Rape | Project Gothic

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

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

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

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

Material History

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

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

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

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

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

Textual History

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

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

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

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

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

Narrative Point of View

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

Sample Passage of First-Person Narration:

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

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

Sample Passage of the Interpolated Tale:

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

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

Summary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bibliography

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

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

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

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

Researcher: Gretchen E. Maune

The Skeleton

The Skeleton; or, Mysterious Discovery. A Gothic Romance.

Author: Isaac Crookenden
Publisher: A. Neil
Publication Year: 1805
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 9.5cm x 17.75cm
Pages: 38
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2.C76 Sk 1805

Isaac Crookenden’s 1805 chapbook tells a tale of betrayal, terror, and romance. The shocking discovery of a skeleton in a castle dungeon is just one of its many twists.

Material History

This copy of The Skeleton; or, Mysterious Discovery, A Gothic Romance by Isaac Crookenden is a small collection of brittle and yellowed pages, delicately held together with a bit of thread and paste. The chapbook lacks binding, and the pages could potentially have been ripped from a larger volume containing an assortment of tales. Assembling these smaller stories into larger volumes was common practice at the time.

The title page of *The Skeleton,* including the various titles, author, description of author, publication information, and price.

In its present state, The Skeleton resembles a small pamphlet. The book and its pages have a width of 9.5 centimeters and a height of 17.75 centimeters. In its entirety, the book consists of 38 pages, including a blank cover page, a page containing an illustrated frontispiece, an official title page, another blank page, and two pages reserved for an author’s introduction.

This version of the text was published in London in 1805. It was printed and published by A. Neil at the Sommers Town Printing Office. The address of the office is listed as No. 30 Chalton Street. The title page notes that the story is sold by “all other booksellers” as well as Sommers Town. On the book’s title page, the price is listed to be six-pence—fairly cheap for its time.

Currently, this copy has a card indicating the University of Virginia’s possession and ownership of the text attached to the blank first page that was likely added in the 1930s or 40s. This card indicates that the book was presented by Robert K. Black. The notecard also has a handwritten inscription indicating that the text has been microfilmed.

Following the blank first page with this card is the second page containing a detailed frontispiece illustration of a man standing in an elegant stone hall holding an open flame. His face expresses shock as the flame illuminates a skeleton. Beneath the illustration is the text “Adolphus discovers the Skeleton of the Baron de Morfield” as well as publication information and attribution for the artwork. This is certainly the biggest artwork included in the text; however, on page 6, there is a small image of a rose to signify the end of the introduction.

The frontispiece of *The Skeleton*, showing Adolphus discovering the skeleton.

There is no shortage of unique defects to the text, making it one of a kind. Because of the lack of binding and seemingly careless way it was removed from its original bound copy, the text is held together loosely. The first ten pages are especially fragile and could easily be separated from the rest. There is a small rip midway down the first blank cover page. There are small stains throughout, but most noticeably on the bottom of page 35 there is a dark splotch on the page with unknown origins. The ink for the printed text has faded considerably in some parts of the book.

As well as defects, there are other intentional printed indicators of the book’s era. There are various letter/number combinations along the bottom of certain pages called signature marks, indicating the proper folding of the paper for the printer. They are as follows: A on page 3, B on page 15, B3 on page 19, C on page 27, and C3 on page 21. The book may be considered difficult to read to a modern reader on account of the printer’s use of the long S in which “s” look like “f”.

Textual History

The Skeleton is a gothic chapbook written by Isaac Crookenden. An edition of the chapbook is currently in the University of Virginia’s Special Collections Library as a part of the Sadleir-Black Collection of Gothic Fiction, where it was received as a gift. This chapbook was published by A. Neil in 1805 and it originally sold for six-pence at a variety of booksellers. This edition of the chapbook was published at the Sommers Town Printing Office at No. 30 Chalton Street in London, near the British Library.

Crookenden was born in 1777 in Itchenor, a village in West Sussex, England, as the youngest of nine children. His father was a shipbuilder who experienced bankruptcy. Crookenden overcame a presumably impoverished childhood to marry Elizabeth Pelham Fillery in 1798, and had a son, Adolphus, in 1800. His educational experience is alluded to in The Skeleton’s title page, on which he describes himself as the “Late assistant at Mr. Adams’ Academy in Chichester.” Crookenden’s status as a former schoolmaster indicates he was educated enough to educate others. Franz Potter hypothesizes that perhaps he advertised his former position as an educator in The Skeleton to heighten the shock and scandal of his work—that someone associated with children could conceive the horrors in the tale (71–2). Crookenden published the chapbook Berthinia, or, The Fair Spaniard in 1802, and nine other publications of the same variety are known. His main genre was gothic, though he experimented with a more purely romantic approach in 1808’s Venus on Earth (Baines). While some of his works were published as late as 1824, Crookenden died in Rotherhithe, Surrey in 1809 at just thirty-two (Potter 72).

Crookenden had an infamous reputation as one of the most prolific plagiarizing writers of the gothic genre. Frederick S. Frank describes Crookenden as “probably the most notorious counterfeiter of legitimate Gothic Novels” (“Gothic Romance” 59). His name is often mentioned alongside Sarah Wilkinson’s, and both authors have been said by Frank to pursue “lucrative careers of Gothic counterfeiting.” (“Gothic Chapbooks” 142). It should then come as no surprise that The Skeleton has no shortage of similarities to a gothic novel published in 1798 called The Animated Skeleton. While the author of the original work is unknown, Crookenden’s rendition of the story includes many borrowed plot points and thematic resemblances, mainly the discovery of a skeleton to incite terror. The key difference comes from the distinct castle settings and character names, as well as the fact that in The Animated Skeleton, the skeleton’s reanimation is found to be mechanized, whereas in Crookenden’s iteration, the skeleton is of a more supernatural variety (Potter 72). Frank notes that “Crookenden plundered the plot from The Animated Skeleton” (“Gothic Gold” 19). Frank, in a separate instance, also notes that The Skeleton “proves to be a refabrication of the anonymous Animated Skeleton of 1798 together with bits and pieces of the author’s extensive Gothic gleanings” (“Gothic Romance” 59)

WorldCat lists four copies of the chapbook around the world, each with the same publication date of 1805. Along with the University of Virginia’s copy in Charlottesville, Virginia, The Skeleton can be found in the Library of Congress in Washington, DC in the Rare Book/Special Collections Reading Room. The University of Oxford’s Bodleian Library’s Weston Stacks in Oxford, United Kingdom holds a copy of the chapbook as well. The Bodleian’s library catalog describes the binding as “sprinkled sheep” and indicates that it is bound with seven other items. The Monash University Library in Clayton, Australia holds the fourth and final of the catalogued copies of The Skeleton.

Narrative Point of View

The Skeleton is mostly narrated in the third person, with brief, occasional interjections of first-person narration providing commentary on the actions or events taking place in the chapbook. The introduction is a note to the reader in the latter style, condemning critics that call gothic romance unrealistic and directly warning the reader not to judge a book by its cover. Though the narrator often uses “we” when referring to their subjective thoughts, the introduction is signed “Your humble servant, The AUTHOR.” The story and action are presented in the third person, however, and the narrator makes abundant use of commas, dashes, and semicolons to present a unique voice. Letters are also included in the story, presented as written by the characters within the chapbook.

Sample Passage:

Almira now observed two horsemen issue from the wood, and as they directed their course towards her, she soon discovered them to be hunters. As they approached nearer, she retired towards the cottage; when the foremost of them sprung off his horse, and coming up to her, “I hope, Madam,” said he, bowing, “I have not disturbed your meditations at this serene and tranquil hour.” While he was speaking, Almira had leisure to observe his dignified deportment, his engaging and affable manners, and his polite address. His full, dark, expressive eye spoke a language which Almira’s hear instantly interpreted, and which on discovering, she cast her’s on the ground. — To keep the reader no longer in suspense, this young man was no other than Rotaldo; and his attendant was the individual– we wish we could add, the virtuous– Maurice. (17)

This style of narration evokes the feeling of being told a story by an unknown but still familiar voice. Because of certain story elements including the castles, romance, and suspense in the chapbook, this narration can resemble the style in which one tells a child a bedtime story. The prolonged and choppy sentence structure with the variety of punctuation could be read as mimicking an oral form of storytelling. The interjected claims and commentary with the plural “we” serve to liven up the story and engage the reader, providing breaks to clarify or emphasize characterizations or actions that may seem less clear due to the brevity of a chapbook. For example, because Maurice’s villainous nature is not able to be developed over many pages in The Skeleton, the narrator makes sure to clearly telegraph his lack of virtue in the above paragraph. This narration style makes the writing feel less stiff, and thus it has aged more gracefully than some of its blander contemporaries.

Summary

On a stormy night, Lord Ellmont resides in his castle with his two children. Lord Ellmont is a former warrior, now committed to domesticity after nobly defending his castle for many years. His twenty-two-year-old son, Rotaldo, embodies masculinity with a perfect heart, while his seventeen-year-old daughter Elenora is described at length as incredibly beautiful. The castle is located in Scotland and consists of a blend of many different styles and forms of architecture. Though Lady Ellmont died in childbirth, the castle always seems full on the birthdays of both children, and it is a mirthful affair when Rotaldo’s birthday arrives.

Page 21 of *The Skeleton*, including Rotaldo’s letter to Almira.

At the base of the mountain that the castle sits upon is the home of the peasant Viburn. He has a twenty-year-old son named Adolphus who has heart as well as temper. One day, Rotaldo asks Adolphus to be his sporting companion, but Adolphus mysteriously declines, hurting Rotaldo’s feelings. Rotaldo still wishes for a friend and thinks he finds one in the form of Maurice, an ugly and deceptive older peasant. Maurice is quickly taken by Elenora’s beauty, but he fears he will be rejected by her or her family because of his status. It is implied that his attraction to her is not entirely pure, and he develops an unhealthy lust for her.

In a valley further from the castle is the cottage of Volcome, an old peasant with only one surviving child. He was once rich and of nobility but his family fell upon difficult times, and he was exploited. He believes his brother was murdered under mysterious circumstances long ago, and his sister-in-law died while giving birth to a nephew he never got to meet. His wife also died, leaving him in charge of his seventeen-year-old daughter Almira, who is described as beautiful as she is innocent. One day, Rotaldo and Maurice come across their cottage and introduce themselves while riding horses. Rotaldo is deep in thought riding back from their cottage when a storm disturbs his horse and nearly flings him off a cliff. A stranger appears and stops the horse, harming himself in the process. The benevolent savior is revealed to be Adolphus, who Rotaldo invites back to the castle to be treated for his injuries. However, Maurice fears Adolphus as competition for Elenora. Adolphus says he declined Rotaldo’s earlier attempt at companionship because he must tend to his parents, which Rotaldo dismisses and graciously offers Adolphus and his family the castle and any assistance they may need.

Adolphus and Elenora instantly connect, while Rotaldo is overcome with passion for Almira and writes her a love letter. Elenora receives a proposal from the miserable Baron de Morfield, but her father knows she would be unhappy with him and declines on her behalf. Almira receives Rotaldo’s letter and soon receives a visit from Rotaldo himself as they confess their love. He visits her often, but one day he is returning to the castle from her cottage when an assassin shoots at him. Rotaldo swiftly draws his sword and fells the assassin who is revealed to be Maurice. Maurice expresses remorse for his treachery and gives a cryptic warning about his plans before expiring.

Returning home, Rotaldo finds his family in distress. Adolphus has been captured and taken by enemies in the night by the Baron de Morfield, and is imprisoned in a dungeon. As Adolphus ponders why he deserves this fate, the narrator reveals the villainous motives of Maurice and the Baron. It is revealed that Maurice planned to force himself upon Elenora and then propose an elopement to save her honor. However, Adolphus overheard this proposal and intervened. Maurice begged for forgiveness and Elenora found him deserving; Adolphus, however, was less understanding. Maurice later swore vengeance upon Adolphus, informing the Baron de Morfield that Elenora scorned him for Adolphus. Maurice then forged a letter in Adolphus’s hand stating that Adolphus has plans to kill Rotaldo and flee the castle.

Page 33 of *The Skeleton* with asterisks representing the illegible text of Adolphus’s father’s account.

Elenora and Rotaldo compare their experiences with each other, and Adolphus’s innocence is revealed. They fear that they may have been too late to save him from Maurice’s plans. In his dungeon cell, Adolphus discovers a secret passage, in which he finds a bloodied dagger and is shocked by a skeleton. Adolphus returns to his cell with a manuscript supposedly written by the dead man. It reveals that the real Baron de Morfield is the skeleton who had been forced to give up his estate though he had an infant son and heir just after he was killed. The supposed Baron presently interrogating and kidnapping Adolphus is a usurper.

At midnight, Adolphus is freed from his cell by a mysterious man. As they make their escape, the man turns and stabs the usurping Baron. The helper and Adolphus set out to return to the Ellmont castle. Back home, the Ellmonts despair, though Almira has now been taken into the castle after her father’s passing. Her relationship with Rotaldo as well as a friendship with Elenora provides them both great comfort as they fear Adolphus to be dead.

Adolphus is received with joyous welcomes upon his return. Adolphus’s supposed father reveals he found Adolphus in the woods nearly the same time the true Baron’s letter was datedmeaning Adolphus is the true son of the Baron de Morfield. Almira reveals she is also of Morfield descent, making her and Adolphus cousins. Almira’s father’s story about his brother’s murder and sister-in-law’s unknown child all come together before the group. The Ellmonts return to the Morfield castle and witness the usurping Baron on his deathbed as Adolphus is yielded his claim to the castle. Adolphus then marries Elenora as a baron and Rotaldo marries Almira. The story ends with festivity and moralizes that “although villany may triumph for a time, yet, in the end, Happiness must be finally united to Virtue.” (38)

Bibliography

Baines, Paul. “Crookenden, Isaac (b. 1777), Writer.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 23 Sept. 2004, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/63518. Accessed 10 November 2021.

Crookenden, Isaac. The Skeleton: Or, Mysterious Discovery, a Gothic Romance. A Neil, 1805.

Frank, Frederick S. “Gothic Chapbooks, Bluebooks, and Short Stories in the Magazines (1790–1820).” Gothic Writers: A Critical and Bibliographical Guide, 2001, pp. 133–146.

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

——. “The Gothic Romance.” Horror Literature: A Core Collection and Reference Guide, edited by Marshall B. Tymn. R.R. Bowker, New York, 1981, p. 59.

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

Researcher: Jacob Tisdale

The Fiery Castle

The Fiery Castle, or, Sorcerer Vanquished: A Romance: Relating the Wonderful Adventures of a
Female Knight, in Which Is Described Her Attack on Rudamore Castle, to Release a Lovely Maid,
Detained There by a Sorcerer, and Glorious Victory Over the Guardian Demons of the Gate: With Her
Achievements in the Temple of Illusion, in Which She Resists the Allurements of the Spirits, Releases
Her Beloved Knight From the Dungeon of Torture, and Causes the Fatal End of the Sorcerer

Author: Unknown
Publisher: W. Mason
Publication Year: 1810
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 10.9cm x18.2cm
Pages: 28
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ6 F4636, 1810

This fantastical 1810 chapbook follows two knights through trial and tribulation as they attempt to rescue their loved ones from the grips of a lustful sorcerer, battling spirits and demons all the while dispelling enchanting illusions.

Material History

The Fiery Castle does not have a cover, but rather a nondescript worn page, tinted yellow with scattered mysterious brown stains, separates the reader from the book’s title. A flip into the string-bound chapbook reveals, unsurprisingly, more brown stains. What is a surprise, though, is the intricately drawn illustration that was hidden beneath the nondescript outer page: with fine lines filled in with bright pink, yellow, orange, and blue accenting the image, the illustration depicts a dame, accompanied by a knight posed for combat against two black demons guarding a gate engulfed in flames. Underneath, a simple caption reads: “See p. 7.” Clearly, this action-packed scene occurs only five pages in—as the story begins on page two.

Across from this fascinating illustration is an even more intriguing, albeit long, title: The Fiery Castle, or, Sorcerer Vanquished: A Romance: Relating the Wonderful Adventures of a Female Knight, in Which Is Described Her Attack on Rudamore Castle, to Release a Lovely Maid, Detained There by a Sorcerer, and Glorious Victory Over the Guardian Demons of the Gate: With Her Achievements in the Temple of Illusion, in Which She Resists the Allurements of the Spirits, Releases Her Beloved Knight From the Dungeon of Torture, and Causes the Fatal End of the Sorcerer—its truncated title being, The Fiery Castle, or, Sorcerer Vanquished. With varying fonts, text sizes, forms of capitalization, and embellishments throughout, it is entirely likely that the publisher was actively trying to capture and retain readers’ attention with this long title. There is no author listed on the title page or anywhere in the chapbook.

The book itself, only twenty-eight pages in length, was printed and published in London by a W. Mason and sold for sixpence. Past the opening illustration, there is no decor in the rest of the book aside from a single decorative border on the first page of the story, and a small ink and quill depiction on the thirty-second page, informing the reader that the novel is “Finis.” Flipping through the pages, the chapbook has all the characteristics of a standard paperback: set margins, pagination, and an easy-to-read font. There is but one outlier within this uniformly printed text on page 22. A small, lowercase t in “the” seems to have fallen a step below its fellow letters, resembling a subscript of sorts. Small printing quirks like this are perplexing, but give the text a sense of craftsmanship.

The Fiery Castle measures roughly 0.3 cm thick, standing at 18.2 cm tall and 10.9 cm wide. The brittle yet cotton-like pages are held together by a single strand of string, with the page reading “finis” almost finished itself, as it hangs on for dear life. This book, littered with small folds, rips, blemishes, and tinged with what can only be described as old age, shows all the signs of having led a thrilling and entertaining life as a shilling shocker.

Textual History

The Fiery Castle, or, A Sorcerer Vanquished is one of many gothic novels in the Sadleir-Black Collection. This edition was published in 1810, though there appears to be at least one earlier version which is listed as the second edition on WorldCat. This previous edition was published in 1802 by A. Young located at 168, High Holborn, Bloomsbury. Although this version is indicated as the second edition, there is no specific information on whether it is distinctly separate from the first edition. One clear distinction that can be asserted is that although the earlier edition was simply entitled: The Fiery Castle, or, The Sorcerer Vanquished: An original romance, the 1810 edition in the Sadleir-Black Collection has much more detail incorporated into the title. Both chapbooks were sold for sixpence, or half a shilling, although they were printed eight years apart.

While the novel’s original author is unknown, The Fiery Castle (1810) was distributed by an experienced publisher by the name of W. Mason. Mason’s primary operations were based at No. 21 Clerkenwell Green where he “published at least fifteen gothic pamphlets” and he habitually “summarised the entire novel on the title page” (Potter 94). This serves to explain the variance in the titles between the 1802 and 1810 versions.

At the time of publication, the demand for gothic pamphlets was diminishing. and in its place, a “growing marketplace for children’s toy books” emerged (Potter 98). W. Mason, however, published The Fiery Castle presumably because gothic publications remained well-received by readers to some extent. His decision to publish the novel may be attributed to its plot, as it illustrates a hybrid between the gothic and fairytale genres. Due to evolving public sentiment, The Fiery Castle was written in a way that swapped out the “standard gothic villain,” incorporating instead a sorcerer that is defeated by a heroine; this demonstrates how “the gothic was absorbed into the growing market for children’s stories” (Potter 98). Subsequently, the chapbook’s unconventional plot may have been another motivating factor for W. Mason’s printing of The Fiery Castle.

