Mother

The Commodore’s Daughter

The Commodore’s Daughter

The Commodore’s Daughter

Author: Benjamin Barker
Publisher: Edward Lloyd
Publication Year: 1847
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 13.5cm x 21.75cm
Pages: 68
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2.L856 1800z no.3

With its twists and turns, this transatlantic tale recounts heartbreak, love, desire, and greed. Where one end is tied, another frays, keeping readers in suspense. There is no shortage of the gothic in this text.

Material History

The cover of The Commodore’s Daughter is 21.75 cm tall and 13.5 cm wide with a spine thickness of 1.5 cm. While the cover does not have a special design, the two corners and part of the spine have a softer and lighter leather than the rest of the book’s cover, which is a rougher and darker leather. There are three stories bound within this volume and the spine is decorated with gold lettering with the titles: Lucelle. — Julia St. Pierre. — Commodore’s Daughter. 

This opening page for The Commodore’s Daughter contains a small note at the top that reads “complete” 

The Commodore’s Daughter, by Benjamin Barker, begins approximately two-thirds of the way into this volume. The pages are clearly in excellent shape. The title page is plain and includes the title, author, and publication information: “PUBLISHED BY E. LLOYD, 12, SALISBURY-SQUARE, FLEET-STREET, AND SOLD BY ALL BOOKSELLERS.” The next page, which starts the text of the story, also includes a detailed picture and caption, as well as the word, “complete” handwritten lightly in pencil at the top of the page. The Commodore’s Daughter was originally published as a “penny dreadful” serial, which is when small cheap portions of the story were published at regular intervals and later bound together. “No. 1,” “No. 2,” etc. appear at the bottom corners of their respective pages (outside of the border created around the text) to indicate the start of a new section of the story. Though the sections were all printed, sold, and originally purchased separately, this version is “complete” because these sections have now been bound together.

The Commodore’s Daughter is sixty-eight pages long. The text is small, always surrounded by a decorative border, and relatively easy to read with decent-sized margins. This copy of The Commodore’s Daughter also shows an error made during printing. Though the final chapter appears to be Chapter XIX, this book does not have nineteen chapters, but rather, eighteen, with one entire chapter having been skipped due to misnumbering. The book leaps from Chapter XVII to Chapter XIX, which should have been correctly numbered as Chapter XVIII. This erroneous Chapter XIX is printed on the back of the page with Chapter XVII. Interestingly, the side of the page with Chapter XVII is much more pristine and in better shape than the other side, which must have been exposed at one point to different environmental conditions.

Textual History

The Commodore’s Daughter was written by Benjamin Barker—an author who was no stranger to publishing, as he released nineteen other works under his name. Two publishers produced The Commodore’s Daughter—Frederick Gleason in Boston, Massachusetts in 1846, and Edward Lloyd in London in 1847—and versions of each are housed in the Sadleir-Black Collection of Gothic Fiction. 

The preface page for The Commodore’s Daughter

The Lloyd and Gleason printings of The Commodore’s Daughter contain a few key differences. For instance, the 1846 Gleason printing (which is also available on Google Books) includes the alternate title, The Dwarf of the Channel, or, The Commodore’s Daughter. While both versions contain the same story content, the Gleason’s version prints the story in columns, and this copy also lacks the illustrations present in the Lloyd version. Lloyd’s 1847 printing also initially appeared serialized as a penny dreadful.

The Lloyd printing of The Commodore’s Daughter contains a preface dated December 1847. In this preface, “the Publisher” provides context for the story’s historical significance, characters, and plot, including the backstory and setting. The final sentence of the preface reads: “The moral of the tale is unexceptionable, and as the incidents do not violate probability, and the characters are so truly drawn, the Publisher anticipates a favourable reception for the work.”

Like much of gothic literature that has faded from view, The Commodore’s Daughter has not remained widely available and the publisher’s projected “favourable reception” was short-lived, if at all. However, there are a few notable online versions. In addition to digital copies of the Gleason printing available via Google Books, Historical Texts has a digitized version of the Lloyd edition. In 2010, the British Library Historical Print Editions released a reprinting of The Commodore’s Daughter. 

