir-Black Special Collections Library catalogue as having been published by Ann Lemoine in 1802, though no publication date appears on the title page. The book first entered the publishing world as a chapbook. The same story can be found in the Sadleir-Black Collection bound to Bruce’s voyage to Naples, also published in London 1802. Both versions indicate no author but are said to have been translated “From the German” on their title pages. Which German book it was translated from is still unknown. According to A History of Guilty Pleasure: Chapbooks and the Lemoines, Ann Lemoine was “the first chapbook publisher to use colored illustrations and, for many years, the only one offering colored editions” (Bearden-White 313). The Black Forest was sold for 4 pence and 6 pence. The version held in the University of Virginia’s collection sold for 6 pence and contains two beautifully colored illustrations. 

The title page for The Black Forest

Unsurprisingly, The Black Forest: Or, the Cavern of Horrors is in fact a plagiarized version of an older text, The Cavern of Death: A Moral Tale. While the general framework narrative of these two versions remains the same, the characters’ names and plot points shift. In The Cavern of Death, Sir Albert (as opposed to Sir Henry de Mountford) is summoned by a skeleton to discover the truth of the cavern whereas in The Black Forest Sir Henry stumbles upon the cavern and discovers the skeleton which leads to the exposure of the truth. This is just one example of the slight changes made to the extracted plot. 

The Cavern of Death first appeared in 1795 in a London newspaper called The True Briton. Multiple forms of this original text can be found in the Sadleir-Black Collection, each claiming to have been published at the same time in two different cities. The most common publication city amongst all of them is Baltimore where it was printed and sold by “Bonsal & Niles, 173, Market-street” as a chapbook. The other is Philadelphia where it was printed by and for “William W. Woodward, Green Sign of Franklin’s Head, no. 16, Chesnut Street.” Most publications accredit the original version to The True Briton, where the story first appeared. Professor Allen W. Grove, in the introduction of his 2005 edited version of The Cavern of Death, claims the original chapbook borrowed themes from older texts such as The Castle of Otranto (1765) and The Old English Baron (1778) (3). Grove hypothesizes that The Cavern of Death provided elements, such as the white plume deceiving character identities and Sir Constance declaring her love to an eavesdropping Sir Albert, found similarly in successful gothic novels such as Ann Radcliffe’s A Sicilian Romance and Matthew Lewis’s The Monk (3). He also labels The True Briton as a “certainly…uncommon place to find a novel,” thus adding to the intrigue of this text’s origins (7).

One more iteration of The Cavern of Death popped up after The Black Forest: Or, the Cavern of Horrors. In his introduction, Grove cites this additional titleas The Black Forest; or, The Cavern of Death, A Bohemian Romance which he claims was published in 1830 and consisted of the same story “stripped of [its] sentimental trappings” (8). Essentially, the later versions of The Cavern of Death were cut down to fewer and fewer words, the bones of the dramatic storyline forming the remains. This title, with the inclusion of “A Bohemian Romance” is briefly mentioned in Franz Potter’s book The Monster Made by Man: A Compendium of Gothic Adaptations—which is the source Groves cites from (128). Interestingly, in the same paragraph Potter mentions The Black Forest; or, The Cavern of Death, A Bohemian Romance, he also mentions a compilation of stories entitled Legends of Terror! and Tales of the Wonderful and Wild! The first 1826 collection of this book does not include any version of The Cavern of Death. However, around 1840 another publication of Legends of Terror! was published by G. Creed (71, Chancery Lane) and Holborn and it is in this second edition that the final reincarnation of The Cavern of Death: A Moral Tale resides as The Black Forest; or, The Cavern of Death, a Bohemian Romance on page 65, where the main character Sir Albert enters (as opposed to Sir Henry), emulating the original version over the second version.

Today, The Black Forest is not available in print but its source text, The Cavern of Death, is available as a paperback published by Valancourt Books and edited by Allen Groves. Additionally, archival digital copies are available for The Cavern of Death, The Black Forest, and Legends of Terror! through Google Books.