Many of the chapbook’s physical details, such as its decorative borders, margin size, font, and font size appear standard across W. Mason’s publications. Another chapbook published by Mason, entitled The Spirit of the Spirit, which has been scanned in its entirety and uploaded digitally to HathiTrust, resembles The Fiery Castle almost identically. Both texts’ layouts include a single illustration on the page next to the title, with each title page utilizing the same fonts and borders atop of the first page of the story.

W. Mason’s 1810 printing of The Fiery Castle appears to be the last and latest edition of the novel, with no further editions published. The novel does not have any modern editions available for purchase, nor are there any digital copies online. As a result, there have been no modifications to the story since there are no new editions, nor has the text been adapted to different mediums like film.

The Fiery Castle has very limited recognition in academic scholarship, with Franz Potter’s mention being the only noteworthy mention of the novel. This may be attributed to what Potter describes in Gothic Chapbooks, Bluebooks and Shilling Shockers as the slow yet steady shift away from gothic literature at the time that the book was distributed. Consequently, there is limited additional information to be discovered regarding The Fiery Castle’s origins.

Narrative Point of View

The Fiery Castle is narrated in third-person omniscient perspective, as the narrator provides the context for each individual character, their thoughts, as well as details on the events that are unfolding. Seamlessly switching from one scene to the next, the narrator concisely illustrates both the emotions and actions that encompass each character. The narration discloses details for a wide array of characters, ranging from the most prominent of knights to the most minute of spirits. While the narrator does not make any outright personal interjections regarding the crimes that unfold in the plot, there is a notable use of adjectives within the narration that appear to appraise the characters’ choices.

Sample Passage:

The fairy appeared, and, waving her invisible wand, extinguished the torch. The altar shook to its base, and Hymen and his attendant Cupids fled in dismay; the spirit found his power subdued, and his arts fettered. All presence of mind fled, in proportion as his fears arose, of meeting with the torments with which Rudamore was prepared to afflict him, for failing in his enterprise. The female knight saw, in a mirror which the fairy held to her view, the reflection of her girdle, which displayed again, in luminous letters, its sentence of “Be virtuous and conquer!” (26)

The narration clearly dissects each aspect of the scene, including each character or group of characters—the fairy, Hymen and the Cupids, the spirit, the female knight—within it and their subsequent actions. This creates a plot that is transparent, as the catalyst of the chain of events. In this case, the narrator is correlating the chaos that ensues to the initial arrival of the fairy and her “waving her invisible wand,” which in turn, impedes the efforts of Rudamore’s minions. Furthermore, the narrator recounts the emotions of the characters, thus providing context for their specific behaviors. By thoughtfully combining emotion and action in narration, the characters’ own portrayals are made more robust. This is illustrated in small points throughout the narration, such as the discussion of the spirit’s motivations for misleading the female knight. The spirit’s drive to deception is evidently grounded in his fear of “meeting with the torments with which Rudamore was prepared to afflict him,” which the narrator makes known by providing context. This thorough narration allows the reader to gain further insight into key elements of the plot, while also providing explanation for specific character choices.

Summary

The Fiery Castle opens with the protagonist, known only as the female knight, seeing a young man in an enchanted mirror whom she falls in love with at first sight. Her father is a powerful sorcerer and her mother, a fairy. Receiving their permission, bestowed a set of weapons and armour engraved with the message: “Be Virtuous and Conquer,” and endowed with courage, she sets out on her journey (3). In the midst of her travels, she comes across a heartbroken knight in the forest. He informs her that his beloved Dellaret has been kidnapped by an evil sorcerer, Rudamore. The female knight offers her services, thus the two set out on a journey to Rudamore’s castle.

Upon their arrival, the two knights are faced with two demons that are guarding the gate. Raising their swords, the gate is engulfed in flames to prevent their passage, and the heartbroken knight once again feels despondent. The female knight’s mother comes to their aid, declaring that “with this touch of my wand, your armour becomes adamant, and your arms are changed to gold” (6). As a result, the knights successfully defeat the demons and traverse through the flames. Hearing the commotion, Rudamore opens the gate to investigate, the two knights storm past him, and Rudamore flees further into the castle.

While the knights make their way through the castle, Rudamore summons spirits and orders them to distract the two trespassers. He intends to capture the two knights by conjuring his “Temple of Love and Illusion,” which will entrap their senses and distract them from fulfilling their quest (8). This illusion appeals to all five senses and the spirits take on tantalizing human forms meant to distract them.

The knights find their way down to the dungeons of the castle, observing and speaking to other imprisoned knights that are also grieving the loss of their mistresses to Rudamore’s rapine. After venturing through these cells, the knights arrive in a chamber filled with pillaged weapons and the robes of the women whom Rudamore has conquered on display. As this exploration unfolds, the knights are unknowingly walking towards the illusion and are greeted by the impressive, yet hallucinatory Temple of Love. Each is guided by enchanting servants to their own elevated throne of marble while a procession of servants deliver glasses of wine to them. Just as they are about to drink the liquid, the fairy interferes with the procession, causing the servant to spill the goblet and preventing her daughter from consuming this laced liquor. As the liquor spills onto the ground, a hemlock grows in its place. Realizing the foul properties of the wine, the two knights attempt to escape the temple. To prevent this from happening, two spirits assume the facades of each knights’ respective lovers, tempting the knights back into the grips of the illusion.

As the knight believes he is reunited with Dellaret, he worries that her being in the temple means she has sacrificed her virginity to Rudamore. Reassuring the knight of her chastity, the imposter delves into an elaborate tale explaining that she withstood both illusion and torture, attributing this mental fortitude to “my incessant thoughts of you, and the unshaken resolution to be ever faithful to my part of the mutual vows we have made to each other” (16). Hearing this, the knight laments that he does not have the skills necessary to rescue her from the clutches of Rudamore. Pretending that heaven has suddenly bestowed her with this idea, the imposter suggests that the pair can effectually escape so long as they marry each other “at the altar of Hymen,” because Rudamore is only tempted to keep maidens captive and their marriage would allow the knight and Dellaret to ensure she would no longer fulfill his desire for chastity (21). In reality, the spirit is carrying out Rudamore’s plans to trick the knight into marrying the imposter, as Rudamore brings the true Dellaret to witness the knight’s subsequent infidelity all in the hopes of swaying her resolve.

Rudamore forces Dellaret to watch her beloved knight marry a woman, who from her perspective resembles an old hag, and insists that he has been endeavoring this entire time to enlighten her about the knight’s true character as well as the superficiality of his proclaimed love for her. Justifying the torture he has been subjecting her to, Rudamore claims this was all done out of love. After this, he offers to make Dellaret his wife and empress, while Dellaret, both heart-broken and cornered, asks for a day to consider his offer.

In the meantime, the knight and the imposter consummate their illusory marriage while the female knight is also on the verge of marrying her own imposter at the altar of Hymen. Yet again, her mother interferes. Extinguishing the torch at the altar, the spirit loses his powers and flees, allowing the fairy to explain to her daughter that she was almost seduced by a wind spirit. Shocked by the revelation, the female knight rests at a canopy. While the female knight is sleeping, Rudamore has been consulting his book of destiny which informs him that his inevitable demise is approaching. Desperate for self-preservation, Rudamore also reads in the book that the female knight’s true love had embarked on a similar quest in search of her, and that he nears the castle. Planning to use this knight as a bargaining chip for his life, Rudamore kidnaps the man and imprisons him in the dungeon. This wrongdoing is manifested in the female knight’s dream, and as a result, she awakens and rushes to rescue him.

Dellaret, wandering around contemplating her uncertain fate and exhausted from the day’s events, collapses by chance into her knight’s arms while he is asleep. When the two wake up, the knight is immensely confused by Dellaret’s irate reaction at her current circumstances. Still believing the two are happily united, Dellaret unleashes the truth exclaiming to him, “As you have deserted me, for such an ugly and disgustful wretch, I will abandon you” (29). She flees to Rudamore, demanding that he imprison the knight in exchange for the right to take her virginity. This request is immediately granted, the knight is captured and subjected to torture by Rudamore’s spirit, while the sorcerer forces himself upon Dellaret.

The female knight discovers Rudamore just as he is taking advantage of Dellaret. As she is about to land a fatal blow on the evil sorcerer, Dellaret pleads to the female knight that she end her life first. Rudamore interrupts their discourse to plead for mercy, offering to show the female knight where her lover and her companion are being held captive. The three go to the dungeons and are brought face to face with the two captured knights. The female knight attempts to slay Rudamore for his crimes, however the fairy disrupts her daughter’s attempt. The fairy informs her daughter that this is not adequate justice unless Rudamore first confesses his devious schemes. Furthermore, it is made known that the two men cannot be released from their bindings without Rudamore’s spells. The sorcerer feigns repentance and releases the men while confessing his role in the manipulation of the knight and Dellaret. Realizing Rudamore’s evil interference, Dellaret and her knight immediately restore their love and faith in each other. As the couples are reunited, Rudamore takes this as an opening to flee to his chambers. To ensure Rudamore properly receives justice, the fairy leads her daughter to him. The female knight slays Rudamore and the companions proceed to live peacefully in the castle, which the fairy has restored to a glorious property.

Bibliography

Ashe, Thomas. The Spirit of the Spirit. London. W. Mason, 1812. HathiTrust Digital Library. https://hdl.handle.net/2027/dul1.ark:/13960/t9b57fb70

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

The Fiery Castle, or, A Sorcerer Vanquished. London. W. Mason, 1810.

Researcher: Cynthia Hardy

The Round Tower

The Round Tower, Or the Mysterious Witness: An Irish Legendary Tale of the Sixth Century

Author: Charlotte Frances Barrett
Publisher: Tegg and Castleman
Publication Year: 1803
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 10.7cm x 17.3cm
Pages: 36
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2.B376 R 1803

In this 1803 chapbook, Charlotte Frances Barrett (Frances Burney’s niece) writes a tale of adventure, surprise, and horror in which the righteous queen must be rescued from an evil usurper.

Material History

The Round Tower, Or the Mysterious Witness: An Irish Legendary Tale of the Sixth Century, by C. F. Barrett, is a gothic chapbook in the Sadleir-Black Collection of the University of Virginia Special Collections Library. The book is thirty-six pages, has no cover, and measures 17.3cm by 10.7cm. The front of the book is blank, save for the faint traces of ink that have bled through from the illustration next to the inside title page. Once the book is opened, an illustration of two cavaliers gesturing towards a godlike figure is observed along with the words “Vaughan delin” and “Barlow sculp” under the bottom left and right corners respectively. The illustration combines both etching and engraving and was printed from a copper plate. Additionally, the words “Round Tower” are written under the center of the illustration in a three-dimensional font. The inside title page follows the illustration and the author’s name is printed in the middle of the page in all capital letters. Beneath the author’s name is listed Barrett’s other publication: Mary Queen of Scots, Sc., and the quote, “Murder! Most foul, and Treachery most vile.” Farther down the inner title page, after the author’s name and credentials, is the publishing information and the words “Printed for Tegg and Castleman.”

The book is held together by glue binding; however, it is worn and has lost its effect, leading to the book’s fragility. The binding used to be accompanied by stitching that adhered the book to its cover as illustrated by the holes in the sides of the pages closest to the spine, but the cover has since fallen off, which contributes to the book’s tattered appearance.

The pages of the text are yellowed, have the texture of sandpaper, and are splotchy, due to a chemical reaction that has occurred between the chemicals in the paper and the environment in which the book is stored. Moreover, the pages get increasingly brown beginning at page 25, and appear more weathered than the pages at the beginning and middle of the text.

On each page, the text is centered and situated between margins that are slightly larger on the top and bottom than the left and right. Each page has the words “THE ROUND TOWER” printed in the center of the top margin and the page number in the bottom left corner right under the text. The text is small, closely set, and sophisticated with a font that appears similar to Times New Roman.

The Round Tower boasts markings made by potential previous owners. The first and second occur on page 11. In the bottom margin is a signature written in cursive, however, it has faded and is therefore illegible. At the top of page 11 in the right-hand margin, the initials LB are written in cursive, insinuating that the book was once owned by an individual before coming into the Sadleir-Black Collection. Finally, there is a blotch of blue ink two-thirds of the way down page 25.

Textual History

The Round Tower, Or the Mysterious Witness: An Irish Legendary Tale of the Sixth Century, by C. F. Barrett, was published by Tegg and Castleman in London in 1803; this appears to be the only edition and there are no digital copies. Interestingly, the book is a plagiarism of John Palmer’s popular gothic novel, The Mystery of the Black Tower (Tymn 41). This tale is set in the time period of Edward the III and depicts the life of Leonard, a young boy who earns knighthood and must embark on an adventure to save his love, Emma, from imprisonment in the Black Tower. Published in 1796, The Black Tower was influenced by Don Quixote as well as Clara Reeve’s The Old English Baron and is still billed as “among the finest historical Gothic novels” (“The Mystery of the Black Tower (1796)”). Plagiarisms were very common among chapbooks at this time.

The frontispiece of *The Round Tower* depicting the theatrical nature of one of the supernatural scenes.

Francesca Saggini suggests that The Round Tower was also inspired by contemporary theatrical performances. Saggini characterizes Barrett as a “prolific hack … who adapted to the page several Gothic spectacles performed … at popular London venues” (120). The frontispiece of The Round Tower depicts the dramaticism of the appearance of the supernatural apparition and the animated reflections of the onlookers, thus illustrating how the gothic genre was influenced by performance yet also available to readers “at a cheap price and in the safety of their own homes” (Saggini 122). The frontispiece is also displayed in Frederick Frank’s article “Gothic Gold: The Sadleir-Black Gothic Collection”along with a description of the work that describes the book as a thrilling “Macbethian Gothic” that includes dramatized supernatural elements (18).

Charlotte Frances Barrett, author of The Round Tower, produced pamphlets between 1800 and 1810 and authored stories including, as compiled by Franz Potter: The Great Devil’s Tale; or, The Castle of Morbano included in Canterbury Tales (1802), The Mysterious Vision; or, Perfidy Punished in the New Collection of Gothic Stories (1801), a translation of The Shipwreck, or, The Adventures, Love, and Constancy, of Paul and Virginia (1800), Douglas Castle; or, The Cell of Mystery. A Scottish Tale (1803) for Arthur Neil, and Laugh when You Can; or, The Monstrous Droll Jester (1800) for Ann Lemoine (104-5n). Barrett was also the niece of Frances Burney (1752–1840), well-known author of Evelina (1778) and Cecilia (1782).

Thomas Tegg (1776–1846), who published The Round Tower, was a bookseller and publisher in London who specialized in “reprints, out-of-copyright publications, remainders, and cheap satirical prints” (“Thomas Tegg”). He also published accounts of shipwrecks that included engraved folding frontispieces (Weiss 60). Tegg and Castleman were prolific: “between 1802 and 1805, Tegg and Castleman co-published at least nineteen novelettes in collaboration with Dugdale” (Loeber and Stouthamer-Loeber 26). Potter calls Tegg “the most prominent, if not notorious, publisher of gothic chapbooks and pamphlets in the early nineteenth century” (59).

Narrative Point of View

The Round Tower is narrated by an omniscient narrator who has insight into the thoughts and actions of each character. The story is narrated in a venerable tone using lengthy sentences that are broken up by punctuation. The narration primarily focuses on the emotions of the characters and how they influence the characters’ dispositions and behaviors. Additionally, the narrator relays the tale with great expressivity by contextualizing every event in the story with dramatic and detailed descriptions.

Sample Passage:

Enraged at her firmness, Sitric seized the infant, and, drawing his poignard, he raised his arm in order to plunge it in the bosom of the latter, when, driven to desperation, she rushed on the perfidious Dane, and, wrestling the fatal weapon from him, would have plunged it in his heart, but at that moment the door of the dungeon flew open, and Cobthatch, attended by the vindictive Connora, rushed in, followed by several of the usurper’s guards. Appalled at the sudden appearance of her husband’s enemy, the poignard fell from the hand of Moriat, which Connora instantly seized, fearful (in despite of her lord’s neglect) lest in a paroxysm of despair Moriat might yet use it against his life. (19)

The narrator’s omniscience allows for multiple characters’ perspectives to be included in the relation of the book, which illustrates their motives, ambitions, and values to add nuance and intricacy to the tale. Likewise, the multitude of punctuation functions to provide the narrator with inflection and gives the impression that the book is being told as a story. The narrator’s emphasis on the characters’ feelings centers the driving force of the plot around emotion and asserts its power as a motivating force behind the characters’ actions. Furthermore, the descriptive and intensified manner in which the book is narrated creates a theatrical tone that results in an immersive quality.

Summary

Cobthatch, King of Munster, is listening to music in an attempt to calm his anxiety about the fact that he has unjustly obtained the throne by killing his uncle, Laughair. He is then notified that Maon and Moriat, the son of his murdered uncle and his wife, are still alive, and orders his associate, Sitric, to ensure their execution. However, Maon and Moriat do not know the other is alive.

A sample page of *The Round Tower* illustrating the closely set text and yellowed pages.

Meanwhile, Moriat is in the mountains where she has been able to secure lodging. One day when she is mourning the loss of Maon, who she thinks is deceased, she carves his name into a nearby rock. While doing so, she is startled by a man approaching her, but then realizes it is Kildare, her loyal attendant. He recalls his experience venturing out to secure provisions and tells Moriat the story of how he discovered Maon. He recollects that he heard a groan and was convinced it was a ghost, but then realized it was Maon, who at the time had drawn his sword with the intention of committing suicide. Kildare caught the Lord before he impaled himself, and they embraced upon their reunion. Maon immediately wanted to be shown to Moriat, but Kildare convinced him the sudden shock would be too much for her to bear and convinced Maon to wait until he could deliver the news.

Upon hearing that her husband is alive, Moriat waits the entire night for his return with their child at her side, but Maon never shows. Instead, Moriat is pursued and cornered by Cobthatch’s guards, who take her to Sitric’s castle where she and her infant are detained in the dungeon. Sitric is enamored by Moriat’s beauty and wants to spare her from death at the hand of Cobthatch. He therefore goes to Cobthatch and makes up a story where he states that Moriat refused to reveal Maon’s location and therefore, he stabbed her. This satisfies the king, and he is happy to know he will not have to worry about her raising suspicion. When Sitric returns to the dungeon where Moriat is being held, he asks that in return for him sparing her life, she complies with all his future demands. She responds that she will not break her marriage vows, but that someday her son will be able to repay him. Sitric, infuriated by her lack of compliance, chains her infant to the opposite wall. He returns the following night, and when Moriat again refuses to comply, he gives her an ultimatum that if she does not obey, both her and her baby’s life will suffer the consequences.