Benjamin Barker has a notable publishing history. Not only did he publish nearly twenty works under his name, but he also published under the pseudonym Egbert Augustus Cowslip. One of his most well-known works under this pseudonym was Zoraida; or The witch of Naumkeag! A Tale of the Olden Time. Another of Barker’s works published under his own name, Blackbeard, or, The Pirate of Roanoke, is listed on Amazon and, as of 2021, has several reviews including one with a complaint about its historical inaccuracies, which reiterates the preface of The Commodore’s Daughter regarding the accuracy of accounts of the American Revolution.

Narrative Point of View

The Commodore’s Daughter is narrated in the third person (and occasionally with first-person plural moments) by an unnamed omniscient narrator who does not appear in the text. The narration feels relatively modern, but still contains antiquated vernacular. The paragraphs and sentences are generally lengthy. Yet, there still are inconsistencies in the style, with some paragraphs being much longer or using more eloquent vocabulary than others. The narration describes the characters and their feelings matter-of-factly (and frequently through characters’ actions), and there is very little text dedicated to introspection. The narration also contains much more description than dialogue.

Sample Passage: 

Premising that the following romance is founded upon facts, with the details of which many of our readers may possibly be acquainted, and that for particular reason, we shall claim the privilege and take the liberty of introducing our principal characters under fictitious names, we now proceed to open our story as follows… (1)

By performing that this fictional story is based on facts—a common gothic trope—the narrator effectively tells the story with increased credibility (and possibly more shock value, as well). The narrator seeks to communicate a story by establishing familiarity with the characters in the book without revealing their names, thus providing an even foundation to readers and inviting everyone to enjoy the story with shared knowledge provided by the narrator from the beginning. The use of the first-person plural “we” also gives a more rounded and less singular feeling to the narration, enabling the fictional story to mimic an actual recounting of events.

Summary

In the early days of the American Revolution, before the colonies had banded together to declare their own independence, an old and cunning man by the name of Henry Hartville desired a fortune that was supposed to be inherited by a girl named Nora. Through his meticulous planning, Henry was able to trick Nora into believing that she was his daughter, all the while finding the perfect suitor for her so that Henry could obtain this wealth. The story then asks what Henry Hartville’s plan is to arrive at his goal.

The title page for The Commodore’s Daughter

An older, “deformed” man named John Ellery, frequently described in the text as a “dwarf,” has taken under his wing a “maniac” girl, Helen Morton, whose parents died years prior. John Ellery is one day met by a man carrying a letter and a black crucifix, who leaves soon after handing him these mysterious items. Despite not knowing who this man is or who the person who wrote the letter could be, Mr. Ellery accepts the commands listed out to him on the letter without any hesitation. One of those commands being to seek Nora Hartville out to keep under his wing, which the story reveals later.

Luckily, Mr. Ellery met with a ship on its way to a New England port, carrying several passengers in its cabins. Since he is able to pilot the ship, Mr. Ellery is gratefully accepted by the captain to guide it to its destination. Mr. Ellery, however, begins to take notice of a peculiar passenger whom the captain dreaded and wanted jettisoned as soon as possible. Through a careful line of questioning, Mr. Ellery finally realizes what he had hoped to find——the girl on the ship is Nora Hartville, the one the letter instructed him to keep under his wing for the next few years.

Mr. Ellery, Helen Morton, and Nora Hartville all arrive at Mr. Ellery’s home and remain there for several months in peace, as Helen and Nora become closer in what Helen describes as a sisterhood. Unfortunately, the fateful night arrives soon enough, and Miles Warton, the man who brought the letter and the crucifix to Mr. Ellery so long ago, finally comes to collect Nora Hartville for the suitor that Henry Hartville had set up for her. Miles Warton was a criminal, so Mr. Ellery knew his arrival at the cottage meant something was wrong. Prior to their meeting, Mr. Ellery heard Nora’s objections to the forced marriage, for the girl had her heart set on another man, George Wellington. Both parties soon realize that this night will not go as planned. In a shocking turn of events, Warton is killed by none other than Helen Morton, as she defends her adoptive father from being harmed by the criminal. 

Through many events to follow, George Wellington, who was originally deprived of his desire to see his love, Nora Hartville, meets up with a man named Edward Hale, Helen Morton’s former lover. It is revealed that once George and Edward work together in their search for their lovers, the cruel and conniving plans of  Henry Hartville can be overturned.