Narrative Point of View

The Black Forest: Or, The Cavern of Horrors is a written in the third-person point of view of an anonymous, omniscient narrator who never appears in the text. Most often the narrator follows the main character, Sir Henry, throughout the text, seeing the world through his eyes. However, we get a few glances at the intentions and actions of others, such as Elinor, while Sir Henry remains ignorant. More than once, the text uses dramatic irony to create some degree of suspense. Furthermore, the narration is not overly complex, despite the archaic writing style, and most often centers around the story’s plot. The narrator takes time to portray settings and scenery in great detail and takes up small amounts of the novel’s pages to reflect on character emotions. However, the largest share of the text consists of dialogue between characters and Sir Henry. In fact, nearly all that is unbeknownst to Sir Henry throughout the text is revealed via characters’ storytelling and conversation. The omniscient narrator withholds secrets that are revealed by characters themselves in the final moments of the book. However, the narrator displays his all-knowingness even while withholding information by dropping hints of the truths uncovered at the novel’s end.

Sample Passage of Third-Person Narration:

The deafening noise of the torrent filled the soul of Sir Henry with an unknown horror: he descended precipitately from the bank, and retreated to a rock, which seemed on one side the boundary of the Cavern; against which he leaned, while his imagination, unrelieved by an visible object, and wholly occupied in the recollection of his dream, was left at liberty to represent to him now, the hideous phantom hovering in the dusky air, and now, the fleshless warrior, shunning his embrace, and waving high the fatal sword. (32)

Sample Passage of The Baron telling his own story:

“Rudolph, Baron of Gotha, was thy father. He was my brother, my elder brother; and from the Holy Land was he returning, to claim the inheritance which, at the death of our common parents, devolved of right to him; when I, covetous to possess it, met him in this Forrest … Often, at the still and solemn hour of midnight, has the spirit of my murdered brother visited me; sometimes in silence, pointing to his wounds, and waving his bloody sword.” (35–36)

The third-person narrative style of The Black Forest invites readers to sympathize with Sir Henry, as the novel most closely follows his personal life, while also allowing readers to see from a wider bird’s-eye view. In using third-person narration over first-person narration, the unknown author allows readers to be plucked up out of one scene and deposited into the next, effectively enabling readers to know more than the characters. This narrative style, as well as the past tense writing style, presents the characters as defenseless to predetermined events. For example, Sir Henry and Theresa, with the devious help of Elinor, form a plan to escape the castle of Gotha together. While they believe their plan to be an effective one, what the two do not know (but what we the readers do) is that they have been deceived by Elinor, their plan will fail, Theresa will be captured, and Sir Henry will be threatened with death. Thus, the omniscience of the narrator—both as a surveyor of all the characters and as retrospective point of view—often belittles the characters, displaying them as both naïve and foolish. 

Interestingly, the narrator is also able to deceive us as readers, perhaps belittling us in the process of using the Baron’s character to reveal the novel’s full truth—that the true heir to the castle of Gotha is Sir Henry—after withholding it for the entirety of the book. Additionally, the narrator teases us by dropping clues to this truth: The Baron’s interest in Sir Henry’s ring and his home life, Sir Henry’s dream of what is revealed to be his father’s skeleton, and the dark cloud that forms above the Cavern. In doing so, the novel flips its original use of dramatic irony. While we once had the power of knowledge, in the end it is the Baron who reveals the story’s hidden truths. It is the character who holds the power of knowledge. Thus, the novel sanctions and subsequently eschews our power as readers. It does so through the use of the Baron’s sub-narrative presented through dialogue, which holds a lot of power in this novel. In most cases, dialogue between characters or to an audience is what reveals secrets and truths throughout the novel. In the novel secrets are coded as power-wielding as they determine who lives, who dies, and who becomes the Baron of Gotha. Thus, while the narrator appears to hold the power in telling the novel’s story, it is the characters confessions to each other that hold it all.

Summary

The story begins with two men, Sir Henry de Mountford and his servant Peter, who traverse the Black Forest as nighttime approaches. Henry thinks of his former love and Peter indulges him, questioning why he ever chose to leave Leipzig, the town where this woman, Theresa, still resides. Sir Henry explains it is because he could not offer her a “rank worthy of her merit” (A2). As they continue to discuss a big, dark cloud-like figure descends upon them through the trees. The meteor-like object lands at the entrance of a deep, dark cavern. Sir Henry deliberates whether to enter or not and settles upon the decision to return the next day with lights but to continue on to the Castle of Gotha, where he originally intended to go, for the rest of the night.