In the meantime, Sitric’s wife, Connora, suspects that her husband is devoted to another, and devises a plan to observe him. She disguises herself and follows him to the dungeon where she overhears his conversation with Moriat, thus confirming her suspicions. Sitric returns to visit Moriat and is on the verge of stabbing her infant out of anger at her firmness, when Connora and Cobthatch enter the room. Cobthatch, enraged at discovering that Moriat is alive, demands that she and her baby be removed to the Round Tower.

While Moriat was captured, Kildare and Maon encountered troops, causing a delay in their visit to reunite with her. When they venture out the next morning, they see Sitric’s party in the distance and Kildare suggests they retire to the cottage of a loyal friend, O’Brian, until they can gather a party large enough to overpower Sitric’s army.

Once at the cottage, Kildare relates the adventures of Maon and Moriat since the death of Laughair to O’Brian. He recalls that Laughair had stayed at the castle of Cobthatch when he was murdered, and that Maon and Moriat, being accused of the crime, fled to O’Brian’s cottage. Here they were discovered, which resulted in Moriat fleeing to the mountains and Maon embarking on a ship that was said to have capsized, leading Moriat to believe him dead.

Page 11 of *The Round Tower*, which has a signature on the bottom of the page and initials in the upper right corner.

In an effort to rescue Moriat, Maon resolves to enter Sitric’s castle disguised as a friar and embarks on his journey. Once he arrives, Maon encounters Sitric, who relates the story of Moriat’s captivity from the perspective of her savior and offers to lead Maon to the Round Tower. The next day, as Sitric leads Maon through the passageways, he decides to kill him. Immediately before he stabs him, the ghost of Laughair appears and instructs Sitric to lead Maon safely to the dungeon, or else he would face his vengeance. Once at the door, Maon and Sitric discover Cobthatch attempting to rape Moriat, leading Sitric to stab and kill him. Sitric then accuses Maon of the murder and has him taken prisoner. Because of the death of Cobthatch, Sitric is crowned king.

Following Cobthatch’s murder, Sitric offers Moriat the freedom of her husband and child if she agrees to have sex with him. At this moment, Laughair’s ghost reappears and tells Moriat not to trust the tyrant, and she complies with his instructions and holds firm.

Later that evening, Sitric discovers that Moriat has escaped, accuses Maon of aiding her to freedom, and orders the execution of him and his child. The moment before the axe is to execute Maon, Sitric tells him that if he resigns his title to Moriat and tells him her location, Maon will be spared. He refuses and at that moment, Kildare enters the courtyard with a band of peasants and enters into combat with Sitric’s men. While Sitric is engaged in fighting, Moriat stabs him, which causes his troops to disperse.

After the death of Sitric, Kildare presents to the nobles that Maon should be king, and when asked for proof of his innocence, the ghost of Laughair appears for the final time to declare that Maon is the rightful heir of Munster, and he is crowned king.

Once Maon and Moriat are restored to the throne, Moriat retells that she escaped because the ghost of Laughair led her to the cottage where Kildare was staying. Once she arrived, Kildare had assembled an army of peasants ready to restore the true king to power.

Maon and Moriat enjoy a life full of joy and peace together, and his rule becomes known for its justice and serves as an example to other nations.

Bibliography

Barrett, Charlotte Frances. The Round Tower, Or the Mysterious Witness: An Irish Legendary Tale of the Sixth Century. London, Tegg and Castleman, 1803.

Frank, Frederick. “Gothic Gold: The Sadleir-Black Gothic Collection.” Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture, vol. 26, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 1997, pp. 287–312.

Loeber, Rolf, and Magda Stouthamer-Loeber. “The Publication of Irish Novels and Novelettes: A Footnote on Irish Gothic Fiction.” Cardiff Corvey: Reading the Romantic Text, 10th ed., e Centre for Editorial and Intertextual Research, Cardiff, Wales, 2003, pp. 17–44. http://sites.cardiff.ac.uk/romtextv2/files/2013/02/cc10_n02.pdf

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

Saggini, Francesca. The Gothic Novel and The Stage: Romantic Appropriations. Routledge, Taylor Et Francis Group, 2019.

“The Mystery of the Black Tower (1796).” Valancourt Books, https://www.valancourtbooks.com/the-mystery-of-the-black-tower-1796.html.

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

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

Weiss, Harry B. Book about Chapbooks: The People’s Literature of Bygone Times. Folklore Associates, 1969.

Researcher: Delaney K. Walts

The Twin Sisters

The Twin Sisters; or, Two Girls of Nineteen: Being the Interesting Adventures of Sophia and Charlotte Melford. An Affecting Narrative

Author: Unknown
Publisher: Freeman Scott
Publication Year: 1827
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 9.1cm x 14.15cm
Pages: 72
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2.T82 1827

Set in England and published in 1827, The Twin Sisters warns of the sexual improprieties of men, cautioning that men lead to the destruction of women, unless women are resilient in their actions.

Material History

The book containing The Twin Sisters; or, Two Girls of Nineteen: Being the Interesting Adventures of Sophia and Charlotte Melford. An Affecting Narrative by “Charlotte, one of the sisters” is a small 9.1cm by 14.15cm worn book. The book contains seventy-two pages total: pages three through forty-two detail the story of the twin sisters and the remaining thirty pages recount Orphan of the Castle: a Gothic Tale, or the Surprising History and Vicissitudes of Allan Fitz-Roberts, the Orphan Heir of the Castle of Lindisfarne by an unknown author.

The title page for *The Twin Sisters*. Note the white tape holding the page to the book, the tearing along the bottom edge, and the rectangular staining in the middle of the page.

This desaturated teal-colored hardcover book is discolored by light warm-brown staining. The discoloration is most exaggerated on the bottom edge of the book. The front cover has a thin crack halfway up the page, starting from the right side, tapering off until it reaches a cool dark-brown freckle near the middle of the book. This dark splotch is the most distinctive out of many, most likely unintentional, freckles splattering the cover, giving the book an aged appearance. There is also a 0.5cm in diameter distinctive stain in the upper left-hand corner, rimmed thinly with a warm dark-brown and filled with a cool-blue grey. The stain resembles a hippopotamus’s head with a small protrusion where the neck should be, giving the appearance of a small gourd.

The binding is exceedingly damaged. The book, bound similarly to modern hardcovers, has a cardboard-like substance acting as the base, wrapped in a colored paper to attach the front hardcover with the back. The desaturated orange-brown colored cardboard-like substance peaks from the corners of the book where the teal paper covering has worn through. The paper cover folds over the edges of the hardback and a rectangle of white paper, now discolored with age, pastes over it to secure it. Only severely degraded paper covers the spine. The spine is intact from the bottom until 8.2cm up from the bottom, where it is torn off completely until 11.5cm up from the bottom. A few centimeters of the paper remain attached, but only attached to the left edge of the spine. In the binding of the pages, some type of adhesive glue adhered each edge of the paper together with a thin bit of string threaded through all of the pages in three places near the center of the inner margin or gutter of the book. Each puncture falls one centimeter apart.

The paper, brittle and browned from age, has the most browning along its edges. On the first page, an 8 by 3cm rectangle-shaped discoloration appears in the middle of the page. A few of the pages are ripped, but only along the bottom edge, including the first page, resulting in a brown staining its negative on the third page. A few of the odd-numbered pages are marked below the text with signature marks used by a printer; the marks appear as a combination of letters and the number 2, ranging from A2 to D2 in The Twin Sisters. The Orphan of the Castle has more damage to the paper detailing its story than The Twin Sisters. The damage evokes the interaction between watercolor paint and salt, giving the pages a speckled appearance.

When looking at a standard spread of The Twin Sisters, the thirty-four lines of text are fully justified causing the spacing between words to be on average narrower than standard. The margins are consistent at 1cm on the bottom and outside edge with the top margin 1.5cm to leave adequate room for “The Two Girls” above the text on the left page, and “Of Nineteen” above the text on the right page. All of the pages are numbered, except for the first page of The Orphan of the Castle and the first three pages of the book: the title page, the blank back of the title page, and the first page of The Twin Sisters.

Beyond a mostly illegible scrawl of what appears to be the name “Mr. Wyllis” in the top left corner of the inside of the cover, and the University of Virginia Library bookplate, there are no illustrations, marginalia, or personal marks in the book. Neither is the title of either story listed anywhere apart from the title page and the first page of each respective story. On the opening page of each story, each of the titles is shortened from their full form inscribed in the title page to just the primary title, without its subtitle.

Textual History

The title page attributes Charlotte Melford, the narrator of the story, as the author of The Twin Sisters; or, Two Girls of Nineteen: Being the Interesting Adventures of Sophia and Charlotte Melford. An Affecting Narrative; however, this is spurious, as the far-fetched story is a work of fiction. There are no other authors listed in any available copies of the book, except one WorldCat entry erroneously listing the publisher, Freeman Scott, as the author.

The copy held at the University of Virginia Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library was published in 1827 by Freeman Scott, with premises on the N.W. Corner of Tenth and Race Streets, Philadelphia. There was another publication of this story produced in London and “printed and sold by Dean & Munday, 35, Threadneedle Street” (as noted on its title page); this copy has been digitized and made available on Google Books, which lists the date at 1830, though this date is not shown anywhere on the scan of the book. The two copies are very similar in most regards but differ substantially in some ways. The Freeman Scott version is one of two stories in the chapbook, with the other being Orphan of the Castle, and The Twin Sisters accounts for pages 3 through 42; by contrast, the Dean and Munday edition was published alone and accounts for pages 8 through 36 of its book. The difference in page count is primarily due to what appears to be differences in margin size as well as page size; the body of the text is largely the same. There are, however, some discrepancies in the text, especially with punctuation. The two editions have very little consistency between their punctuations with over six changes between the two editions on the corresponding text of the first page of the Scott edition alone. Occasionally, there are also some changes in word choice: for instance, page six of the Scott edition uses “written” while the corresponding section of the Dean and Munday edition uses “wrote” on page nine. Or, later, in the same sentence, the Scott edition uses “house” while the Dean and Munday edition uses “home.” There are also some cases where there is an entire half of a sentence or full sentence present in the Dean and Munday edition that is missing in the Scott edition, such as the inclusion of “to go with her; my father she said, was visited by dissolute men in whose company it would be imprudent for us to mix” at the end of a sentence on page ten in the Dean and Munday edition but not the Scott edition. Perhaps most notably, the Dean and Munday edition includes an illustration of the scene where Charlotte is taken from her lodgings by the police as the frontispiece before the title page; this illustration is absent in the Scott edition.

The final page of *The Twin Sisters.* Note the warm brown staining, shaped like a rattle in the top right corner.

WorldCat also lists several other editions with various publication years, all attributed to Charlotte Melford. For instance, WorldCat lists an 1821 edition that is twelve pages long and was published for wholesale and retail in New York at 386, Broadway, W. Grattan Printer by S. King, and sold at his bookstore. There is only one library with this 1821 edition: the University of Iowa Library.

WorldCat lists an 1823 edition that was published for wholesale and retail in New York by W. Borradaile. This copy is one of the earliest editions and does not have the attached Orphan of the Castle story. This version is thirty-six pages long and includes an illustration.

WorldCat also identifies an edition with an unspecified publication date in the 1800s, and Jstor lists the date for this version as somewhere between 1814 and 1837. This edition was printed in London “for the booksellers, and for J. Kendrew, Colliergate, York.” In the WorldCat entry, James Kendrew is listed as one of the named persons in the book twice alongside Sophia and Charlotte, even though he never appears in the book. This copy appears to be similar to the Dean and Munday edition as the story spans pages 8 through 36 and has a front plate illustration like the Dean and Munday edition; however, this version is listed as being one centimeter smaller (19cm compared to 20cm). The University of York Library, in the United Kingdom, is the only library with a copy of this edition. There is a scan of this book on Jstor, in the form of a photograph of each page spread, showing that it is very similar to the Dean and Munday version of the book as the punctuation and general length and spacing of the book appear to be consistent. There is however a difference in the fonts on the title page and the image on the page before. The image in this University of York version is not colored and depicts the sisters together before they depart on their trip to London. The covers of both books also appear to be a warm brown color, however, the image of the University of York version is more degraded than the image of the Dean and Munday edition available on Google Books. The Kendrew edition of the book most likely contains another story after it within the same physical book, since in the Jstor scan the last page of text is on the left, leaving the right page blank, allowing for the ink from the image on the back of the page to show through. Furthermore, visually, there appear to be numerous pages left in the book.

Fourteen libraries in the world, including the University of Virginia Library, have a copy of the 1827 Scott edition of this book according to WorldCat, with thirteen of the fourteen being in the United States and the last copy being in Canada. The copy of the Scott edition that is owned by the New York Public Library was digitized on January 19th, 2007 onto Google Books where it can be read for free. This copy is the exact same, textually, as the Scott edition owned by the University of Virginia; however, the cover and physical quality are distinct, since the New York Public Library version appears to be in better physical condition and has a harder warm-brown cover as opposed to the worn discolored teal of the University of Virginia version. There is an odd speckling on the first few pages of the New York digitized version that is absent in the physical University of Virginia version.

There is also another book about the sisters called The Sisters, or, Virtue Triumphant : Being the Eventful History of Sophia & Charlotte Melford, which is depicted as authored by Charlotte and Sophia Melford and available on Google Books; other library catalogues, including McGill Library’s Chapbook Collection, New York Public Library Catalogue, and WorldCat just list Charlotte Melford as the author. According to WorldCat, The Sisters, or, Virtue Triumphant was printed by Hodgson & Co. in London at No. 10, Newgate-Street, sometime between 1822 and 1824, indicating that this story predates most but not all editions of The Twin Sisters. From the frontispiece of The Sisters depicted on a scan from the McGill Library, the story appears similar to that of The Twin Sisters in that they share the same general plot points: the smugglers in the sisters’ room dressed as women, Charlotte being taken by the constables, Charlotte and the Colonel, and Sophia being turned to the street (The Sisters 1). The McGill Library catalog entry notes the book is written by Robert Cruikshank, but he is most likely the illustrator of the images.

There are newer publications of The Twin Sisters—with Kessinger Publishing, LLC republishing The Twin Sisters in 2010 and Forgotten Books republishing it in 2018—that can be purchased on several online websites such as Amazon, eBay, and Better World Books.

Narrative Point of View

Charlotte, one of the sisters, narrates The Twin Sisters in the first-person point of view. The narration of the plot is fast paced, with many brief summaries of long periods of time, oftentimes spanning several years, but, at the same time, Charlotte imbues the story with haughty, verbose language in some instances, giving it a formal feel. The chapbook is told in the past tense, making it seem like a story Charlotte is reflecting on and sharing with the readers rather than being more present in the action. This gives the narration a detached sense, which is compounded by the formal titles that she calls every character. She refers to everyone in the book, except her aunt Emma, Sophia, and Susan by their formal names, her close friends, her husband (she calls him Colonel Woodly or colonel), and even people whom she despises. Charlotte focuses primarily on her actions and interactions with people rather than going in-depth about her thought processes or feelings. There is minimal dialogue throughout the novel, with paraphrasing of dialogue more common.

Sample Passage:

The coach went on with rapidity, and I found in a short time that we had left town, and were proceeding along a road that appeared very dreary. I became seriously alarmed, though, to speak with justice of his lordship, he did not offer to take the least unbecoming liberty. He felt my hand tremble, and bade we dismiss my fears, that we were only going a little way beyond Bayswater, and were near our journey’s end. We stopped at a neat white house, the coachman was ordered to knock, but the summons was several times repeated with violence before the door was opened; nor was that done till a female demanded in a harsh discordant voice, who was there at such an hour? And discovered Lord Morden to be the intruder. (21)

It seems as though Charlotte is trying to prop herself up with the narration, since, by using her extensive vocabulary to create a more complex twist on a simple narrative, she is showing off her intelligence and education. She was born into a lower-class family but was given a genteel education by her aunt, so she is trying to use this education to distinguish herself from these lower classes and establish her place in the upper class of her husband. Relatedly, she refers to people in higher social classes than herself in more formal ways, regardless of her personal feelings about them, and calls people at or below her social class by their informal first names, indicating that they are beneath her. Charlotte distances herself from this story throughout her narration; the writing is closed off and impersonal in most instances, not demonstrating the emotions of terror, disgust, loneliness, and joy. She seems to breeze past her emotions, mentioning a slight hand tremble and feeling “seriously alarmed” but then immediately changing the subject or focusing on the actions of the scene rather than her perceptions of it, as though they are nothing. This generates the distance between the events of the story and the narration, and also functions as a form of protective emotional detachment.

Summary

Charlotte, one of the sisters, begins The Twin Sisters with the purpose of the story: a warning to the “fairer sex” about the “delusive arts” of men (2). The Twin Sisters then briefly describes the background of the sisters’ family, detailing the tragedy of their lives and history of issues with financial support. Their mother dies in a horseback riding accident, pushing their father into a grief-fueled sickness from which he eventually dies. His death leaves the girls penniless under the guardianship of their aunt until she too dies a few years later.

The first page of The Twin Sisters. Note the warm brown staining on the bottom edge of the page from the tearing in the title page the page before.

The girls receive a letter from Mrs. Mowbray, a friendly neighbor one summer, offering one of them a job as a nanny in London to a rich family, the Aspleys. Having no real opportunities, they accept and venture on their journey to London.

They stop for the night at a crowded inn and are forced to share a room with two other female travelers, who they later discover to be male smugglers in disguise. These men come into the rooms after their late dinner while Sophia is sleeping and while Charlotte is pretending to sleep. Charlotte overhears them consider raping her and her sister before they drunkenly fall asleep. Much to Charlotte’s relief, the smugglers’ coach arrives before they have the chance to hurt either of the sisters.

The rest of their trip to London is uneventful. Upon their arrival, they are summoned by Mrs. Mowbray to meet the wealthy Lady Aspley. On the advice of Mrs. Mowbray, she chooses Sophia for the nannying position, but Charlotte remains living with Mrs. Mowbray.

Charlotte becomes apprehensive as the company Mrs. Mowbray keeps acts more rudely and obscenely than how she expected people of their supposed standings to behave. When she questions Mrs. Mowbray about it, she just calls her a “pretty innocent rustic,” stating that this behavior is normal for townsfolk (16). In an attempt to confirm her apprehensions, Charlotte tries to visit Sophia to compare their experiences. Mrs. Mowbray informs her that is impossible as Lady Aspley’s household, along with Sophia, had moved to Margate so their sick child could sea-bathe. When Charlotte tries to leave anyway, she is stopped by Mrs. Mowbray and some of her servants. They lock Charlotte in her bedroom, causing her to realize she and Sophia were betrayed by Mrs. Mowbray.

From a servant, Susan, who brings her food, Charlotte finds out that Mrs. Mowbray is a sex trafficker, or rather a “procuress who was employed by (to use [the servants] own words) very great gentlemen to ensnare young girls” (17). The servant also informs Charlotte that a man named Lord Morden paid Mrs. Mowbray to set this trap specifically for her as he had taken a fancy towards her. After this revelation, Charlotte bribes Susan to help her escape; Charlotte sneaks out of the room, but faints from fear and wakes up in the arms of Lord Morden. He asks her to give him her affection and to live with him. Charlotte declines his offer, stating she is imprisoned because of him, so why would she want to be with him. When he offers to free her from Mrs. Mowbray, she agrees to go with him as, in her mind, it was better to be content with him than to live enslaved to the “vile” Mrs. Mowbray (21).