This page shows the final chapter, which was misnumbered as chapter nineteen though it should have been numbered chapter eighteen.

Yet before their arrival, another surprising figure appears: the former wife of Mr. Ellery, whose name is Julia. Long ago, Julia (the original owner of the black crucifix) held a gun to her husband’s chest in a fit of hatred and demanded that he follow the orders of whoever bears the crucifix. Now, Julia seeks forgiveness for the trouble she has caused, and the old man gracefully accepts. Seeing that Mr. Ellery accepted her apology, Julia knows she can now rest, and she breathes her last breath at her former husband’s humble cottage.

Finally having come to peace with his life, Mr. Ellery travels with his daughters and their suitors (who have found his cottage after a long search) to the ship of a well-known commodore, where it is revealed that the villainous Henry Hartville is aboard the vessel. Cornered and seeing that all his plans have been foiled, Henry Hartville takes a pistol to his head and pulls the trigger, allowing for Edward Hale and Helen Morton to fulfill their love and Nora and George Wellington to do the same. Through much pain and sorrow, Mr. Ellery finally gets to live a happy life away from shame.

Bibliography

Barker, Benjamin B. Blackbeard Or The Pirate of Roanoke. Amazon eBook, 17 May 2012, https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blackbeard-Pirate-Roanoke-B-Barker-ebook/dp/B09KTTZK6X. Accessed 10 November 2021.

——. The Commodore’s Daughter. E. Lloyd, 1847.

——. The Dwarf of the Channel, Or, The Commodore’s Daughter: A Nautical Romance of the Revolution.  Gleason’s Publishing Hall, 1846.

“Barker, Benjamin.” North Carolina Literary Map. UNCG University Libraries, http://libapps4.uncg.edu/nclitmap/details.aspx?typ=auth&id=2230. 

Cowslip, Egbert Augustus [Benjamin B. Barker]. Zoraida, or, the Witch of Naumkeag! A Tale of the Olden Time. Gleason’s Publishing Hall, 1845.

Researcher: Jackson Utz

Fatal Secrets

Fatal Secrets

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

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

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

Material History

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

Handwritten cover preceding the title page

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

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

Textual History

The title page ofFatal Secrets

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

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

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

A sample page of Fatal Secrets

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

Narrative Point of View

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

Sample Passage of Third-Person Narration:

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

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

Sample Passage from the Letter:

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

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

Summary

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

The frontispiece of Fatal Secrets

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

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

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

The final page of Fatal Secrets and its accompanying illustration

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

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

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

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

Bibliography

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Researcher: Chloe Fridley

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

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

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

Cordelia

Cordelia

Cordelia, Or a Romance of Real Life

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

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

Material History

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

The title page of Cordelia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Textual History

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

Sample page of text that shows folds in page.

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

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

Narrative Point of View

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

Sample Passage:

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

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

Summary

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bibliography

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

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

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

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

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

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

Researcher: Aliana Bobé Cummings

The Affecting History of Caroline

The Affecting History of Caroline

The Affecting History of Caroline, or, The Distressed Widow: A True Tale 

Author: Unknown (plagiarized from Charlotte Smith)
Publisher: S. Carvalho
Publication Year: 1805
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 18cm x 10.5cm
Pages: 22
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2 .R66 1800

A story of love and tragedy, this 1805 chapbook features plagiarized excerpts from Charlotte Smith’s 1789 novel Ethelinde. 

Material History

The Affecting History of Caroline, or the Distressed Widow: A True Tale is the fourth gothic story in a collection of four volumes. In the back of the front cover of the collection, there is a note written in pencil that states “4 Vol,” denoting there are four rebound volumes in the set. Notably, none of the volumes have an author listed at the front. 

The image shows the misaligned test at the footer of the title page of The Affecting History of Caroline.

The chapbook collection consists of a front and back cover made of chipped, faded red-dyed paper, with the spine of the book dyed green and highlighted by a black outline on the front and back. Both sides are blank, leaving a polished but plain look. From the top of the spine, there is a gold fabric label printed with the word, “ROMANCES” bordered by a series of decorative black lines and dots arranged symmetrically. Including the cover, the book is approximately 18 cm long, 10.5cm wide, and 1.4cm thick. Inside, the pages are evenly cut, but yellowed and worn. 