This page shows the first, and only, chapter of The Black Forest

Soon they arrive at the castle to find a celebration, a kind of engagement party for the Baron and an unnamed woman. Sir Henry is welcomed with warm embraces by Lord Edgar, son of the Baron of Gotha. He leads him to the Great Hall of the Castle and presents him to his father who is hesitant to welcome Sir Henry with excitement and instead remains eerily silent. Later at the dinner table, Sir Henry notices The Baron eyeing him suspiciously. He also takes great interest in a valuable ruby ring Sir Henry wears that is the one relic he has to remember his late father.

Following dinner, Sir Henry retires to his room and, after some time, falls asleep. He has a vivid nightmare in which a ghost overwhelms the very dining hall where he has just eaten dinner. Then a cloud, like the one seen in the forest, emits a mist that removes all the people who surround him, and Sir Henry is left alone to face it. It moves to embrace him but at the very moment they touch, the phantom disappears, and a skeleton emerges in its place. The skeleton waves a bloody sword in the air saying, “Thou sword must receive from this cold hand, ere I can rest at peace, or thou restored to thy just inheritance” and then it too vanishes (11). Sir Henry awakens from fear of the dream in a cold sweat.  

In the morning, the Baron invites Sir Henry to breakfast in his room. They begin their conversation by discussing Sir Henry’s origins. He explains that his father died before he was born, and his mother died from despair of her husband’s death before Sir Henry came to the age when he could remember her. When the conversation finds a natural end, Sir Henry goes to find Lord Edgar as he has promised to discuss some unspecified troubles he has been experiencing. They both walk to the Forest as they discussed the night before. When they arrive, Lord Edgar proceeds to tell him that he is in love with his father’s fiancé. He explains that immediately upon encountering the woman his father is set to marry, he discovered the enchantment of her beauty and the truth of her youth (she looked to not exceed the age of Lord Edgar!). He declares the only way he can have this woman for himself and maintain his fortunes would be to become the Baron of Gotha himself, implying he must murder his father. He asks Sir Henry to be the one to do it. Sir Henry, offended and appalled by the plan, refuses to act in accordance. It is then revealed that the woman Lord Edgar speaks of is Lady Theresa, Sir Henry’s former lover! 

Sir Henry, infuriated by what he has just heard and unable to bear it further, declares his friendship with Lord Edgar over and makes his way deeper into the Forest. He dreadfully considers the two possible fates of Theresa and resolves to find her at once. He must wait until evening to see her so to pass the time he walks along the perimeter of the castle. Soon after he begins he hears the voice of Theresa and her maid, Elinor. Theresa laments her aversion to the marriage in long sobs. Elinor asks where her affections truly lie, and Theresa reveals that the day she met Lord Edgar he wore a “casque” which she believes once belonged to the man who she once loved (21).

Knowing that this casque belongs to himself, Sir Henry reveals himself and his love for her. Astonished by the sight of him at this very moment, Theresa inquires how he could possibly end up at the castle of Kruitzner. He declares it is the love he feels for her and impatience to revisit her that led him there. After a few euphoric moments together, Theresa returns to her tears, remembering the reality of her situation. Sir Henry consoles her fears by suggesting that they run away together and escape the tormenting marriage which her father imposed. Though Sir Henry cannot offer her a life of luxury, he promises her one of love. 

A sample page (17) from The Black Forest

Elinor who remained silent since the entry of Sir Henry until this moment interjects to support his proposal. In response, Theresa consents to his protection and the three of them formulate a plan to free her. Elinor decides she will bring Sir Henry the key to the castle garden in the forest by distinguishing him in the night via a silver plume which he will stick in his hat.

What Theresa and Sir Henry don’t know is that Elinor acts as an accomplice to Lord Edgar. She viewed the confession of love between the two as a dual betrayal to the friendship of Lord Edgar and rather than heading to the cottage in the forest where she had agreed to meet Sir Henry with the key, she goes to the Castle of Gotha. She reveals everything to Lord Edgar, including the escape plan. She then hands him the key to the garden and a silver plume to wear on his head, so Theresa will mistakenly run to him in the night and he can take her where he pleases. Elinor then runs to meet Sir Henry and tells him that Theresa will be unable to meet him tonight, but the plan remains set to follow tomorrow, a lie that will force him to fall prey to the Baron and his forces when they find out, via Elinor, that he intends to steal Theresa away.

That night Theresa and the deceptive Elinor execute the original plan. Just as she was told, Theresa locates a man with a silver plume on his hat and descends from her window into his abrasive arms. Unable to see his face or hear his voice, she follows his arms and ascends his horse. Then they speed away. 