Lord Morden then takes her to the house of his former mistress, Matilda, whose life he ruined after taking her innocence, and asks her to watch over Charlotte for a few days. Charlotte is furious as she feels imprisoned again, so she asks to leave. Matilda, partly because of her jealousy towards Charlotte and Lord Morden’s relationship and partly because of her anger towards Lord Morden, agrees to let her go.

Charlotte flees Matilda’s house and finds shelter at a boarding house where she is subsequently falsely arrested for forgery the next day. The victim of the forgery, Mr. Newton, comes to identify her, but brusquely proclaims Charlotte’s innocence. He then offers to take Charlotte back to her room at the boarding house to collect her things. In the carriage ride, he solicits her for sex as he believes her to be a prostitute. Charlotte is horrified by the offer and demands to be let out of the coach. On his refusal, she starts screaming, causing the coach to stop to make sure everything is alright. Charlotte uses this chance to escape.

Charlotte stops at a toy store to rest from her vigorous dash away from the carriage. The owner, a nice old woman named Mrs. Brent, agrees to provide her room and board. Charlotte then gets a job as an English teacher with connections from her bank. Things seem to be looking her way, until one day Charlotte runs into Sophia on a walk. Sophia tells her that she should have yielded to Lord Morden as she would be safe from the danger of the world. Sophia then goes on to share her experiences in the time they were apart and how happy she is with her place in life. Mrs. Mowbray introduced Sophia to a wealthy man named Mr. Greville. He raped her, took her on as his mistress, and is now supporting her lavish lifestyle financially.

Some time passes before her next interaction with Sophia in the form of a letter asking for a meeting. Sophia looks like a wreck; Mr. Greville found a new mistress and abandoned her, forcing her into prostitution, but she still refused to accept Charlotte’s help. She says she is content and happy with her life, that she has time to repent after she retires.

Time passes and Charlotte falls in love with Mrs. Brent’s nephew, Colonel Woodly. Despite the fact that he likes her as well, she feels the marriage is one of unequals. She will sully his reputation with marriage and his mother would never agree to it. His mother, however, overhears this conversation and agrees immediately to the union. They marry and have a successful marriage with two children.

Three years after the marriage, Mrs. Brent arrives, announcing that she found Sophia passed out in the streets and took her in. Sophia had experienced all of the degradations that came with prostitution: she was abandoned by her pimp; sick, penniless, with nothing more than the clothes on her back. Charlotte then helps care for her physically and spiritually. She now lives a very pious, peaceful life in South Wales.

Bibliography

The Twin Sisters: Or, Two Girls of Nineteen: Being the Interesting Adventures of Sophia and Charlotte Melford. An Affecting Narrative. Dean & Munday, 1830. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Twin_Sisters_Or_Two_Girls_of_Ninetee/TpjXIRLwbHMC?hl=en&gbpv=0.

The Twin Sisters: Or, Two Girls of Nineteen: Being the Interesting Adventures of Sophia and Charlotte Melford. An Affecting Narrative. F. Scott, 1827. https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Twin_Sisters/PwknAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0.

The Twin Sisters, or, Two Girls of Nineteen : Being the Interesting Adventures of Sophia & Charlotte Melford. An Affecting Narrative. London : Printed for the booksellers and for J Kendrew Colliergate York, pp. 1–17, https://jstor.org/stable/10.2307/community.29959877.

The Sisters, or, Virtue Triumphant : Being the Eventful History of Sophia & Charlotte Melford. London : Printed by and for Hodgson & Co., No. 10, Newgate-Street, [1822–1824]. https://archive.org/details/McGillLibrary-PN970_R63_no_58_elf-1820/mode/2up?view=theater.

Researcher: Rylan L. Karjane

Parental Murder

Parental Murder; or, the Brothers, an Interesting Romance; in which Virtue and Villainy are Contrasted, and Followed by Reward and Retribution.

Author: Unknown
Publisher: T. and R. Hughes
Publication Year: 1807
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 11cm x 18cm
Pages: 40
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2.P345 1807

Set in the Italian countryside, this 1807 chapbook sees seemingly supernatural justice dealt after a deceitful and power-hungry prince murders his father, usurps the throne, and abducts his brother’s lover.

Material History

Parental Murder is anineteenth-century chapbook written by an unknown author. When the novel is opened past its first blank page, one is presented with an illustration on the second page, and the title page appears on the third. The bulk of the title page is dedicated to the novel’s full title and a brief description: “PARENTAL MURDER; OR, THE BROTHERS, AN INTERESTING ROMANCE; IN WHICH VIRTUE AND VILLAINY ARE CONTRASTED, AND FOLLOWED BY REWARD AND RETRIBUTION.” The title page indicates that the novel was printed for T. and R. Hughes by printers Lewis & Hamblin. A date at the bottom of the title page indicates that it was published in 1807. Interestingly, the title page makes no mention of the novel’s author.

The illustration on the second page is in black-and-white, depicting a scene from the main text. In the image, a woman clad in flowing white robes looks down upon a man lying dead on the ground, facing upward. The illustration is accompanied by a caption reading, “A fire-ball, impelled by the arm of unerring Omnipotence, laid the libertine dead at my feet. Page 27.” As suggested, this text appears in a passage on page 27.

The chapbook itself measures 11cm wide by 18cm tall. Stitching holes in each page’s inner margins suggest that the chapbook was originally bound, but this particular book has had its binding removed, and its first blank page serves as a kind of cover. The book’s paper is thin, brittle, yellowed, and very grainy—one feels pulp as they run their finger across each page. At its edges, the paper is frayed and rough. The book appears to have been printed on relatively cheap material, and this particular copy is especially well-worn; several of its pages are on the brink of coming apart from one another.

The chapbook is numbered as containing forty pages; however, counting from the novel’s blank first page, there are actually only thirty-eight pages. The novel’s first numbered page—page 8—appears only six pages in. Every page number thereafter is consecutive; if these two pages are missing, they must have been taken from before page 8. It is ultimately unclear if any pages actually are missing; no content appears to be omitted from these first pages. It is probable that either the two absent pages are blank or that page counting simply begins at an unusual number.

The cover page for *Parental Murder*, complete with ownership markings.

The blank first page—while devoid of print—does contain several ownership markings. The name “Sophia” is stamped identically three times near the top. Underneath, a partially-legible script indicates the name “Barbara Bounby” and the date range June 3^rd to June 16^th, 1810. (However, the specific days in June are somewhat unclear—the script is blotted and individual characters become difficult to decipher.) Near the bottom of the page, “Le” is written in a similar script with identical color.

After the main body of the text begins, the title of the book appears only in its abbreviated form: “PARENTAL MURDER; OR,” alongside “THE BROTHERS.” printed in the top margins of the left and right pages, respectively. Each page in the text’s main body has thin margins. The type is small, seriffed, and heavyset. The lines are short and tightly packed; the pages, while small, are dense. The body of the text contains no illustrations beyond the introductory frontispiece on the second page.

The body text is marked on two separate pages. First, on page 22, two x-marks made in pencil surround the phrase “of his heart.” Higher up on the same page, an (ostensibly accidental) pencil marking veers off the top edge. On page 31, the word “Regicide!” is underlined in pen. These two pages are the only two with obvious, visible annotations; the rest of the text is unmarked.

Textual History

Very little information is available concerning the writing, publication, or reception of Parental Murder. Its author is anonymous—the only names listed in the chapbook are those of the publisher and printer. Published in London in 1807, it was apparently released to little fanfare: there are no records of Parental Murder being advertised or reviewed in any periodicals of its time. Furthermore, searches for contemporary literary criticism—or any other kind of secondary scholarship—on the chapbook yield few references.

There are, however, indications that Parental Murder did not go entirely unnoticed by the scholarly community. For instance: it is listed in the expansive Gothic Bibliography by Montague Summers, described simply as “Parental Murder. Chapbook. 1807” (457).A slightly more detailed listing appears in Douglass Thomson’s Gothic Writers: A Critical and Bibliographical Guide; his account includes the chapbook’s full subtitle, its city of publication, and the names of its editors (137). More interesting, however, is Parental Murder’s omission from Gothic Writers’ section on modern reprintings or updated editions. In this section, Thomson maintains a comprehensive list of reprintings, updated editions, and other reproductions of the works he tracks. From this, we can infer that Parental Murder was probably never reprinted or republished as a new edition. Thomson’s finding is consistent with searches across several online catalogs: in each case, no later editions of the chapbook appear. The available scholarly information on the chapbook, while relatively minute, suggests that only one edition has ever been published.

As previously noted, Parental Murder makes no indication of its author; it does, however, include the names of its printers and publishers. Before the body of the text, and once more at its close, the names and address of the books’ printmakers are listed: “Printed by Lewis & Hamblin, Paternoster-row” (Parental Murder 40). Similarly, the title page displays the name and address of the publishers: “Printed for T. and R. Hughes, 35, Ludgate-Hill, Corner of Stationers-Court” (Parental Murder 5). Biographical information on these figures is scarce; Lewis, Hamblin, and R. Hughes are all absent from searches for London printmakers or publishers active during 1807. A brief biographical entry for T. Hughes, however, does appear. The British Museum indicates that he was a British publisher and printmaker located at 35 Ludgate-Hill, consistent with the information in the chapbook. The page also indicates that this figure is “perhaps identical with T Hughes of Stationers’ Court” (“T Hughes”). Observing that the listed address in Parental Murder names both Ludgate-Hill and Stationers’ Court, we can confirm that these two figures likely both refer to the same printmaker.

The British Museum also notes that T. Hughes published several prints by George Cruikshank, a prominent illustrator of the time. Cruikshank was widely known for his political cartoons and illustrations for the likes of Charles Dickens, and his work remains prolific today. The uncredited illustration preceding Parental Murder is almost certainly unconnected to Cruikshank, however, as the chapbook’s publication in 1807predates Cruikshank’s rise as an illustrator in 1811.

Investigating the site of Parental Murder’s printing and publication places the chapbook at the center of the bustling London publishing and printmaking industries. Paternoster-row, the address attributed to printers Lewis and Hamblin, was a nexus of printmaking and principally occupied by “stationers and text-writers” (Thornbury chapter 23). The chapbook’s publishers, T. and R. Hughes, were situated at the corner of the nearby Stationers’ Court. Stationers’ Court is a small path that departs from Ludgate Hill Street and leads to the entrance of Stationers’ Hall (see this Ordnance Survey map to view the precise streets). Stationers’ Hall housed the Stationers’ Company, a government-chartered literary authority that extensively vetted and registered British publications: “almost every publication … was required to be ‘entered at Stationers’ Hall’” (Thornbury chapter 19). In this sense, the sites of Parental Murder’s printing and publication were both mere footsteps away from the epicenter of London publishing, pinning the chapbook’s production to the literal geographic center of a flourishing literary trade.

Narrative Point of View

Parental Murder features an anonymous, third-person narrator whose relationship to the text is left undefined. The novel’s prose is grandiose, long-winded, and, at times, almost breathless in nature: short and succinct sentences are often interposed with very long, grammatically complex ones. The narration shifts freely between making matter-of-fact observations on plot points and offering reflections on the inner thoughts, emotions, and secret motivations of the characters.

Sample Passage:

With malicious looks, Rabano saw that all the favours he had been suing for at the side of this lovely peerless maiden were unhesitatingly granted to his brother, and with such an arch plausibility of excuse, that it was impossible to refuse without exposing his disappointment and vexation. Romano afterwards danced with her, and the whisper every where ran, “What a figure! what grace! what sweetness!” “It must be so!” exclaimed Rabano inwardly; “I must—I will have her; and Zalarra shall decide upon the measures to be pursued!” (20)

Parental Murder’s willingness to freely transition between objective, plot-driven narration and inward, emotionally focused musings serves primarily to align its high-octane, action-packed storyline with a core thematic message about the supreme importance of virtue. Looking at plot events alone, the novel’s storyline traces out a familiar dramatic arc: the power-hungry, parricidal son whose sins catch up to him in the end. At the same time, the insights into characters’ private thoughts and motivations help to drive the thematic content: from these insights, it becomes clear that Romano is to be seen as virtuous, and his brother Rabano is not. In the passage above, Rabano’s inward exclamations of jealousy and lust serve to cement him as the iniquitous foil to his virtuous brother. Having established this characterization, when Romano ultimately triumphs, the narrator is able to assert that “virtue is the only true path to greatness, love, and glory!” (40). In this way, the intermingling narrative delivery of plot content and emotional content is key to presenting a compelling plot while also making a clear statement of theme.

Summary

Baretti is a powerful king who rules over an expansive dominion in Italy. He has two sons, Rabano and Romano. Romano, the younger brother, is the clear favorite of the two; he is revered by his parents for his virtuous character. In contrast, Rabano is power-hungry and ruthless. He resolves to conquer land for himself and sets his sights on the land of Ardini, a nearby ally. Baretti sees a learning opportunity: he supplies Rabano with men and armaments, hoping that brutal defeat will show Rabano to be incapable of leadership.

One day, Ardini’s men trespass on Baretti’s land, and Rabano seizes the opportunity to mount a retaliatory attack. But when it becomes clear that Rabano is interested in senseless brutality, Baretti and his men come to Ardini’s aid; their forces combined, Rabano will certainly suffer crushing defeat. Rabano, realizing this, develops a burning hatred for his father and resolves to get revenge. He enlists his trusted assistant Zalarra to disguise himself as a priest and sneak to Ardini’s camp, where Baretti is currently staying. Zalarra finds Baretti in the camp and tells him that Rabano is prepared to make a peace offering.

Baretti follows him to meet Rabano in an isolated dell. But when he arrives, Rabano gives his father an ultimatum: betray Ardini and aid in the conquest of his land, or be killed where he stands. Baretti realizes that the peace offering was a setup and begins to fight his assailants, but he is eventually overcome and stabbed. Baretti is buried in a prepared grave, and the assassins return home.

The next morning, Ardini’s camp is in a state of confusion. Without orders from Baretti, the supplementary forces will not go into battle—condemning Ardini to certain defeat at the hands of Rabano. They enact a short truce with Rabano while they search for Baretti—but find nothing.

Rabano takes the throne. He is shocked, however, when Zalarra finds Baretti’s grave unearthed and the body missing. Rabano is shaken by this discovery, but he rules as if nothing is wrong. He sends Romano on a mission to a neighboring chief, and he plans to throw a party to celebrate his ascension to power. Despite their strained relationship, Ardini is invited.

At the party, Ardini is accompanied by his beautiful daughter Miranda. When Rabano sees her, he is immediately enamored and resolves to make her his own. He asks her to dance, but she refuses. Suddenly, Romano bursts into the party. Romano explains that the hostile neighboring chief detained him, but he managed to escape and make his way home. Rabano promises to look into the matter later.

Romano catches glimpse of Miranda. He asks her to dance, and she gladly accepts. Rabano is incensed at seeing this, and he plans how he will win Miranda’s hand. Rabano pulls Miranda and Ardini into a private apartment. Ardini steps into a neighboring room to give them some privacy, but the door is shut on him and he finds himself trapped. Now alone with Miranda, Rabano urges her to marry him, but she confesses that she already loves Romano.

Unprompted, Miranda remarks that Rabano and Zalarra look suspiciously similar to two hooded figures she saw on the night of Baretti’s murder. That same night, she had planned a secret meeting with Romano—in the same isolated dell where Baretti was murdered. She arrived at the dell before the murderers, but when she heard them approaching, she hid behind a tree. She has not mentioned anything out of fear for herself and Romano.

Rabano cautions her to keep quiet. If her story got out, Romano could be in serious danger; he too was missing on the night of the murder. Miranda agrees and swears to stay silent. Rabano renews his attempts at courting her. When she refuses again, he forces her towards a hidden chamber.

Meanwhile, Ardini suspects foul play when he is not let out of the locked room. He escapes through a window, finds Romano, and explains that he fears for Miranda; the group heads for the castle’s private apartments. When a guard stops them, they slay him and rush upstairs just in time to catch Rabano forcing Miranda into the hidden chamber.

Miranda steals Rabano’s weapon and tries to stab him, but the blade breaks in two and fails to injure him. Soldiers alerted by Zalarra descend on the group and arrest Romano and Ardini for high treason. Until their trial, Miranda is to be detained in the hidden apartment, where Rabano persists in his attempts for her hand almost daily.

Sample page from the body of *Parental Murder*, with an underline marked beneath the word “Regicide!”

One night, Rabano sneaks into Miranda’s chamber while she is asleep and plants a kiss on her lips. He prepares to rape her, but a suit of armor steps off its pedestal and stands between them. It shouts: “Thy reign is short! At the trial, parricide, thou shalt behold me again” (30). The apparition scares Rabano off from his attempts to violate Miranda.

The night before the trial, Rabano and Zalarra get drunk together. Zalarra continues to give Rabano alcohol until he passes out on the floor. Zalarra also has an eye for Miranda; he steals the keys to her secret chamber, sneaks in, and kisses her while she sleeps. Before he can continue, however, a figure in black robes shouts “Regicide!” (31). The figure warns Zalarra to repent. Zalarra flees, wakes Rabano, but decides not to tell him about what he saw. Instead, Zalarra suggests they search the castle for any other apparitions. While searching, they discover that Miranda has escaped from her chamber. Their efforts to locate her are fruitless.

Secretly, Miranda was conveyed by a mysterious monk to a cottage outside of the castle through a hidden tunnel. In the cottage, she meets a former servant of Baretti, who promises to lead her to the chamber where the trial will be held, so she can expose Rabano and Zalarra. On the day of the trial, Ardini is tried first; he confesses to killing guards in pursuit of Rabano, but he expects that the detention of his daughter will justify his conduct. Romano is tried next. A priest steps up and testifies the dying confession of a deserting soldier named Afran, who had allegedly stumbled upon Romano burying Baretti’s body. He had pursued Romano, but Romano escaped, and Afran was mortally wounded in the struggle. He did, however, manage to grab a gorget bearing Romano’s name during the fight.

Romano explains that he was present at the dell on the night of the murder—but only to see Miranda. As he arrived, he saw a figure stab the victim. He was unable to reach the assassins in time, so he unearthed the body and resolved to carry it to a nearby house. The body was too heavy, however, so he instead brought it to a nearby cave. Afran, seeing Romano carry the body, mistook him for the assassin and attacked.

The judge is prepared to issue a death sentence for Romano when Miranda bursts in. She presents the cloak and banner Baretti wore on the night of his murder, which were found in Rabano’s strongbox. The courtroom descends into chaos until the aforementioned priest announces that he has one more piece of evidence—a piece of paper naming the murderer, given by Afran in his final moments. Zalarra snatches the paper from him and rips it to pieces. Chaos returns, and the priest suddenly blows a whistle. The room is instantly flooded with soldiers, and a figure appears at the head of the courtroom.

To everyone’s surprise, the figure is Baretti himself. He explains that he survived the assassination attempt. After being carried to the cave, he told Afran that Rabano was guilty. Since then, Baretti has been living in the cottage, disguised as one of his own servants.