Although the pages are very thin and easy to flip through, their texture is rough like sandpaper. Without any spots or signs of damage other than age, the book is in fairly good condition. 

The title page features the main title, The Affecting History of Caroline, settled at the top half of the page in large fine black font. The alternative title, Distressed Widow, is italicized.

Underneath, outlined by a thin horizontal line, is the subtitle, A True Tale. The footer of the title page includes publishing information: “London, published by S. Carvalho, 19 Castle Calley, White Chapel.” This is followed by the chapbook’s individual sale price: sixpence. Then, at the very bottom, there appears to be a misaligned line of text that cuts off past the margins, plausibly additional publishing information. 

Positioned at the center of the title page is a small printed illustration of a woman in a red dress holding a baby in a blanket. The illustration is painted over in watercolors, which gives the image a glossy texture that stands out from the rest of the pages. There is no caption for the illustration, but it is implied that the woman pictured is the titular “Distressed Widow.”

The frontispiece of The Affecting History of Caroline.

Furthermore, there is a frontispiece that consists of a full color spread of a woman and young girl standing on a paved road while a smiling man appears to lead them to a carriage. Similar to the title page illustration, this picture was hand-painted in watercolor, which gives the page additional heavy weight in comparison to other pages. The twentieth (and final) page of the story includes a printed illustration of various household items at the bottom, such as two bowls.

Pagination of Caroline does not begin until page 4, and the chapbook is twenty pages long. Every left page of the open book includes the abbreviated title Caroline in the header, with the page number listed above it. The markers for printing sections B and C are located on pages three and fifteen, respectively, in the center of the footer. These sections denote to the publisher when to fold the pages so that the book is bound in the right order. The pagination continues to another story, titled The Negro: An Affecting Tale, which then closes its respective volume. Each of the four rebound volumes has its own pagination, so they are not continuous among one another.

Textual History

The Affecting History of Caroline: or, The Distressed Widow was published in 1805. This twenty-five-page chapbook entered the Sadleir-Black Gothic Collection at the University of Virginia as one of four chapbooks rebound into a single volume, yet a digital copy of the chapbook as its own isolated volume, with a front and back cover, is publicly available through Duke University Library and HathiTrust. 

There are few differences between the University of Virginia and Duke copies of the text. One that stands out is the alignment of the title page. Whereas the print of University of Virginia’s copy is slightly tilted and thus parts of the text cut off at the bottom margins, the print is fully aligned, listing details on publishing information, “E. Billing, Printer, 187, Bermondsey Street.” Furthermore, the Duke copy has a marbled cover, whereas the University of Virginia’s rebound copy uses a paper cover. Otherwise, the pagination, font, publication date, and publishing company are all the same. Furthermore, neither copy lists an author anywhere in the chapbook.

According to WorldCat, S. Carvalho, the publishing company, was located in London and published other novels between 1805 and 1831. Their other works followed a similar subject as The Affecting History of Caroline: a woman’s reflection on her life, such as in The Lady’s Revenge: a Tale Founded on Facts (1817) and The History of Miss Patty Proud (1820). Yet, throughout S. Carvalho’s legacy, there were no other reprints of Caroline, nor any known translations. However, in 2015, two publishing companies dedicated to revitalizing old books, BiblioBazaar and FB&C Limited, reprinted the original text in a new paperback edition. FB&C Limited would go on to publish a hardcover edition of The Affecting History of Caroline in 2018.

Page 15 of The Affecting History of Caroline showing the shortened title in the header: “Caroline.”

The Affecting History of Caroline is actually an excerpted plagiarism of a Charlotte Smith novel, Ethelinde, or the Recluse of the Lake, published in 1789. From the years 1789–1792, multiple serialized magazines such as The European Magazine and London Review and Walker’s Hibernian Magazine published an excerpt of Ethelinde under the title, The Affecting History of Caroline Montgomery. This story aligns almost exactly with The Affecting History of Caroline. In The European Magazine, The Affecting History of Caroline Montgomery was released in two parts, just one month apart from each other. The first sixteen pages of the 1805 version of The Affecting History of Caroline match the first part of The Affecting History of Caroline Montgomery word-for-word; there are plot variations in the second half of the two stories. Perhaps what is most interesting is that all magazines cite the acclaimed author Charlotte Smith and Ethelinde as the source of their release of The Affecting History of Caroline Montgomery, bur the 1805 version of The Affecting History of Caroline does not make this attribution. 