Meanwhile Sir Henry decides to go for a walk. He stumbles upon the cavern of horrors (from the title) once again and resolves to enter it. He enters the cavern and looks around. Immersed in darkness Sir Henry is unable to see anything except a small chasm in the rock which, as he approaches, reveals a narrow passageway. He follows it and, at the end, discovers a sword attached to a hand which runs into the body of a skeleton like the one in his dream! At this discovery he exclaims, “Yes! Injured spirit! Thou, whom I know not by what name to address, but who hast, questionless, led me hither, and art now invisibly present to my invocation! I receive thy gift! And I swear to allow myself no rest, till the vengeance shall be completed, in which, though by what mysterious connection as yet I comprehend not, thou hast taught me to believe my own destiny involved!” (33). As he says this the flame which led him down the pathway extinguishes, and Sir Henry sinks to the ground, senseless of his surroundings for a few moments. After regaining his senses, he hears more sounds and a cry of horror which exclaims, “Blood! A cataract of Blood” (33). He approaches the sounds to find two men, mangled and dead under the weight of a large fragment of rock. He finds another man groaning in agony on the floor. He looks to help the man and discovers it to be the Baron of Gotha! The Baron, incredibly disoriented by a spiritual force, does not recognize Sir Henry. Sir Henry lifts the Baron and leads him from the cave but before they can leave a man jumps from a crack and admits to being sent by the Baron to assassinate Sir Henry. In a moment of guilt, the Baron explains that the skeleton in the cavern belonged to Sir Henry’s father who was murdered by the Baron himself. He continues to say Sir Henry’s father was Rudolph, Baron of Gotha, his older brother. Many years prior, Rudolph was returning from a trip to claim his inheritance when the present-day Baron, ripe with jealousy and greed, gathered a group of ruffians and murdered him so that he could covet the inheritance for himself. Once Rudolph was dead, the ruffians tried to pry his sword from his hand, but it would not budge. The younger brother commanded that the sword be left with the body in the cavern, for its discovery would reveal that the murder was committed by the new owner of the sword. Ever since, the Baron experienced apparitions of his brother pointing to his wounds and waving his sword and insisting that his demise would be by the hand of his brother’s heir, yielding the sword of their father. The Baron has since made attempts to retrieve it, but failed. So too has he sought an heir of his brother, but without success. It wasn’t until the morning Sir Henry arrived at the Castle of Gotha that The Baron discovered an heir of Rudolph existed! That day the Baron resolved to assassinate Sir Henry which explains his position in the Cavern awaiting Sir Henry with two accomplices, one of whom was Peter (who is revealed to be one of the ruffians who murdered Rudolph and the betrayer of Sir Henry).

As the Baron completes his story, a group of men on horses approach. They hold a corpse which they reveal to be Lord Edgar. At this discovery, the Baron plunges his late brother’s sword into his chest and dies, fulfilling the prophecy. The horseman explain that they accidentally attacked and killed Lord Edgar, mistaking him for Sir Henry. Sir Henry demands he be brought back to the castle where he is reunited with Theresa and Elinor, who confesses to her own crimes. 

In the end, being the proper heir to the Castle of Gotha, Sir Henry is made the new Baron. He requests the hand of Theresa in marriage, knowing it will be accepted by her father now that he is in a place of security and wealth. His request is met with enthusiasm and the young lovers marry after the proper, honorable burial of Henry’s father, Rudolph, the wronged Baron of Gotha.

Bibliography

Bearden-White, Roy. “A History of Guilty Pleasure: Chapbooks and the Lemoines.” The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, vol. 103, no. 3, 2009, pp. 284–318.

The Black Forest; or, The Cavern of Horrors.  A Gothic Romance. From the German. London, Ann Lemoine and J. Roe, 1802.

The Cavern of Death. A Moral Tale. H. Colbert, 1795.

Grove, Allen W. The Cavern of Death. Valancourt Books, 2005.

Legends of Terror: And Tales of the Wonderful and the Wild. Being a Complete Collection of Legendary Tales, National Romances, and Traditional Relics, of Every Country … G. Creed, 1840.

Legends of Terror!: And Tales of the Wonderful and Wild ; Original and Select, in Prose and Verse. Sherwood, Gilbert, and Piper, 1826.

Researcher: Eva Louise Ridder Ebbesen