The courtroom instantly condemns Zalarra and Rabano. The judge assigns both fiends formidable sentences. Rabano is confined to a cell at the top of a large tower, which eventually collapses and crushes him to death. Romano is declared the worthy successor to Baretti, and he reigns “with unabated splendor” (40).

Bibliography

“George Cruikshank.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 23 Sept. 2020, www.britannica.com/biography/George-Cruikshank.

Ordnance Survey. Director General of the Ordnance Survey, Chessington, Surrey, 1953. Map. https://maps.nls.uk/view/102904585.

Parental Murder. London, T. and R. Hughes, 1807.

Summers, Montague. A Gothic Bibliography. London, Fortune Press, 1964.

Thomson, Douglass H., et al. Gothic Writers: A Critical and Bibliographical Guide. Greenwood Press, 2002.

Thornbury, Walter. Old and New London: Volume 1. London, Cassell, Petter & Galpin, 1878. British History Online. 27 October 2020. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/old-new-london/vol1.

“T Hughes.” British Museum, www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG163433.

Researcher: Joe Kerrigan

Lucretia

Lucretia; or, The Robbers of the Hyrcanean Forest: A Romance

Author: Frederic Chamberlain
Publisher: J. Lee
Publication Year: Unknown
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 10.2cm x 17.3cm
Pages: 19
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2.C43 L n.d.

In this chapbook by Frederic Chamberlain, a beautiful young lady is rescued from a group of murderous banditti by her father.

Material History

The physical text of Lucretia is small, only 10.2 x 17.3cm, and contains only 19 pages relating to the titular story—the remaining 11 pages are devoted to an unrelated story titled The Libertine. The text appears to have been ripped from a larger book or removed from a binding of some sort, which left navy blue residue with gold leaf on the spine. The paper pages are thick, yellowing, and quite soft, and are held together by the exposed thread binding. On the blank front cover page some previous owner has written the word “adventure” in cursive. While it may have been Sadleir, who donated the story to the collection, a handwriting analysis has not been done to confirm this.

Upon opening the slim volume, the reader is greeted with an illustration of one of the scenes of the book, titled “Lucretia rescued from the Embraces of the Robber, by her Father.” On the opposite side is information about the writer and publisher of the novel, as well as the price. The full title of the work is printed here as well—Lucretia, or the Robbers of the Hyrcanean Forest: A Romance. It is written by Frederic Chamberlain, published in London by J. Lee at Half Moon Street, Bishopsgate, and “sold by all the booksellers.” This page also lists the price of the work: sixpence. The unrelated story, The Libertine, which follows Lucretia is not mentioned on this title page.

Page 3 is blank, but page 4 is where the main text of the story begins. Centered at the top of the page is “Lucretia,” in bolded text. Page numbers are in the outer corners of the pages. The main body of the text is extremely plain—there are no illustrations, and no additions to the pages beyond the page numbers. The text is typed, and there are no irregularities in the printing beyond a fading due to age. The font is similar to the modern Times New Roman, but seems to be slightly smaller than most modern books, and would probably be classified as a 10 or 11point font today.

The lines are fairly close to each other, with not a lot of white space in between, but the margins on the pages are actually quite large. On page 9 they measured 1 cm on each side, 1.5 cm on top, and 2.5 cm on bottom. When Lucretia ends, the text simply stops on page 19, and on page 20 the title of the next work, The Libertine, is bolded and placed at the top of the page above the text. In some places within the chapbook, the text is slightly faded, but never to the point of being illegible. It seems likely to be the result of age rather than a misprinting, as the rest of the book is fairly uniform in its print style.

Overall, despite its age this chapbook appears to be in pretty good condition, with only minor wear and tear that can be attributed to its age. The addition of the extra story in the back is most likely due to the way the books were constructed. Chapbooks were printed on a large sheet of paper that was then folded to create the book, and sometimes there would be extra pages at the end that the main body of text didn’t fill. In that case the publishers would put a short story on those remaining pages so as to not to lose money on wasted materials.

Textual History

Lucretia was written by Frederic Chamberlain, a relatively unknown author who appears to have not been very prolific in his writing, publishing only two chapbooks through J. Lee in London at Half Moon Street, Bishopsgate: Lucretia and Edward and Eleonora. Lucretia appears to have been relatively unpopular in its time, with no critical reviews appearing anywhere. It also appears to have had a limited printing run, since according to WorldCat, the only surviving copy is the one located in the University of Virginia’s Sadleir-Black Collection of Gothic Fiction.

This is the first page of the second story contained within the same chapbook as *Lucretia*, called *The Libertine*.

While there are no surviving references to Lucretia from the time when it was published, it is listed in Gothic Writers with some other gothic chapbooks. The book notes that it is “A typical Räuberroman or robber romance. This type of Gothic derives originally from Friedrich Schiller’s 1781 drama Die Räuber [The Robbers]” (Frank 133). There are no glaring similarities between the plot of Frank Schiller’s drama and Lucretia, so it is likely that Chamberlain was inspired by the genre and wrote a chapbook, rather than stealing a plot and putting it in chapbook form, which was a fairly common practice at the time.

One of the challenges of seeking out information about Chamberlain is that he appears to have written as a hobby rather than full time, as he is credited with writing only two chapbooks. However, he also contributed to one other book called The Cuckold’s Chronicle ; or New bon ton : being a selection of modern and ancient popular trials for crim. con. This book is held at the Harvard Law School Library, and the description in their library catalogue notes that it was published/printed by Joseph Lee in 1808–1812. This is presumably the same J. Lee that published Chamberlain’s chapbooks. The Cuckold’s Chronicle was initially used as the title for a book compiling court cases dealing with adultery, cuckoldry, etc., that was first published in London in 1793 and then republished in Boston in 1798, with no author being credited for either work. The University of Virginia holds copies of both, and the content appears to be practically identical, with the 1793 copy being “PRINTED FOR H. LEMOIN, BISHOPS-GATE CHURCHYARD” and the 1798 copy being “PRINTED FOR THOSE TO CHOOSE TO PURCHASE” (Lemoin 1, Choose to Purchase 1).

The version printed by J. Lee was probably a cheap reprint of the original after it had gone out of print. What is interesting about this copy is that the “author” is listed as Joseph Lee, but the description in Harvard’s library catalog also includes an “attribution” section, which says “by Frederic Chamberlain, Esq. late of the Temple. Embellished with superb engravings. To be continued every fortnight.” After emailing Harvard to determine the purpose of the “attribution” section, Research Librarian Deanna Barmakian confirmed that Frederic Chamberlain was the actual author, and Joseph Lee was simply the printer/publisher. The fact that Chamberlain is listed as “Esq. late of the Temple,” gives another clue to his identity; as Ms. Barmakian suggested, it most likely indicates Chamberlain’s membership at the Inns of Court, or the professional associations for barristers in England. While the Inner Temple Admissions Database does not show Chamberlain as having been a member, it is probable that he was at one point a lawyer and a member of the Inns of Court, perhaps in the Middle Temple. This would also explain why he would author a book about court cases, which was a large departure from his gothic chapbooks. Unfortunately, no information about his legal career is known.

Narrative Point of View

Lucretia is narrated in the third person by an omniscient narrator who will sometimes directly address the reader when communicating characters’ emotions, or while changing from one storyline to another. The narration keeps the long sentences and flowery writing of a more antiquated writing style. While there is a fair amount of action within the story, it is narrated rather dryly, and the narrator instead chooses to focus on the characters’ inner motivations and reasonings.

Sample Passage of Third-Person Narration:

We must now leave our heroine, and particularize the situation of the distressed duke and his amiable wife, who, almost distracted, had searched the principal avenues that led to the forests but in vain. Night had now thrown her sable curtain over the whole face of the earth; not a luminary was to be seen; and the afflicted duchess could take no repose: At the peep of dawn, the duke, with his faithful servant, Osmin, mounted their horses, and proceeded to the thickest part of the forest, but a contrary way to that by which Lucretia was borne. Having searched nearly the whole of the day, and not meeting a human soul, they became fatigued, and, tying their horses to the branches of a small tree, retired a short distance from each other to rest their weary limbs, when sleep closed their eyes for a temporary time. During their repose the horses broke their reins, and sought after better pasturage. Soon after the duke was awakened by the sonorous noise of Osmin, who lay stretched out on his grassy couch, and dreamt he saw the fair Lucretia amidst myriads of scorpions, and at other times on the eve of falling over craggy and horrid precipices, into a deep gulp of stagnated water, filled with reptiles and monsters, whose mouths opened wide to receive those whom accident or misfortune led thither. Thus the mind is disturbed when any object or circumstance arrests its particular attention. (7)

Due to the dry narration style and the insistence on explaining aspects of the plot that are unnecessary, like the fact that the duke and Osmin go the wrong way, there is often a lack of suspense for the reader. While there are some descriptive adjectives, the narration is generally not expressive enough to create a complete picture of the environment, indicating that the scenery is relatively unimportant beyond the broad strokes of “forest,” “castle,” etc. The narrative style serves to distinguish the reader from the characters by giving the reader information the characters do not have, even while informing readers of what the characters are feeling. Overall, the story is presented in a very factual manner, and the narration does not ask the reader to do much work in figuring out what is going on, or why it is happening.

Summary

The story begins with an unnamed nobleman retiring to a modest life after squandering his fortune, something that his wife Eliza has been warning him about for years. He has an eighteen-year-old daughter named Lucretia, who is tremendously beautiful and has a talent for art and music. One day, Lucretia is outside sketching when a bandit approaches and attempts to woo her. A pistol shot from the woods startles her into swooning, and the bandit takes advantage of this and carries her away to an ancient castle, where she wakes up just as they arrive. She puts up a fight, but is subdued by a number of new banditti, and is then escorted into the main room of the castle. The banditti leave in search of more treasure as Lucretia laments her situation.

Partially hidden below the UVA insert is the word “adventure” in cursive, possible written by Sadleir, or another previous owner.

At this point, the story ceases to focus on Lucretia and switches over to focus on the previously unnamed nobleman, who is now called the Duke. He and his wife are concerned about their missing daughter, and at the dawn of the next day the Duke and his faithful servant Osmin leave to look for Lucretia. After having no luck for much of the day, they decide to take a short rest, at which point their horses escape and Osmin dreams about Lucretia being attacked by scorpions and monsters. Unable to travel any further, they decide to climb a tall tree, and by doing so are able to see the top of the castle where the banditti reside. Coincidentally, when they descend the tree, they are attacked by members of the same group of banditti that attacked Lucretia. Since their weapons are on their missing horses, they are forced to surrender, and are taken to the same castle where Lucretia is being held. Osmin, however, has managed to obtain the same cloak the robbers are wearing, and disguises himself to slip away before being taken into the castle.

The story again switches back to Lucretia—the chief of the banditti, Rufanus, has been soliciting her constantly, but she refuses him every time. After multiple refusals, Rufanus attempts to rape her, but is stopped by the second in command of the banditti, Dupardo, who secretly desires Lucretia for himself. Alfando, the third in command of the banditti, calls Rufanus and Dupardo away before a physical altercation breaks out between them, and Lucretia is left shaken. Rufanus enters the main hall to find that the Duke has been captured and that his servant Osmin has escaped. He orders that the Duke be thrown in the dungeon. After finding out that the banditti have brought back no treasure, he tells them to leave tomorrow morning, at which point he plans to rape Lucretia when no one is around to help her or hear her scream.

This page shows a typical example of the long paragraphs present in the text of *Lucretia.*

During the night, Lucretia discovers that there is a trapdoor in the room where she is being kept that opens up into her father’s dungeon. They reunite and talk about their misfortunes for the whole night, the Duke becoming increasingly disheartened as he learns more about their situation. They hear footsteps and the Duke returns to his dungeon. Rufanus checks to make sure Lucretia has not escaped, and then sends all of his banditti, except for Dupardo and Alfando, out to raid the villa of a Marchioness. She had left only a steward and his wife there to guard it, but luckily Osmin had arrived earlier and alerted the police, who are now keeping watch on the villa themselves. When the banditti attempt to rob the villa, they are met with the police force. All of the banditti are killed except for one, who they hope will give them information about Lucretia and her father. Unfortunately, he is too injured for speech, and must be nursed back to health before he is able to communicate the location of the castle and the current situation related to Lucretia.

While this is happening, Rufanus keeps going after Lucretia, but is continually rebuffed by Dupardo. The Duke laments his ostentatious lifestyle, and thinks that if he had just followed the advice of his wife none of this would be happening right now. Rufanus becomes irritated at the delay of the banditti and dispatches Alfando to discover what has happened. Alfando returns having found out nothing, so Dupardo leaves and discovers that all of the banditti have been killed. Rufanus is enraged, but tells Dupardo that he should leave and get some provisions in case they are trapped in the castle for a while. He intends to rape Lucretia while Dupardo is gone, but unbeknownst to him Dupardo plans to pick up poisons with the provisions so he can kill the chief and get Lucretia for himself.

While Dupardo is away, Rufanus convinces Alfando to help him get rid of Dupardo. Upon Dupardo’s return, Alfando attempts to shoot Dupardo with two pistols, but one does not fire while the other simply grazes Dupardo. Rufanus then stabs Dupardo, who dies. Elated, Rufanus prepares to celebrate with the poisoned provisions, and wants Alfando and Lucretia to join him. During his absence, Lucretia has found a sword and two pistols, which she gives to her father. She claims to be ill, but Rufanus insists they eat in her room anyway. She gets the unpoisoned part of the food by luck, while Rufanus and Alfando eat the poisoned parts, quickly falling ill. Alfando falls over first, and Rufanus uses this chance to once again attempt to rape Lucretia, but the Duke comes through the trapdoor and shoots him. As he lies dying, Rufanus repents of his life of violence, and tells the story of how he killed the last chief of the banditti to gain his position.

With all of the banditti now dead, Lucretia and her father are able to leave the castle. Osmin and the police have been following the wounded banditti back to the castle, and arrive just in time to meet the freed family. The castle is explored and the treasure divided up amongst all of the men. A room is discovered with the skeletons of Rufanus’s previous female victims, which causes Lucretia to faint into the arms of the police chief, with whom she subsequently falls in love. Everyone returns home to Lucretia’s mother, the Duchess, and the police chief receives the castle that previously belonged to the banditti. He and Lucretia marry, and it is said that ever after he spends his time hunting down banditti, becoming the bane of their existence.

Bibliography

Barmakian, Deanna. “Re: Who is the author of ‘The Cuckold’s chronicle; or New bon ton : being a selection of modern and ancient popular trials for crim.’” Message to Dorothea LeBeau. 27 Oct. 2020. Email.

Burn, Richard. The Justice of the Peace, and Parish Officer. The Twenty-fifth Edition, Vol. II. London, A. Strahan, 1830.

Chamberlain, Frederic. Lucretia, or the Robbers of the Hyrcanean Forest: A Romance. London, J. Lee, n.d.

The Cuckold’s Chronicle: Being Select Trials for Adultery, Incest, Imbecillity, Ravishment, &C. … . printed for H. Lemoin, Bishopsgate Church-Yard, 1793.

The Cuckold’s Chronicle: Being Select Trials for Adultry, Incest, Imbecility, Ravishment, &C. Volume I. Printed for those who choose to purchase, 1798.

Frank, Frederick S.. Gothic Writers : A Critical and Bibliographical Guide. Greenwood Publishing Group, Incorporated, 2001.

The Inner Temple. “The Inner Temple Admissions Database.” The Inner Temple Admissions Database: Search Page, http://www.innertemplearchives.org.uk/search.asp#name, Accessed 27 Oct. 2020.

Rider, Claire. “The Inner Temple.” The Inns Of Court And Inns Of Chancery And Their Records, Vol. XXIV No. 101, British Records Association, 1999, https://www.innertemple.org.uk/who-we-are/history/historical-articles/the-inns-of-court-and-inns-of-chancery-and-their-records/.

Researcher: Dorothea Starr LeBeau

Feudal Days

***Feudal Days; or, the Noble Outlaw. An* *Historical Romance of the Fourteenth Century***

Author: Unknown
Publisher: J. Bailey
Publication Year: 1820s
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 10.5cm x 16.5cm
Pages: 28
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2.F462 n.d.

Published in the 1820s by an unknown author, this chapbook set in England features a disgraced outlaw obsessed with his rival’s daughter and a religious Prior determined to right the characters on the path of piety.

Material History

Feudal Days, a simple and small book, measures 16.5cm long by 10.5cm wide and contains twenty-eight pages. The book currently has no cover; the reader first encounters a blank yellowed page. All pages in the chapbook are brittle and thin; some are slightly ripped at the edges, and the pages’ top ends are all discolored brown. A small amount of black thread loosely links these pages together, although one can observe holes on the left size of pages where thread was likely once used to tightly bind the book.

Opening the book, the reader will observe a pull-out frontispiece illustration on the left side of the first page and the title page on the right side. The title page contains the full title of the chapbook: Feudal Days; or, the Noble Outlaw. An Historical Romance of the Fourteenth Century. The title appears in different variations throughout other places in the text. At the top of the first page of text, it appears as Feudal Days; or, the Noble Outlaw without the second line, and at the top of all pages of text, it reads The Noble Outlaw; (on the left page) and Or, Feudal Days (on the right side), thus reversing the order seen on the title page. An author’s name does not appear throughout the chapbook; however, the name J. Bailey appears on the title page, the last page of text, and on the final two pages. These mentions reveal that J. Bailey of 116 Chancery Lane “printed and sold” the book and also published numerous other chapbooks listed on the last two pages of this chapbook. The title page finally lists the price of the chapbook—6 pence.

Venturing past the front pages of the book, the reader will notice that the body text is closely-set and single-spaced and that many pages do not have paragraph breaks. On most pages, the margins are roughly 1cm all around; between pages 22 and 24, the bottom margin increases slightly to 2cm. Pagination on the top of pages begins on the second page of body text at page 4 and continues to the last page of body text (26). In addition to pagination, publishers have included a few extra printed markings on the bottom of pages: “A2” is printed on what would be denoted page 3; “A3” is on page 5; “A4” on page 7; “A5” on page 9; and “B” is printed on page 25. These markings, called signature marks, were printed in order to aid the accuracy in the binding of the chapbook.

Although almost all of the book contains text without any illustration, the frontispiece on the opposite page from the title page provides the singular illustration, depicting a woman stabbing a man inside a cave that is decorated with a chandelier. This frontispiece is unique in the chapbook, both because it is the only use of color and because is the only exception to the dimensions of the chapbook: it folds outward to comprise an overall width of 21cm and height of 16.5cm. This page bears the captions of “FRONTISPIECE” above and a reference to the body text below: “Nay then Ermina, cried Rudolph, ‘I will not brook delay’—when, by one bold effort she released her hand, and seizing my shining sword”. The content of this caption, while not a direct quotation, is a condensed version of dialogue recounted on page 14 of the text; additionally, this caption is printed slightly off-the-page; for this reason, exact punctuation is uncertain.

While most attributes described in this chapbook are particular to the entire batch that this book was printed in, it is finally worthwhile to point out a few characteristics that are likely unique to this particular copy in the Sadlier-Black collection. Overall, this book is devoid of most markings. The three particular marks include potential pen markings in a straight line at the top of the final page, a circular mark which may be glue or wax, and a bit of blue color that has spotted the front and back pieces of the book, which may be the remnants of a cover or binding.