To verify this link, one can observe the stark similarities between The Affecting History of Caroline, and an excerpt from Charlotte Smith’s Ethelinde. The text of The Affecting History of Caroline from pages 1–16 aligns almost word-for-word with chapter 16 of Ethelinde (Smith 128–55). Differences between the texts include formatting preferences, such as Ethelinde using the long S that looks closer to an f, as well as spelling changes like how The Affecting History of Caroline uses “mamma” whereas Ethelinde spells the same word as “mama.” The most stark difference is the textual context: in Ethelinde, Caroline Montgomery tells her tale to the titular character, Ethelinde; in The Affecting History of Caroline, mentions of Ethelinde are completely removed. This change is understandable, for if the intent of The Affecting History Caroline was to present the plagiarized text as an original story, then any evidence of being associated with plot elements from the world of Ethelinde needed to be removed. Attempts at erasing ties to Ethelinde are most noticeable following page 16 of The Affecting History of Caroline. From just pages 16–18 of The Affecting History of Caroline, over ten paragraphs of Ethelinde are skipped over, but these cuts are presented as a seamless transition between not only paragraphs but sentences as well (Smith 155–61). There are also noticeable changes in phrasing, such as the line “Lord Pevensey took this opportunity of departing,” versus the line from Ethelinde, “Lord Pevensey took that opportunity to depart” (Affecting History of Caroline 16, Smith 155).

It is not surprising that someone would want to plagiarize Charlotte’s Smith’s work, for she was an illustrious novelist during her time. From 1784 to 1806, Smith used her writing to support her large family of twelve children as a single mother. She is known for influencing the Romantic era, particularly for writing with an emphasis on nature and human emotions. Although there are no reviews of The Affecting History of Caroline, scholarship does attend to Ethelinde (see Hawkins). With this context in mind, it is understandable how the illegitimate chapbook The Affecting History of Caroline was classified as a “Romance” when rebound, as it sits at the intersection of gothic, romance, and Romantic literature.

Narrative Point of View

The Affecting History of Caroline is narrated in the first-person singular voice of the titular character, Caroline, who delineates the events of her childhood and upbringing. In The Affecting History of Caroline, the narrator focuses less on descriptive language and more on singular plot-relevant events, however, this pattern deviates in moments of intense emotion, such as when Caroline falls in love. The sentence structure is dense, but direct, which allows for a clear narrative to unfold. At times the narrator mentions the second person “you,” as if retelling the story of her life to an unnamed individual.

Sample Passage: 

I will not detain you with relating the various expedients for accommodation, which were in the course of the first month proposed by the relations of the family, who knew the tenderness the late lord Pevensey had for my mother; that he considered her as his wife, and that her conduct could not have been more unexceptionable had she really been so. Still lingering in France, and still visiting a house into which his cruelty had introduced great misery, the proceeding of lord Pevensey wore a very extraordinary appearance. My mother now continued almost entirely to her room; and Montgomery concealed from her his uneasiness at what he remarked; but to me he spoke more freely, and told me he was very sure his lordship had other designs that he suffered immediately to appear. In a few days the truth of this conjecture became evident. (15)

The narrator, Caroline, uses an individualized first-person point of view to create an intimate and engaging voice. Referring to an unnamed “you” implies the narration is directed at an audience outside of Caroline’s world—hence, the story becomes an attempt at reaching out to this world. The differentiation between “late lord” and “lord” Pevensey establishes a clarity in the narrative that stands out from other gothic works that utilize confusion and chaos as a tool for narration. This easy-to-follow narration is ideal when communicating to an audience unfamiliar with these past events, suggesting the implied audience is a stranger to Caroline’s life and irrelevant to her past. Furthermore, the characters around Caroline are characterized primarily by their actions in relation to Caroline, such as the mother “continued almost entirely to her room,” and Montgomery, who “spoke more freely,” rather than through a direct description of inward thoughts or feelings. Interestingly, even their conversations only seem to happen in summarized instances, with no direct dialogue. This means even the conversations Caroline has every day are ultimately translated by Caroline’s perspective, first, before being narrated. This limited point of view creates a story tailored to Caroline’s perspective on her life, with all of her potential bias, allowing for a deeper understanding of Caroline as a character.

Summary

The story of The Affecting History of Caroline begins and ends in Scotland. The titular character retells her life story from childhood into adulthood with all of the trials and tribulations she faced along the way. The first tragedy in Caroline’s life is the loss of her father, a Scottish nobleman. He died as a casualty in a military campaign for Scotland’s independence from Britain. At the time of his death, Caroline was an infant, and her mother became a young single mother without anyone to support them. So, they begin the story struggling in poverty with just the remaining money left by Caroline’s father. Although the war her father fought in eventually ended, she along with the rest of the Scottish community continued to struggle to rebuild stability. Despite this, Caroline’s mother soon finds out that in Caroline’s grandfather’s will, no money was allocated to her. Soon afterwards, Caroline’s grandfather also passes away, but he only left money for Caroline’s uncle from England. The death of the grandfather spurs Caroline’s mother to migrate to England in hope of seeking assistance from her brother. At first, Caroline’s uncle appears to be welcoming and kind to his sister and niece. However, his wife is much more reserved, and repeatedly tells her husband not to be so hospitable to Caroline and her mother. Although the husband agrees to pay for a small home in London for Caroline and her mother to stay in, he soon becomes too influenced by his wife and limits the funds for Caroline’s small family, and so the girl and her mother must continue to struggle through life. 

Caroline’s mother has no one to comfort her, and so she also continues to grieve for her deceased husband. It is in this state that she comes across a gentleman one day, named Pevensey, who falls in love with her at first sight while she walks through town with Caroline. The man orders a carriage to take Caroline and her mother home, and then insists on accompanying them in the carriage. On the carriage ride home, Pevensey admits that he is from the same noble lineage of Caroline’s father, and this is how he knew of the widow beforehand. What was once curiosity, however, has now turned into infatuation, and so he begins courting Caroline’s mother.

Their romance appears to go quite smoothly until Pevensey admits that he is actually already married. Granted, it is an arranged marriage to a woman he despises, and no longer lives with, yet, they are still married under the law. After revealing this, the man proposes to have Caroline and her mother live with him, where they would no longer have to live in a shabby home and instead build a family together. This proposal causes Caroline’s uncle and auntie to see Caroline’s mother with a new form of respect, and so they are receptive to the nobleman. Caroline’s mother, however, is still haunted by the loss of her husband, and the fact that they can never truly be married, so she deliberates before ultimately agreeing to fully love the man and live with him. 

This image shows the final page of The Affecting History of Caroline, with an illustration near the bottom margins.

Caroline and her mother adjust well to their new lifestyle. Her mother gains a bit more peace of mind now that she no longer feels like her brother’s burden, and Caroline is able to live a more enriching childhood and gain a stellar education. Unfortunately, their joy is soon cut short when the nobleman dies from disease while on a business trip. Even worse, all of his property rights and wealth were passed on to his brother, leaving Caroline and her mother in poverty once again. However, this time, they are not alone. A friend of Pevensey, Mr. Montgomery, takes them under his wing so that they no longer have to suffer. At this time, Caroline falls in love with Mr. Montgomery. In a bittersweet display of love, they get married the night before her mother also passes away from illness. 

Then, finally, Caroline’s luck starts to turn for the better. Her husband wins a duel against Pevensey’s brother, who finally agrees to respect Caroline’s right to her step-father’s inheritance as retribution. In another turn of events, war returns to Caroline’s life via the conflict between France and England. Montgomery enlists in the English regiment, and Caroline leaves with him so that they are not separated. Eventually, though, they are separated as Montgomery gets more involved in the war. Meanwhile, Caroline becomes pregnant and eventually gives birth to a son. They do not reunite until the war finally ends, and then retire together to live with their new family in Paris. 

Their marriage remains true and fulfilling until Montgomery dies from illness, leaving Caroline as a single mother, just as her mother once was. She decides to raise her son back in Scotland, where they are able to spend the rest of their lives in peace.