Textual History

In addition to the copy of Feudal Days held by the University of Virginia, WorldCat indicates that multiple other copies exist in print form in fifteen other libraries. These copies are not concentrated in one geographic region: a copy of Feudal Days can be found at four Canadian libraries, one United Kingdom library, two Spanish libraries, and nine United States libraries (including the University of Virginia). In addition to the print forms of Feudal Days, there is also another digitized copy of the book held by New York Public Library (NYPL), which is accessible through HathiTrust and Google Books.

The frontispiece for *Feudal Days,* featuring misprinted margins

Multiple factors support an inference that there were multiple printings of Feudal Days when it was originally published: first, the digitized NYPL copy available on HathiTrust includes an additional cover page that the University of Virginia copy does not have. This page includes a notation that the book was “Printed and Published by S. Carvalho, 18, West Place, Nelson Street, City of London”. A few pages later, the cover page indicating that the book was printed by J. Bailey is still included, and the rest of the book looks exactly identical to the version held by the University of Virginia. S. Carvalho may have reprinted the entire book or simply added an additional cover onto the original printing by J. Bailey. Second, the date that Google Books lists for the publication of the NYPL version of Feudal Days is 1829, but the University of Virginia library catalog indicates a date range of 1820 to 1829. While this may not alone be enough to pin down potentially different printings, the WorldCat catalog record for Feudal Days notes that, according to I. Maxted’s London Book Trades, J. Bailey operated at the printed address (116 Chancery Lane) only between 1808 and 1827, not 1829 (Maxted, cited in WorldCat Catalog Record). Regardless, the wide circulation of Feudal Days in international libraries indicates that even if the book only went through one printing, it may have been printed in large volumes.

WorldCat lists three contributors to Feudal Days: J. Bailey, George Cruikshank, and Friedrich Schiller. The British Museum states that J. Bailey was a British “publisher active between 1799 and 1825,” and that he traded with William Bailey, who may have been a family member, during the latter period of his flourishing years, 1823–1824 (“J Bailey”). In addition to the list of chapbooks printed by J. Bailey in the back of Feudal Days, the British Museum also lists a few prints and pamphlets printed by him, including “The life and military career of Napoleon Bonaparte,” which was illustrated by George Cruikshank, evidence that J. Bailey collaborated with Cruikshank on multiple occasions (“Pamphlet”). George Cruikshank is thought to be the illustrator or the author of Feudal Days according to different sources. Cruikshank (1792–1878) was a fairly prominent British graphic artist; he started his career as a caricaturist and then moved to book illustration. Some of his most notable works include working with Charles Dickens on illustrations for Oliver Twist from 1837–1843 and the famous temperance comic The Bottle in 1847 (Patten). Most sources, including HathiTrust and University of Virginia library catalog, credit Cruikshank with illustrations; however, Diane Hoeveler credits Cruikshank himself with adapting Friedrich Schiller’s play Die Räuber into Feudal Days (Hoeveler 197). Finally, Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) was a famous German playwright, poet, and philosopher (Witte). Schiller wrote his own unfinished gothic novel, The Ghost-Seer, but the most concrete link between Schiller and Feudal Days is the assertion that Feudal Days is based off an English translation of Schiller’s German drama Die Räuber (Andriopoloulos 1–2, Hoeveler 197).

The second-to-last page of *Feudal Days,* featuring advertisements for other books printed and sold by J. Bailey

Die Räuber is a drama about two brothers, one of whom is cast out by the father under the influence of the evil brother and who joins a band of outlaws. Although threads of outlawdom and banditti are common to Feudal Days, it seems that the plot of Feudal Days is not an exact adaptation of Die Räuber, primarily because it is missing the element of familial rivalry (“The Robbers”). However, an opera called The Noble Outlaw may also be a source of influence for Feudal Days. The Noble Outlaw, produced in 1815 in England, is “founded upon” Beaumont and Fletcher’s opera The Pilgrim (“Noble Outlaw” Theatrical 310). The Noble Outlaw is about an outlawed robber who returns to his beloved’s residence, disguised as a pilgrim, in order to leave with her (“Noble Outlaw” Monthly 302). As a resolution of the plot, the Outlaw of the opera saves his rival’s life, and “all ends happily” (“Noble Outlaw” Theatrical 311). Similar to Die Räuber, the common thread of outlawdom is present; in addition, plot points such as breaking into a woman’s home in a disguise and saving a rival’s life as a plot resolution are common to both the opera and Feudal Days. No source exists indicating that The Noble Outlaw specifically influenced Feudal Days, but given the time proximity and the name and plot similarities, this may be the case. As evidenced by a search on HathiTrust, there are many other chapbooks with “Feudal Days” or “The Noble Outlaw” constituting part of the title. Online copies of these other chapbooks are limited, so the degree to which these related works are similar is unknown. Therefore, Feudal Days could have other influences and could have influenced other works; at the same time, these numerous titles may indicate that “Feudal Days” and “Noble Outlaw” were simply popular book titles.

Notably inaccessible is information about Feudal Days’s marketing and reception during the time period, reprintings, prequels, and sequels, and any scholarly analysis of the book after its publication. One hypothesis for the absence of such information is that Feudal Days is one in a list of many gothic chapbooks published by J. Bailey during this time period, as evidenced by the final two pages of the chapbook listing other titles (Feudal Days 26–7). Therefore, Feudal Days might not have stood out amongst its counterparts enough to warrant independent reviews or scholarship. In sum, however, the information that can be gleaned about Feudal Days does lead to several inferences regarding its relative importance. First, given the numerous copies available of the book currently, it may have been fairly popular. Second, its plot may have been influenced by multiple, mixed-media sources, including well-known theatrical works like Die Räuber or The Pilgrim. Finally, one of Feudal Days’s potential contributors, George Cruikshank, would later achieve fairly notable status later in his career.

Narrative Point of View

The present-tense section of Feudal Days is narrated by a third-person anonymous narrator who never appears in the text. This narrator relies on recounting dialogue rather than independently describing or analyzing plot. While a minority of the story is recounted by this narrator in the present tense, the text also contains flashbacks and interpolated tales, narrated by the character who experienced the flashback. The majority of the text is spent on Rodolph’s interpolated tale, in which he recounts his descent into lawlessness. This tale is narrated in the first person by Rodolph, and every paragraph opens and closes with quotation marks, to indicate that Rodolph is telling his story during continuous conversation with Father Francis. Both the anonymous narrator and Rodolph often employ long sentences, containing multiple clauses joined by semicolons and oftentimes-unclear referential pronouns. Unlike the anonymous narrator, however, Rodolph utilizes elements of description and recounts his own feelings and state of mind, rather than simply narrating the dialogue of others.

Sample Passage from Rodolph’s Interpolated Tale:

“O, Ernulf! my friend, wealth, honour, fame, are now lost to me; malignant stars have crossed my fondest hopes; Rodolph no longer bears the name of brave, but skulks an outlaw, the meanest slave of passion, who, like the prowling monster of the forest, avoids pursuit, and sheds unguarded blood.” (7)

Sample Passage of Impersonal and Anonymous Third-Person Narrator:

“Hold! (cried the Prior) God commands that ye shall not proceed, re-sheath your swords, and release your captive.” Rodolph started, and gazed with amazement on the Prior. “What man art thou, (said he) that dare oppose my will; disclose to me thy name and purpose?” – “To preach repentance, (replied the prior) and to prevent evil.” Much more the Prior said, for he found that he had gained attention.

Rodolph raised his head, and gazing on the sky, an unwonted smile played o’er his features. “Thou holy man, (he kindly said) thy exhortations wind like infant tendrils round a sinner’s heart, and have taught my soul to know what constitutes true happiness on earth; thy words have chased error from my mind.” (18)

The anonymous narrator guides the reader along through the thoughts and lives of different characters without offering any independent commentary. The only character that the narrator independently comments on is the Prior, whom the narrator repeatedly describes as virtuous. This technique of guiding the narrative with a heavy focus on transcribing dialogue makes the characters of Feudal Days appear more developed than there may otherwise be space for in a twenty-eight-page chapbook. Additionally, the oftentimes-unclear sentences may require a second or third reading of a passage. These tactics combine to make the story appear longer and more action-heavy than what may be expected for a book of its size.

Rodolph’s narration, on the other hand, provides personal and descriptive insights, showcasing broader character development and highlighting Rodolph as the protagonist of the story. Rodolph is frequently over-dramatic, utilizing exaggerated similes such as, in the passage above, “like the prowling monster of the forest” to evoke his strong feelings and emphasize the weightiness of his tumult. The Prior’s eventual ability to calm even Rodolph’s tormented mind, as shown in the sample passage, lends extra weight to the anonymous narrator’s assertion that the Prior is inarguably virtuous. Although Rodolph’s style of narration may appear disjointed from the impersonal and brief narration of the rest of the chapbook, the fact that every paragraph of his tale is offset by quotation marks renders his interpolated tale as a long-form version of the dialogue relayed by the anonymous narrator. Therefore, Rodolph’s narrative style showcases an extended version of the character development tactic utilized by the anonymous narrator and is in fact consistent with the rest of the chapbook.

Summary

Feudal Days opens with a description of the Priory of Birkenhead, which sits close to the Mersey inlet, a place where ships frequently wreck. Beyond the inlet, there lies a “bleak and dreary” waste of vegetation; the pious father of the priory (the Prior) cautions travelers to avoid the “track on the right” when navigating through the waste and take the “track on the left” (3).

On a dark night, the Prior summons one of his men, Father Francis, to accompany him down to the water so that they can encounter any struggling travelers and give them aid. As they walk down to the water, the Prior recalls when Francis was rescued in a similar condition—on a night like this, the Prior slipped and fell walking back up to the priory, and locked eyes with Francis, also suffering on the ground and exhausted due to the weather. The Prior called the other brothers of the priory, and the two men were brought up to the priory and nursed back to health.

Back in the present, the men complete their journey down to the water; as the night gets even darker, they decide to head back to the priory. Before they can leave, they catch a glimpse of a man “in warlike form” wielding a sword, but the figure disappears (5). When they return to the priory and go to sleep, the Prior is haunted by dreams related to that figure.

The next morning, Father Francis steals away from morning prayers to sit in solitude in a sea cave on Mersey’s shore. Father Francis recalls his life before becoming a priest, when he was called Ernulf. Father Francis, in mental turmoil, recounts his parting with his lover, Angela. Father Francis killed Angela’s husband, Arden; Angela also died that night in shock, despite her love for Francis. Francis pleads with God to “forgive their murders,” when, suddenly, he sees the warlike figure from last night (6). The figure turns out to be Francis’s old friend, Rodolph. Rodolph first provides clarity to Francis’s backstory, then launches into his own story, declaring himself an “outlaw” and the “meanest slave of passion” (7).

Rodolph was fighting on behalf of the current king, King Henry, against Henry’s rival Edward and commanding other lords to join the fight. Lord Silbert had not yet joined the fight for Henry, so Rodolph resolved to convince him. Rodolph traveled to Silbert’s estate, where he was received by the Lady of Lord Silbert and their daughter, Ermina. At dinner, Rodolph was not able to convince Silbert to join the fight for Henry; in fact, Silbert believed Henry’s rival Edward had a legitimate claim to the throne. The two men began trading threats of violence against each other and Rodolph left the estate quickly.

However, once Rodolph left the estate, he started thinking about Silbert’s daughter Ermina and her charms, quickly forgetting “his king, friends, and country” (9). Unable to gain access to the estate in a conventional fashion, he sought advice from his friend Lord Redwald, and decided to enter the mansion in the disguise of a peasant. When he revealed himself to Ermina inside the mansion, she told him that he had to leave; Rodolph then kidnapped Ermina with the help of Redwald’s men and brought her to Redwald’s mansion. Silbert, about to greet Edward’s troops, realized that Ermina had been taken. He later received word that a peasant had taken Ermina and offered a reward for intelligence about her whereabouts. Rodolph’s identity and location were betrayed for the reward, and Silbert arrived with his men at Redwald’s estate to fight for Ermina’s freedom. Redwald received a fatal wound during the fight with Silbert’s army, but before he died, he conveyed knowledge of a secret passageway within his mansion that could be used as an escape, and Rodolph, his men, and Ermina left via that route.

Page 14 of the main text, depicting Rodolph and Ermina’s confrontation in the cave

Once they left the castle and found themselves in nature, Rodolph turned his attention back to Ermina, whose affections towards him had not warmed. She told Rodolph that she would not marry him until her father consented, but he resolved to marry her quickly and have her “share [his] couch tonight” despite her wishes (13). He had Ermina brought “shrieking” to his cavern, and told Ermina to swear to be his (13). Before Rodolph could rape Ermina, Ermina seized Rodolph’s own sword and plunged it into his bosom. She thanked God for preserving her honor, then fled from the area.

The next day, Rodolph came to and heard that Ermina had vanished without a trace. Walking around the area with one of his men, Edric, he saw a stranger, who asked him where to find the “lawless” Rodolph (15). Rodolph dueled with this man, killed him, and read his dispatches. According to these papers, a reward of 500 marks was placed on Rodolph’s head, his lands had been bestowed to Silbert, and his mansion had been used by the rival Edward’s troops. With that development, Rodolph ends his backstory, lamenting his new position as an outlaw. Francis states that the turn of events is beneficial, for Rodolph would have violated Ermina’s honor for a few seconds of pleasure, and invites Rodolph to join the priory for the day and give his penitence.

Meanwhile, another stranger—Lord Silbert—knocks on the door of the priory and asks to stay a night before he continues on his journey. The next morning, Silbert is guided along his journey by one of the priory’s domestics, Gaspar. The Prior watches them leave and realizes that Gaspar is leading Silbert along the wrong path to the right, contrary to the Prior’s constant warnings. On this wrong path, an armed band attacks Silbert, and he is about to die when Rodolph shows up and saves Silbert’s life. Rodolph now has Silbert at his mercy, and demands that Silbert give away Ermina to him. Silbert refuses, and then the Prior shows up to intercede. He urges Rodolph to not keep Silbert captive, and Rodolph quickly acquiesces to his exhortations. Rodolph asks Silbert for forgiveness and pledges to find Ermina for him, and Silbert quickly forgives Rodolph and thanks him for saving his life. As they are about to return to the convent, they come across the wounded Gaspar, who betrayed Silbert. The Prior tells Gaspar that he must repent, and Gaspar reveals that beneath this hill lies a secret cavern where a band of murderers, his companions, live.

Rodolph and Silbert resolve to raid this secret cavern. Once they enter the cavern, they find it fully decorated and quickly kill all of the banditti. They also free a woman who had been kneeling before the chief of the band pleading for mercy. This woman is revealed as Ermina, who was taken by this band when she fled from Rodolph. The chief of the banditti took a liking to her, and threatened to kill her unless she consented to marry him.

After the battle is over, the Prior enters the cavern with a messenger of Silbert, who tells Rodolph that if he swears allegiance to Edward and lays down his arms, he will not only be pardoned, but given a royal favor. Rodolph agrees because King Henry is dead and King Edward has the mandate of the people, and Silbert and Rodolph pledge allegiance to each other.

As the party walks back to the priory, they spot a priest, falling into the water. The priest dies soon after and is revealed as Father Francis. Despite this development, the characters of the book wrap up their story happily—Silbert gives Ermina as a gift to Rodolph and consents to their marriage, Silbert and Rodolph give Lord Redwald a proper burial, and King Edward declares that the men can destroy the robber’s cave and give the proceeds to be split amongst his followers. When the Prior dies a few years later, they all mourn “the good man’s death” together (26).

Bibliography

Andriopoloulos, Stefan. “Occult Conspiracies: Spirits and Secrets in Schiller’s Ghost Seer.” New German Critique, vol. 35, no. 1, 2008, pp. 65–81.

Feudal Days; or, the Noble Outlaw: An Historical Romance of the Fourteenth Century. London, J. Bailey, n.d.

Feudal Days; or, the Noble Outlaw: An Historical Romance of the Fourteenth Century. London, J. Bailey, 182-. HathiTrust Digital Library. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433112071521&view=1up&seq=11.

“J Bailey.” The British Museum, n.d., https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/AUTH227817.

Hoeveler, Diane L. “Prose Fiction: Zastrossi, St. Irvyne, The Assassins, The Coliseum.” The Oxford Handbook of Percy Bysshe Shelley, edited by Michael O’Neill et al. Oxford University Press, 2013, pp. 193–208.

Maxted, Ian. The London Book Trades 1775–1800: A Preliminary Checklist of Members. Dawson, 1977.

“The Noble Outlaw.” The Monthly Theatrical Reporter, vol. 1, no. 8, 1815, pp. 301–303. ProQuest.

The Noble Outlaw.” Theatrical Inquisitor, and Monthly Mirror, Feb.1813–June 1819, vol. 6, 1815, pp. 310–312. ProQuest.

“Pamphlet, Frontispiece, Print.” The British Museum, n.d. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1867-1214-1577

Patten, Robert L. “Cruikshank, George.” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 25 May 2006.

“The Robbers: drama by Schiller.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 29 September 2011, https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Robbers.

Witte, William. “Friedrich Schiller: German writer.” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 31 May 2007, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Friedrich-Schiller/additional-info#history.

Researcher: Lydia McVeigh

Angelina; Or, The Mystery of St. Mark’s Abbey

Angelina; Or, The Mystery of St. Mark’s Abbey. A Tale of Other Days

Author: Thomas Peckett Prest
Publisher: Edward Lloyd
Publication Year: 1841
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 14 x 21.5 cm
Pages: 236
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2 .P74 An 1841

Angelina is one of Thomas Peckett Prest’s serialized works from 1841 that centers around murder, mystery, and forbidden love.

Material History

The novel, having come out in serialized parts, was likely assembled by a G. Sharpe, whose name is handwritten on this page prior to the title page. The book was probably popular at the time and its ownership most likely transferred, leading this writing to be crossed out.

Angelina: Or, the Mystery of St. Mark’s Abbey. A Tale of Other Days by Thomas Peckett Prest was published in 1841 in serialized parts. Releasing the novel in parts lowered the cost of producing the book as a whole. Each section would have been sold using an image on the first page of the part as an incentive to purchase it. For this reason, each page with an image has a corresponding label at the bottom of the page to signify its order among the parts. The parts were presumably compiled by a G. Sharpe, whose signature appears on the blank pages prior to the assembled novel’s frontispiece and title page. Along with his signature is the date handwritten as follows: July 16, 1841. However, the name and date are crossed out, implying that this edition had multiple owners.

The book is bound in a cloth detailed with an artificially ingrained texture. Sharpe chose to use leather on the edges of the cover and the binding of the spine which has kept the exterior of the book in great condition for its age. The pages are speckled with red thinned out paint which was a common aesthetic for nineteenth-century books. The book is in very good condition due to the binding that Sharpe chose for the book. However, the pages have become slightly yellow and brittle with age. There are some pages that were saturated by a substance as well as a few torn pages that have been mended by the Special Collections archivists. The book was easily elegant in its day, as can be seen through the careful measures taken by Sharpe in binding it. The worn quality of Angelina demonstrates its popularity when Prest was at the prime of his career.