Bibliography

Hartley, Cathy. A Historical Dictionary of British Women. London: Europa Publications, 2005. 

Hawkins, Anne. Romantic Women Writers Reviewed, Taylor & Francis, Vol 5, Issue 2, 2020, pp.40–41. 

Smith, Charlotte. Ethelinde, Or The Recluse of the Lake. T. Cadell, 1789.

“The Affecting History of Caroline Montgomery.” The European Magazine, and London Review, 1790, pp. 353–58, 457–62. 

“The Affecting History of Caroline Montgomery.” Walker’s Hibernian Magazine, Or, Compendium of Entertaining Knowledge, vol.1, 1790, pp. 38–40 

The Affecting History of Caroline; or, The Distressed Widow. A True Tale. London, S. Carvalho, 1805. 

The Affecting History of Caroline; or, The Distressed Widow. A True Tale. BiblioBazaar, 2015.

The Affecting History of Caroline; or, The Distressed Widow. A True Tale. FB&C Limited, 2015.

Researcher: Seblework Alemu

The Fiery Castle

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

Fiery Castle Title Page

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.

Fiery Castle Sample Page

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.

Fiery Castle First Page

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.

Fiery Castle Frontispiece

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.

Fiery Castle Final Page

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 White Cottage of the Valley

The White Cottage of the Valley

The White Cottage of the Valley; or the Mysterious Husband: an Original, Interesting Romance

Author: Sarah Scudgell Wilkinson
Publisher: R. Harrild
Publication Year: c. 1819–24
Language: English
Book Dimensions: 11cm x 18cm
Pages: 21
University of Virginia Library Catalog Entry, Sadleir-Black Collection: PZ2.T32 1790 v.2 no.7

In this 1800s chapbook by Sarah Wilkinson set in the South of France, follow Emma de Villeroy as she navigates her mysterious marriage, and the truth about her bloodline.

Material History

The White Cottage of the Valley is one chapbook bound in a collection of eighteen stories. The story itself is short, only twenty-one pages as compared to the over thirty-page length of the other stories in the book, but the text is quite dense. The text is small and close-set, and the margins between each line are thin. The book measures approximately 11cm x 18cm, allowing this chapbook to hold a lot of content. The margins of the pages vary, ranging from 0.8 cm to 1.6cm. The pages are quite thin, allowing you to see the text on the other side. Each page has the shortened title of the book, The White Cottage, printed across the top. This is uniform to every story in the book, making it easy to differentiate the separate works.

Title Page of The White Cottage of the Valley

Before you begin reading the story, you are greeted with a frontispiece. The frontispiece, an illustration preceding the title page, is completely unique. Although the black outline is printed, the colors are hand painted with watercolors. You can see white space that the artist did not quite cover with color, as well as places where the colors overlap. The illustration depicts a woman clothed in red and white approaching the door of a hut where a woman and child wait. Below the illustration is a quote that relates to the part of the story the image is depicting: “Merciful Providence! Your Husband ill, & lying in that Hut.” Uniquely, the word “page” stands alone just below the quote, likely intended to list the page number where you could find this quote. However, there is no page number, and in fact this illustration does not relate at all to The White Cottage of the Valley, or to any story within this collection of chapbooks. It is possible that this was a misprint, or perhaps the story that relates to this illustration was removed from this book. The White Cottage of the Valley also does not contain page numbers, though it does include signature marks, which were used to guide bookbinders and make sure the pages were folded correctly and in the correct order. A2, B, C, and C2 appear on the first, seventh, eleventh, and thirteenth pages respectively.

The title page follows the frontispiece on the next page. The full title, The White Cottage of the Valley; or the Mysterious Husband: an Original, Interesting Romance, is printed vertically down the page, followed by the name of the author, Sarah Wilkinson. An excerpt from a poem is quoted just below, and below that the printer is listed. Finally, the price, sixpence, is printed at the very bottom of the page. The title page bleeds through almost completely to the other side of the paper, which is otherwise completely blank.