The detail in the images of Angelina are impressive compared to other texts of its days, displaying aesthetic visions specific to the author. Images during the Gothic period of literature were produced through making woodblock prints. Such prints were created by physically carving into wood to create the desired image. They would have been lined up with the text and inked during the printing process. At the beginning of the book, opposite the title page, is a frontispiece, which is the largest image in the book and the only image that possesses a quote. It reads, “They soon entered a spacious and lofty cavern, round which were piled on immense number of casks, chests, bales of goods, while arms and ammunition were there in abundance.” This sentence describes the setting most important to the narration in Angelina.

The frontispiece was created by a woodblock print, meaning that the artist carved wood with precision to create such images. This is the only image in the novel that has a quote beneath it which describes the setting central to the novel. Across from the frontispiece is the title page that includes the full title and a list of Prest’s other works below his name.

As to the type itself, the font size is much smaller than is usually seen today. The margins are typical in size, yet there is no inner margin which is a current stylistic feature for books. The images are placed every four pages on the front of the right page since it was released as parts rather than an entire novel. The images are a page and a half in size, featuring artistry of woodblock printed images that are hard to come by anymore.

Textual History

Angelina: Or, the Mystery at St. Mark’s Abbey was published in 1841 by Edward Lloyd of London. Lloyd regulated many newspapers, the most successful of them being Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper and The Penny Sunday Times and People’s Police Gazette; Angelina was published in the latter. He gained the nickname “father of the cheap press” as he sought to bring exciting literary works to the lower classes. Lloyd played a part in history through assisting the rise of the serial novel in which a new part would appear in successive weekly editions of a newspaper. Angelina, in particular, is one of many of Prest’s successful serial novels that appeared courtesy of Lloyd and his work as a newspaper proprietor. Journalist Anne Humphrey’s states that “perhaps half of Lloyd’s penny bloods” were written by Prest, who was “one of his most prolific and most successful authors”. The significance of the serial novel and the success of Angelina are both referenced in the preface of the novel Angelina.

This page of *Angelina* is missing letters in many places.

Interestingly, the edition of the novel housed in the Sadleir-Black Collection does not include a preface at all, though a preface does appear in other editions. The preface can be found online through a scanned edition published courtesy of the New York Public Library on Google Books.

The preface functions as both a historical reference as well as an advertisement. The first paragraph of the preface discusses the popularity of Angelina upon its release in the “penny” press, which led its pieces to later be compiled into a novel format. The author of the preface informs the readers that Angelina’s pieces were originally published in The Penny Sunday Times and People’s Police Gazette.

Prest appears most frequently in scholarly works related to his involvement with the serial novels of the penny press. Prest’s work in particular falls under the category of penny dreadfuls, or the terror genre of the penny press. This nineteenth-century phenomena began through its reproduction of eighteenth century gothic fiction via cheap means. Currently, only one of Prest’s works, The String of Pearls is more widely recognized as a significant and impactful part of this literature.

Though there is a lack of information on Prest himself, the author obviously sought to promote himself through an advertisement which is the second half of the preface. The phrase “New and Entirely Original Tale of Romance and Pathos” along with Prest’s upcoming works Emily Fitzomord; Or, The Deserted One and The Death Grasp; Or, A Father’s Curse emphasize the importance in self-promotion for both Lloyd and Prest.

Despite their combined efforts, Prest experienced a success limited to his day and age as only one of his characters is truly known today. However, Angelina, being one of Prest’s earlier works, most likely influenced the author’s writing style and, therefore, his subsequent works. In particular, the elements of terror in Angelina were just the beginning of Prest’s concepts that would appear in The String of Pearls. The latter work was adapted for the theatre which debuted in March of 1847 and is the basis for the modern-day movie adaptation Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (“Sweeney Todd”). While Angelina can be found in modern day print published by HardPress and accessible via Kindle. Its current lack of reviews allude to the lack of popularity Prest receives today. The String of Pearls, on the other hand, can be readily found in print and in theatrical adaptation.

Narrative Point of View

Angelina: Or, The Mystery of St. Mark’s Abbey is told through third-person omniscient narration. The narrator does not play an active role in the storyline; however, they hardly makes himself known until the end of the novel, when the backstories of characters are finally revealed. At this point, they speak directly to the reader before divulging events of the past that have remained hidden. Overall, the narration is very detailed and elaborative, yet the narrator remains detached in their descriptions of events and emotions. The narrator follows the protagonist, Angelina, until she becomes separated from her loved ones, which happens frequently in the novel. When Angelina gets kidnapped, the narrator proves their omniscient perspective in cycling through each scenario for Angelina, her Uncle Woodfield, and her lover Hugh Clifford.

Sample Passage of Third-Person Narration:

Saint Mark’s Abbey had evidently been a splendid edifice, but it had been left to decay for many years, and few persons in the place would venture to approach it after night-fall, for, like most old buildings, it was reported to be haunted, and many appalling legends were related by the old gossips, as they sat trembling before their blazing fire on a winter evening, concerning the dreadful crimes which had been perpetrated within its mouldering walls. The more reasonable, and less superstitious portion of the community, however, accounted for the noises that had been heard to issue at various periods from the gothic pile, in a far more probable way; and it was strongly suspected that the abbey was, in fact, the retreat of a gang of robbers or smugglers—more particularly the latter, and although the proper authorities had hitherto failed in making any satisfactory discovery, it was still hoped that they would succeed ere long in doing so, and in setting all doubts upon the subject at rest. (2)

In this passage, the narrator is describing the setting most central to the novel, St. Mark’s Abbey, or what is left of it. The description of the abbey is done through focusing on the conditions surrounding the ruins, which sets the tone for the setting itself. The narrator uses their omniscience to impart the emotions of the surrounding peoples who keep their distance from the ruins, regardless of what they believe. The narrator first relays the more superstitious group of people who have heard rumors of terrible crimes being committed within its now decaying walls. After this, the narrator describes the more realistic option, which foreshadows the end of the novel when it is revealed that Angelina’s mother, Matilda, and her mother’s cousin, Emmeline, are still alive. The narrator’s knowledge of both scenarios reflects their omniscience.

Sample Passage of Direct Address:

We will now proceed to detail the particulars of the “strange eventful history” connected with the principle characters in our narrative, and with which the reader is, no doubt, anxious to be made acquainted. (215)

This passage occurs at the end of the novel, just before the backstories are revealed. The narrator uses the pronoun “we” to describe who is telling the story, an intimacy that is reinforced by the inclusion of the word “our” later in the sentence. Interestingly, the narrator, who usually sets the mood though their lengthy descriptions, here decides to directly address the readers. By saying that the reader is “no doubt, anxious to be made acquainted,” the narrator breaks the fourth wall, reminding the reader of the fictive nature of the content in making a clear cut between the present and the past.

Summary

The novel begins with the protagonist, Angelina, who is accompanied by her cousin, Lauren Woodfield. While in the deserted ruins of St. Mark’s Abbey, the young ladies see the apparition of a woman that warns Angelina not to return there for her own safety. However, Angelina’s brave spirit only causes her to become increasingly curious as she sees another apparition while exploring a nearby cavern during a storm. This apparition is a handsome man that plays the flute and appears later in Angelina’s dreams. Upon waking from this dream, Angelina returns to the cave, this time finding a door leading to a gallery. Coincidentally, this gallery belongs to St. Mark’s Abbey. To her surprise, Angelina finds she is not alone when she sees the villainous Baron de Morton and his servant Rufus. The pair are quietly discussing a terrible secret. Angelina accidently reveals herself to the Baron, who becomes frightened upon believing her to be a ghost related to his dark deeds. The narrator here divulges the Baron’s history, most importantly stating the interesting nature of his brother’s disappearance followed by his marriage to a widowed baroness. Angelina then overhears a conversation between Rufus and the Baron, in which they speak about Angelina and proclaim that she must die. Angelina returns home shaken.

The cover of the book is cloth detailed with an artificially ingrained texture.

The first apparition of the woman returns, this time visiting Angelina’s uncle, Arthur Woodfield, with whom she lives. The apparition speaks to him privately, causing Arthur to be stern during an unexpected meeting with the Baron when he shows up at the Woodfield’s. Afterwards, the Baron leaves obviously upset and Arthur refuses to talk to his family about either the Baron or the woman. The only insight he gives them is through the promise he forces Angelina to make: she can never return to the Abbey.

Despite her promise, Angelina returns many weeks later, this time discovering a sliding picture frame that conceals a room similar to Angelina’s dreams. She witnesses a woman running about the ruins but she refuses to speak and runs away instead. Upon searching the premises, she is startled upon finding a chest containing bones. Angelina resolves to leave but runs into the Baron, who is frightened of her, initially believing her to be a ghost. Suddenly, the Baron grabs her arm and attempts to end her life, just as she had experienced in her dreams. The flute-playing apparition appears and saves her from the Baron, revealing himself to actually be a young man. Without introducing himself, he makes it obvious that he wants to protect Angelina. The next night, Angelina hears a sweet melody coming from beyond her window; she looks out to see the stranger once again.

The next day, Angelina is wandering outside, contemplating her feelings toward the mysterious stranger, when he appears and admits his feelings towards her, presenting her with a miniature of himself. That evening, while exploring the cavern, she sees the handsome stranger with some smugglers. Angelina is captured and taken aboard a ship by a different group of bandits. They eventually reach land, where she discovers she has been captured under the designs of the Baron, who questions her of her origins and her parents; Angelina knows none of her descent beyond the Woodfields. Bridget, who resents being married to one of the bandits, takes care of Angelina. It is only after Angelina attempts to make her solo escape that Bridget opens up to her. The castle where Angelina is being held captive has a dark history including the possible murder of the Baron’s brother who mysteriously disappeared; this information is striking to Angelina as she has felt a cold arm on her every night as she sleeps. Bridget then hints towards the portrait on the wall, behind which is a doorway that leads to a room where Angelina can overhearing the Baron’s conversation with Rufus. The Baron states that his suspicions have been confirmed and Angelina must be executed; Rufus tells him to wait. Shaken by these comments, Angelina puts her faith in Bridget, who sacrifices herself to save Angelina.

Returning to the Woodfields, the narrator reveals that the female apparition is actually a woman known as Kate of the Ruins who is friends with the mysterious stranger and smuggler, Hugh Clifford, or Angelina’s mysterious stranger. After Kate seeks out Arthur, Hugh reveals his plans to rescue her; Bridget aids them. Kate speaks to Angelina, warning her against reciprocating the flirtatious nature of her relationship with Hugh. Later that night, Angelina wakes to see yet another apparition giving her a kiss on the cheek, which Kate attributes to her imagination. However, Bridget had mentioned that Kate of the Ruins was in touch with the supernatural and had bewitched the grounds of St. Mark’s Abbey.

The next day Angelina and her uncle return home, only to hear a knock on the door and find Hugh, wounded. The Woodfields take care of him and Laura senses the romantic tension between Angelina and Hugh. Despite Kate’s warning, the affections between the pair only intensify until Arthur catches them during a rendezvous. Arthur reprimands them both and is backed up by the sudden appearance of Kate, who reminds them of the conversations she had with each of them. Their forced separation leads to despair for all parties involved. Angelina’s aunt and cousin question Arthur’s decision; he responds ambiguously, expressing empathy yet stating that the pair cannot be. Kate makes Angelina promise not to become involved with Hugh, revealing that she is speaking on behalf of Angelina’s deceased mother. The sight of her mother baffles her as it is the same apparition who kissed her on the cheek earlier. Angelina’s depressive state convinces Arthur to send Angelina to stay with Mrs. Montmorency, a distant relative whose daughter, Charlotte, is around the same age as Angelina.

This image shows Angelina’s surprise in observing the apparition of her mother. This is the beginning of the seventeenth part of this serially published novel. Small woodblock images are placed at the beginning of each part as incentive to buy and read it.

A few months later, Angelina looks out the window to see that Hugh has found her. The pair argue about their fate due to his persistence in finding her, but they are interrupted by ruffians who kidnap them. Ruthven takes Angelina to an underground dungeon in which she hears the moans of someone suffering; the Baron shows her that it is Bridget and she passes out. When Angelina comes to in a nice room, the Baron enters, proceeding to profess his love for her but is steadily refused; he attempts to bribe her with Hugh’s freedom and refrains from kissing her when he looks upon the painting behind her in fear. Angelina is reunited with Bridget, who has healed and is to be contained with her. Bridget goes on to tell her story, which is very similar to Angelina’s; however, in this case, it was Bridget’s parents who forbid their relationship, believing the façade that Rufus showed them. She married Rufus against her will, after which they eventually ended up at the old Grey Tower. It was then that Rufus left, returning with Angelina in tow. When it was discovered that Bridget helped Angelina escape, she is tortured and nearly dies of starvation. Bridget then discloses information about Ophelia de Morton, the woman in the portrait, whom she says that Angelina resembles. She speaks of the mysterious death of Ophelia’s husband, Baron Edward de Morton. Shortly after, the baroness married Edward’s brother since she was carrying his child. The baroness, referred to as the “Lady of White,” was brought to the old Grey Tower, where she bore a stillborn child, although there is said to be some doubt about its fate. It is said that this Lady’s musical talents, once heard in the tower, can still be heard from the ruins of St. Mark’s Abbey. After this bonding experience, Bridget and Angelina are forced onto a boat.

Meanwhile, Ms. Montmorency and Charlotte look for Angelina and write to Mr. Woodfield about her disappearance after they find blood near her miniature of Hugh. Mr. Woodfield persists on seeing the baroness Orillia, Baron de Morton’s wife, to demand the Baron’s location, explaining the situation to her. She is flustered as he catches her in the middle of an affair and is uncompromising as she thinks that Angelina is replacing her in the eyes of her husband. Mr. Woodfield responds by hinting at having more noble blood than she does. The baroness feels vengeful towards Angelina and sends for the Marquis Florendos, whom she has grown fond of, so he can assassinate them.

Mr. Woodfield leaves knowing he must get justice for both himself and the baroness to protect his niece. He becomes suspicious of the help from Kate of the Ruins, but she changes his mind in revealing her knowledge of his true identity, Sir Eustace Arlingham, and produces a treasure which he had left in the ruins of the Abbey years ago. The pair proceed to talk about his long-deceased sister Emmeline, who she reveals herself to be. She admits to him that Angelina is not her child and that Angelina’s mother, baroness Matilda de Morton, is alive. Furthermore, she states that Hugh is her child but he has yet to find out. Emmeline explains that her and Matilda have been watching over Angelina and assures him of her own innocence. He believes her and follows her to the vaults in which Matilda has been living.

Returning to Hugh’s circumstances, he is being held captive and losing hope for his lover, Angelina. He is saved by Winston, a former crew member of his, who is sent to attend to him. The pair leave together, explaining the reasoning behind Bridget and Angelina’s sudden leave from the old Grey Tower.

The ship carrying Bridget and Angelina wrecks, and the pair miraculously end up at the fisherman’s hut where Hugh and Winston are taking shelter. They all return home the day after Emmeline’s confession, but before their lineage can be exposed, the baroness Matilda enters, giving in to Angelina’s cries for her mother.

The narrator goes on to tell the story of the family Arlingham, which was of wealthy and noble descent. Lady Emmelina and Sir Eustace are the children of Sir Edward Arlighman and the baroness Arlingham. The four of them lived in a castle with their cousin, the orphan child of the baroness’ sister. After the sudden death of the baroness, Sir Edward passed away, leaving Eustace in charge of himself, his sister, and their cousin. Eustace and Matilda both found lovers who got along with one another as well as Emmeline. One day, the five of them witness a shipwreck which leads to their meeting of Sir Vincent Rosenford and his two companions. Upon seeing Vincent, Eustace’s wife shudders at him and begins to go mad. Sir Vincent and one of his companions, Lord Dalton, make frequent visits, and Lord Dalton eventually asks for Emmeline’s hand. Eustace urges her to marry him and she eventually gives in. However, after a short period, she elopes with Sir Vincent. As a result, Eustace’s wife gets deathly sick but has one last period of reason in which she admits that Sir Vincent was her first love and that they had an affair after his repeated visits and persistence with her. With this confession, she passes away. Eustace’s bad luck continues as Emmeline’s story is viewed as scandalous, causing him to lose his title in the court. Before he can receive a prison sentence, he escapes on a ship headed to Flanders, where he recreates his identity and eventually remarries. One day, he finds a baby at his door with a note from Emmeline to take care of her child, which she wanted to name Angelina.

Returning to present day, Emmeline apologizes to Eustace and points out that he should not have forced her into marriage. She then explains that her marriage with Lord Dalton became a good one, and that she actually bore his child, contrary to rumors. However, Lord Vincent Rosenford followed her and confessed his love, becoming cynical upon her denial of him. He told her that she should not deny him and proceeded to kidnap her while she is on a walk one evening. Emmeline expresses the anguish she felt as she was forced upon a ship that was then destroyed by a storm. It was not until after this event that she met Captain Clifford, who saved her and her infant son from drowning. Captain Clifford then became a smuggler, but he continued to look after Emmeline’s child. Emmeline recalls that he made a vow to be another parent to the child regardless of circumstance. Emmeline had then attempted to return home only to hear of Eustace’s scandals, which she emphasizes are now irrelevant. Shortly after, Emmeline returned to Captain Clifford and was introduced to his wife, who also takes pity on her. Emmeline also sought out her cousin’s current husband, the Baron de Morton, brother of her prior husband. To her shock, he informed her that the baroness has passed away. Unfortunately, it was upon her return to the Cliffords in which she was kidnapped, this time by Rufus and some ruffians; she was taken to the old Grey Tower. Upon her escape, she returned to the Cliffords to find that his wife has passed away, causing him to return to sea with her child, Hugh. Luckily, having possession of some money allowed Emmeline to return to a place that Captain Clifford had shown her, which was connected to the ruins of an old abbey, which the readers know as St. Mark’s Abbey. To her astonishment, Emmeline finds the baroness Matilda there. Emmeline then stops her narrative there, requesting that the baroness herself iterate the rest of the story. After the baroness refuses, Emmeline continues, telling of the cruel manner in which Matilda’s second husband treated her.

After forcing a secret marriage in the middle of the night, the baron stole her away to the old Grey Tower, in which she bore him a baby girl. Matilda was told that her baby was a stillborn; however, she felt that the baron was somehow responsible not only for the fate of their child, but for the mysterious disappearance of her first husband. After Matilda healed, she sought out her old nurse, explaining the situation to her. She instead found the daughter of her nurse, who was told by her husband of the deliverance of a baby to their neighbors. Matilda ran next door, looked upon the baby, and instantly recognized her as her own. The baroness also recognized a mark of companionship on her daughter’s arm, signifying that it was Bridget’s parents who saved baby Angelina. Matilda resolved then to live in the abbey, following the same line of thought as Emmeline in seeking shelter in the supposedly haunted place. In this way, Matilda and Emmeline were reunited. Captain Clifford returned, informing Matilda that her child was being attended to by a nearby nurse. The women related to him their plan of being covert in order to deliver retribution. Emmeline then relates that it was her who delivered the baby to Eustace so that he would care for the child. Emmeline recalls having been worried about the locket which she had left with Angelina; Eustace recalls his curiosity about it initially.

The storyline ends here as Emmeline concludes by coming back to her warnings to Eustace, Hugh, and Angelina, which can be understood as prevented due to its ill-timing as this was before the true nature of their births were revealed. The book finishes with a conclusion that doles out poetic justice. Sir Eustace Arlingham seeks justice via the court for himself, his sister, and their cousin. The king pities them and returns to them their respective riches and titles, having heard some news of the baron’s death along with his confessions of treason. Emmeline is reunited with her husband, and Hugh with his true parents. Orillia shamefully runs off with the Marquis Florendos after hearing word of her husband’s death. Angelina and Hugh get married and are surprised when they are approached by Bridget, who was miraculously cured. These three live together in their castle near the Woodfields and the Daltons. Angelina’s cousin, Laura, finds a gentleman whom she marries. Lady de Morton revives the abbey and the narrator explains the use of Emmeline’s scare tactics, such as the chest of bones, to ward of any early discovery of the pair’s plot. The author ends with “Thus, then, do we end ‘This round unvarnished tale’”—referring to the cyclic tropes of the novel and of life in general (236).

Bibliography

Humpherys, Anne. “Edward Lloyd.” British Literary Publishing Houses, 1820-1880, edited by Patricia Anderson and Jonathan Rose, Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 106. Detroit, Michigan, Gale, 1991. Literature Resource Center.

“Preface” to Angelina; or, The Mystery of St. Mark’s Abbey. A Tale of Other Days by Thomas Prest. London, Edward Lloyd, 1841 via Google Books.<https://books.google.com/booksid=UQUoAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false>

Prest, Thomas. Angelina; or, The Mystery of St. Mark’s Abbey. A Tale of Other Days. London, Edward Lloyd, 1841.

“Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, https://www.pbs.org/kqed/demonbarber/penny/index.html.

Researcher: Samara Rubenstein

Don Algonah

Don Algonah: Or the Sorceress of Montillo. A Romantic Tale

Author: Unknown
Publisher: T. Hurst
Publication Year: 1802
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 10cm x 17.5cm.
Pages: 71
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2 .D651 1802

Don Algonah: the Sorceress of Montillo, published in 1802 and republished several times, is a tale of adventure, magic, violence, and a quest for unforbidden love that takes place in Madrid, Spain.

Material History

Don Algonah: Or the Sorceress of Montillo. A Romantic Tale consists of 71 pages and is approximately 10 cm by 17.5 cm. The author is unknown because there is no author name printed on any of the pages. At first glance, the book appears very aged because of the missing cover and discolored pages that are loosely hanging onto the binding. You must be careful while looking through the book as to not accidentally fold the brittle and thin pages. Some pages can be seen peeking out from the side because they are no longer attached to the rest of the book. The outer edges of the book are also discolored and shriveled. Surprisingly, none of the pages are missing and the text is still very clear and readable.

The title page for *Don Algonah: Or the Sorceress of Montillo*

The original front and back cover of the book is missing, leaving a blank page on both sides. This is most likely because this book was originally part of a pamphlet consisting of multiple stories. It was very common for multiple stories to be printed into one pamphlet. As a result, some booksellers thought they could make a larger profit by selling the stories individually, so they would rip the stories out of the pamphlet. Although both front and back covers are missing, we can still see traces of brown, fuzzy leather with blue and gold designs on the binding. It is very likely that the covers of the book were made of the same leather material. There are also three small holes near the binding on every page and a piece of string strewn between a different set of holes. The pages were originally sewn with a needle, but someone pulled the pages apart and then bound it back together again. The blank front page also has the word “romance” written on the top left corner.

On page three there is a title page with the book’s full title printed at the top and a detailed black and white illustration of men sitting around a fire. There is another black and white illustration on the left page of a tall man with a knife. Both illustrations use hatching which is a technique used to create different shades. This book was probably produced very cheaply because non-colored illustrations were much cheaper. A previous owner of the book also handwrote their name on the top corner of page three.

Every page has a page number printed on the top. Some pages also have a capital letter followed by a number at the very bottom. The pages of a book were printed on a large sheet of paper and the book binder would have to fold the paper with multiple pages on the front and make and make sure the pages were in the right order. The letter and number pair was for the book binder to make sure the pages were in order without having to know the page numbers.

Textual History

Don Algonah: Or the Sorceress of Montillo is the second edition published by T. Hurst in 1802. The first edition was published the same year. The book does not explicitly state who the author is, but the bottom of the title page mentions that the book was printed for T. Hurst and sold by J. Wallis. The authorship is unknown. Thomas Hurst was a publisher in London during the nineteenth century. The novel does not explicitly state who the illustrator is, but underneath the black and white image, the names Rhodes Sculp and Craig Pinx are printed in a tiny font. There are several other digitized books online with a similar illustration style on the cover and the name Rhodes Sculp written underneath.

The frontispiece for *Don Algonah: Or the Sorceress of Montillo*

The book was printed by J. Cundee, a British printer located at Albion Press, Ivy Lane, Paternoster Row in London. The book was originally printed in English as a chapbook. A chapbook is a small inexpensive booklet containing short literature. There is a third edition printed the same year, 1802, and it is the second story in volume I of The Marvellous Magazine and Compendium of Prodigies. The entire magazine comprises of four volumes and each volume consists of many gothic stories from the nineteenth century. All four volumes were published individually between 1802 and 1804. In the version of Don Algonah that appears in The Marvellous Magazine, the story is the same and there is a new illustration of an owl on the front title page.

The entire text was digitized by the Internet Archive in 2017 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana Champaign Alternates. The digital version includes an image of the vignette design on the front and back cover that is missing from the copy in the University of Virginia Special Collections Library. The book has also been reprinted multiple times in the twenty-first century. There are hardcover and paperback copies available to be ordered online through Amazon. These newer versions shortened the title to just Don Algonah. The space where the author’s name is usually written, just has “Algonah (Don, fict. name.).”

It is unknown whether or not the book sold well or poorly. A short snippet of the work was included in the Georgia Courier, a weekly newspaper for Albany, Doughtry County Georgia. On June 7, 1827 pages 13–16 of the book were printed in two columns of the newspaper and left to be continued (Georgia Courier). Michael Kelly, a playwright who produced dozens of works between 1797 and 1821, composed a play called Algonah, which was performed in Drury Lane, London on April 30, 1802 (“Reminiscences of Michael Kelly”). There are no details on the play in The Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review, but it appeared the same year as Don Algonah: Or the Sorceress of Montillo.

Although this book has been reprinted, digitized, and well preserved, this work has not been referenced frequently within academic scholarship. William Whyte Watt wrote a book published in 1932, called Shilling Shockers of the Gothic School: A Study of Chapbook Gothic Romances. In this book, Watt analyzes different gothic works including, Don Algonah: Or the Sorceress of Montillo (29).

Narrative Point of View

Don Algonah: the Sorceress of Montillo is narrated in the third person for the majority of the text. There are also some interpolated tales in the middle of the story when some characters, such as D’Antares and Marano, share their past experiences. In these interpolated tales, the stories are told in first-person narration. During these moments when the character is sharing his own story, the narration focuses more on how that character feels as he relives his past experiences. When the characters finish telling their stories, the narration switches back to the third-person narrative. In both the interpolated tales and the third -person narration, there is a lot of dialogue between multiple characters.

Sample Passage of Third-Person Narration:

The Inquisitors themselves saw it, and looked terrified. –“Tell what the chamber contained!” exclaimed the Suprema, “or the rack shall force it from you!” –“I know nothing of the chamber alluded to,” replied the Don, hardily. “You deny also,” said the Suprema, “any knowledge of your two wives?” –“I do,” said Algonah. A sigh was heard from the corpse of Amaranta. (66)

Sample Passage of an Interpolated Tale told by D’Antares:

“Marano, every day more enraptured with the portrait, sought for the original every where: lamenting the singularity of his fate, which precluded him from knowing if his mistress were old or young, dead or alive. Quitting Grenada in about a fortnight after this adventure, we entered the inn yard of a village in Andalusia. — Here a travelling fortune-teller, mounted on a tub, was amusing the gaping countrymen with his nostrums and gestures. Observing us to smile, he turned to us and said, ‘Senors. I know that which one or both of you would give the world to know; mark that, Senors!’ Marano immediately whispered me that the speech applied to himself, and, continued he, ‘I will have this man to sup with us when the villagers are gone.’” (10)

The third-person narration stretches across multiple plots and characters. As the passage above indicates, this narration frequently relies on dialogue to express different characters’ emotions. Within this overarching third-person narration, the many personal tales told by the characters means that the narration jumps between different characters’ storylines, which can be disorienting. During the characters’ interpolated tales, they sometimes leave open questions that will not be answered until other characters relay their own separate experiences in the future. The interpolated tales span across a large period of time so they feel fast-paced, and they focus on specific characters, thus developing more individual complexity.

Summary

On the day of a grand festival in Madrid, Duke d’Axala hosts a large celebration and invites every wealthy family. Don Algonah and his daughter Aramenta arrive at the party at midnight. Olivaro immediately notices Aramenta and expresses to his friend, Marquis d’ Antares, his admiration for the girl. Marquis d’Antares proceeds to tell Olivario that Aramenta’s father is forcing her to live in a convent, leaving Olivaro in sadness.

This page shows the thread binding the pages together

Later that night, a fire erupts in a saloon and Olivaro runs to the scene to find Aramenta trapped in the building, so he saves her and carries her to a garden. When Aramenta awakes, she confirms to Olivario that she is retiring from the world to live a life of monastic seclusion. Before Olivaro can respond, Algonah appears and orders Aramenta to leave with him. When Olivaro is leaving the garden, he meets Marquis d’ Antares again, who asks Olivaro to follow him. When they both arrive at Marquis d’ Antares home, he tells Olivaro a story.

Marquis d’ Antares tells a story about his adventures with his close friend, Marano de Pinato. One day, the two men were on a small boat exploring Grenda when it suddenly began to storm. They lost sight of Grenada as the skies became dark, and they came across a ruined Moorish castle and decided to use it for shelter. As they look around the castle, Marano finds a dagger rusted with blood and he decides to preserve it because he believes it is the blood of an innocent soul. When the rain stops, they find out their boat had been destroyed by the storm. Marano tells Marquis d’ Antares that the same agent that led them to the castle will guide them back to Grenada. Marano says his belief in magic is confirmed by an event that happened to him nine months ago, and he proceeds to tell Marquis d’ Antares the story.

Marano’s story begins with him foraging for food for his comrades. During his search, he sees a lame soldier and Marano asks him why he is straggling behind his comrades. The soldier says that he has received a deadly blow in his heart and that Marano was the only person who could save him. The soldier asks Marano to swear to avenge his wound or a terrible fate will fall upon his house. Marano agrees and the wounded soldier disappears. Marano says that the dagger they found in the castle reminded him of this story.

The two friends wait in the castle until the next morning to find that the castle had been partly destroyed by a fire ordered by Philip to prevent resistance from the Moors. Marano also finds a small portrait of a beautiful woman. He proclaims his admiration for the woman in the portrait, and Marquis d’ Antares tells him that the lady is wearing a Moorish dress which means she most likely died from the cruel edict of Philip’s orders. The two men safely travel back to Grenada on foot.

This page shows discolorations on the margins

Marano becomes obsessed with the woman in the portrait and tries to find her everywhere. When the two friends leave Grenada for Andalusia, they meet a fortune teller, Rimanez. Marano shows Rimanez the portrait and asks him if the woman lives. Rimanez says the woman is gone forever and quickly leaves, but Marano and Marquis d’ Antares do not believe him. The two friends continue on their journey to Tolosa, where Marano complains about superstitious activities. One night a pale soldier appears at Marquis d’ Antares bedside and asks him to follow him into the woods. Marquis d’ Antares agrees and the soldier orders Marquis d’ Antares to observe something hidden in the branches of a tree. Suddenly, Marquis d’ Antares hears two men approach the tree and the wounded soldier disappears. The two men under the tree talk about losing a dagger to two travellers in a Moorish castle and a dreadful deed they committed. Marquis d’ Antares hears this and jumps out of the tree and stabs one of the murderers, Perez. The other man, Pedro, shoots Marquis d’ Antares with a pistol and escapes.

Two sisters, Clementia and Aramenta, find the wounded Marquis d’ Antares and takes him to the Castle of Montillo for assistance. Marano comes to the castle and tells his injured friend that he is the nephew of Don Algonah, the castle’s leader. Marquis d’ Antares learns from Marano that Algonha’s first wife, Juliana, died. He married his second wife, Lady Cleona, around the time of Philip’s persecution of the Moors. She also died, leaving a daughter, Amaranta. Vertola, an old stewardess living in the castle, sees Marano’s small portrait and says that it is Lady Juliana. Vertola tells the two friends about Lady Juliana’s suspicious death. On the day her coffin was screwed, Lucilia, Juliana’s maid, saw Juliana kneeling in her old bedroom. Algonah caught Lucilla and carried her to her chamber. After Lucilla told Vertola this story, he never heard from her again. Vertola continues to talk about Algonah’s second wife. Lady Cleona was married to Count Alvarez and had a daughter with him. Algonah was a friend of Count Alvarez and fell in love with Cleona. The edict of Philip at the time tried to exile Moorish families, so Don Alvarez attempted to escape to Algnoah’s castle, disguised as a soldier. Unfortunately, Don Alvarez was murdered along the way by assassins. Algonah then transported the Countess and her daughter to Grenada. Shortly after, he married Lady Cleo in his castle. During the wedding reception, the figure of a murdered Alvarez threatened Algonah. The first daughter of Lady Cleona was sent to Grenada by Algonah, and was reported to have died.

During Marquis d’ Antares stay at the castle, he begins to feel affection towards one of Algonah’s daughters, Clementia. When Algonah arrives home to his castle, the two men decide to see what was in the chambers of the castle. As Marquis d’ Antares is travelling across the stairs, he hears Algonah and the assassin, Pedro, conducting a plan to keep the two friends at the castle for a few days longer so that Pedro could assassinate them. The next morning, the two men immediately leave the Castle of Montillo. Marquis d’ Antares and Marano say their sad goodbyes and separate to leave for their individual homes.

When Marquis d’ Antares finishes his story, Olivaro tells Marquis d’ Antares that they will free Clementia and Amaranta from Algonah. Marquis d’ Antares is excited to hear this and he visits the palace of Count de Bellara where Aramenta is staying and requests to speak to her. He tells her about Olivaro’s plans to marry her so she can be free. Right after Marquis d’ Antares leaves, Algonah confuses Marquis d’ Antares as Aramenta’s lover. He is so upset that he orders his daughter to be sent to the convent that night. When Olivaro hears of this news he asks his cousin Emelina to help Amarenta escape, who agrees to enter the convent to help her cousin. Olivaro requests Amarenta to meet him in the garden for her escape. When the day arrives for the two lovers to meet, Amarenta and Emelina meet Olivaro in the garden. Before they could escape, Amarenta is stabbed by Pedro hiding in the bushes. Pedro tries to escape and Olivaro chases after him. Algonah is waiting outside the convent and accidentally stabs Pedro, mistaking him for Olivaro. Before Algonah could plunge the sword again, Marano fires a pistol at Algonah. Olivaro rushes back to Amaranta, where she dies in his arms. The Inquisition appears at the murder scene and arrests everyone.

The final page of the story shows some rips and holes

Marano tells his story about finally finding his mistress, Seraphino, after he and Marquis d’ Antares went on their separate ways. Seraphino was a slave in a castle owned by Lady Juliana’s brother, Solyman. Marano expresses his love to Seraphino, and he finds out that Seraphino is Count Alvarez’s daughter who was sent to Grenada and sold as a slave. Rimanez and Lady Cleo also arrive at Solyman’s castle and the conjurer explains how he was hired by Algonah to kill Lady Cleona. He pitied the lady, so he spread a rumor that she had drowned and then confined her in a castle for all these years. Marano, Rimanez, Seraphino, and Lady Cleo are travelling together when they find Lady Juliana locked in the eastern chamber of the Montillo castle. Juliana explains how Algonah was the only person who knew about the secret passage. Her maid and old stewardesses were also locked up because they found out Algonah had buried a wax figure in her coffin. The group then set off to Madrid.

During the examination, all of Algonah’s past wrongdoings are revealed. Algonah stabs himself with a dagger and dies. During the trial, a sorceress also revealed that the soldier who was haunting Marano was Count Alvarez, and he wanted his remains to be buried.

After the trial ends, Marano performs the funeral rites for the remains of Count Alvarez and buries his daughter Amarnata beside him. Algonah’s widows get to choose which apartments of the castle they want to live in. Clementia and Marquis d’ Antares are reunited again and Marama is happily in love with Seraphino. After Amaranta is respectfully buried, Emelina consents to marry Olivaro. The three friends and their relatives live the rest of their lives in happiness.

Bibliography

Don Algonah: Or the Sorceress of Montillo. A Romantic Tale. London: Printed for T. Hurst, 1802.

“Don Algonah, Or the Sorceress of Montillo: A Romantic Tale.” Georgia Courier, 7 June 1827.

The Marvellous Magazine and Compendium of Prodigies. London: Printed for T. Hurst, 1802.

“Reminiscences of Michael Kelly, of the King’s Theatre, and Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, Including a Period of nearly Half a Century; with Original Anecdotes of Many Distinguished Persons, Political, Literary, and Musical.” The Quarterly Musical Magazine and Review, vol. 7, no. 28, 1825, pp. 475-498.

Watt, William Whyte, 1912-. Shilling Shockers of the Gothic School: a Study of Chapbook Gothic Romances. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1932.

Researcher: Helen Lin

← Previous

Material History

Textual History

Narrative Point of View

Summary

Bibliography

The Skeleton; or, Mysterious Discovery. A Gothic Romance.

Material History

Textual History

Narrative Point of View

Summary

Bibliography

Material History

Textual History

Narrative Point of View

Summary

Bibliography

The Round Tower, Or the Mysterious Witness: An Irish Legendary Tale of the Sixth Century

Material History

Textual History

Narrative Point of View

Summary

Bibliography

The Twin Sisters; or, Two Girls of Nineteen: Being the Interesting Adventures of Sophia and Charlotte Melford. An Affecting Narrative

Material History

Textual History

Narrative Point of View

Summary

Bibliography

Parental Murder; or, the Brothers, an Interesting Romance; in which Virtue and Villainy are Contrasted, and Followed by Reward and Retribution.

Material History

Textual History

Narrative Point of View

Summary

Bibliography

Lucretia; or, The Robbers of the Hyrcanean Forest: A Romance

Material History

Textual History

Narrative Point of View

Summary

Bibliography

Feudal Days; or, the Noble Outlaw. An Historical Romance of the Fourteenth Century

Material History

Textual History

Narrative Point of View

Summary

Bibliography

Angelina; Or, The Mystery of St. Mark’s Abbey. A Tale of Other Days

Material History

Textual History

Narrative Point of View

Summary

Bibliography

Don Algonah: Or the Sorceress of Montillo. A Romantic Tale

Material History

Textual History

Narrative Point of View

Summary

Bibliography

***Feudal Days; or, the Noble Outlaw. An* *Historical Romance of the Fourteenth Century***