The cover of the chapbook collection follows a very popular binding technique of the time called half binding. The spine and two triangles on the corners of the front and back cover are brown leather, while the main cover is paper. The paper cover is decorated with another popular technique: marbling. This is a process in which different colors of oil paint are added to a tub of water, which the paper for the cover is then dipped in. The water forces the oil to spread, giving it a “marbled” look. The cover of this book is mostly beige, with marbling of dark blue. It is worse for wear, though, with quite a bit of the front worn off. The spine is also quite worn, with cracks appearing in the leather and tearing slightly at the top. Luckily, the book is in mostly good condition, with no large tears or extremely stained pages. 

Textual History

Sarah Wilkinson was a gothic writer active between 1799 and 1824. In that time, she penned approximately one-hundred short stories, including about thirty gothic works. The White Cottage of the Valley; or the Mysterious Husband is one of her lesser-known works. Unlike her more popular stories, which have well-documented and sometimes controversial histories, The White Cottage has very little written about it. This is likely due to the pure quantity of gothic chapbooks that Wilkinson penned, meaning only the most popular of them have been attended to by historians and literary scholars. The White Cottage has, however, been republished in the second volume of Gary Kelly’s 2002 Varieties of Female Gothic. This volume, titled Street Gothic, includes a number of gothic texts by female writers that Kelly suggests depict the change in the writing of the lower class. In the introduction to this volume, Kelly describes The White Cottage as “represent[ing] the revolution in cheap print of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century that saw the creation of a commercialised novelty literature for the lower-class and lower middle-class readers” (xxiii). This is one of the only modern works that analyzes The White Cottage, rather than simply listing it as one of Wilkinson’s texts.

As often as Wilkinson is described as prolific, she is also described as a “hack” writer (Kelly xxi, Hoeveler 3). This is due to the fact that Wilkinson was on the cusp of poverty, writing “at the lowest end of the literary market” (Kelly xxi). Indeed, she wrote so much because she had to in order to make a living, not necessarily out of love for the craft. In 1803, she wrote to Tell-Tale Magazine, issuing a “​​warning [to] every indigent woman, who is troubled with the itch of scribbling, to beware of [her] unhappy fate.” (“The Life of an Authoress, Written by Herself” 28) Obviously Wilkinson had the desire to write, self-described as an “itch of scribbling,” but it was not an easy way to make a living.

Misplaced illustration that acts as a frontispiece for The White Cottage of the Valley

Interestingly, the publisher of The White Cottage is also somewhat well-known. In 1810, Robert Harrild invented a new tool for inking typeface, called a composition roller. This was a much more efficient method than the previously used balls of hide (Anderson & McConnell). Conversely, the illustrator for the frontispiece for The White Cottage is completely unlisted and unknown. The White Cottage of the Valley originally included a frontispiece (printed in Kelly’s Varieties of Female Gothic) but this frontispiece is not present in the University of Virginia version, which may be due to Wilkinson’s lack of resources, or it is possible that there was a misprinting or a confusion when rebinding and a different frontispiece was accidentally placed there instead. All versions of the chapbook, however, have the title-page epigraph from Thomas Fitzgerald’s eighteenth-century poem “Bedlam.”

There was at least one printing of The White Cottage in the early nineteenth century, but the publication date is not precisely known because the work itself has no date listed. WorldCat and Google Books list the date as 1815, although this is likely inaccurate because the title page of The White Cottage lists Robert Harrild as residing at 20 Great Eastcheap in London at the time of printing, a location he did not move to until 1819. He moved once again in 1824, suggesting The White Cottage was likely published sometime between 1819 and 1824, not 1815 (Anderson & McConnell).

While it has never been officially said that Wilkinson pulled content from Elizabeth Meeke’s The Mysterious Husband: A Novel, there are a few obvious overlaps between the two stories. Most notably, the works share a partial title, a character named the Earl of Clarencourt (spelled Clarancourt in Meeke’s story), a theme of marrying for money rather than love, and a main character who leaves for France for the sake of his mental health. Since Meeke’s novel was published early in 1801, it is possible that Wilkinson read Meeke’s novel and incorporated ideas from it into her own chapbook. This would not be the first time Wilkinson took inspiration from another story, either: her 1820 novel, Castle of Lindenberg; or, The History of Raymond and Agnes, is heavily derived from Matthew Lewis’s popular story The Monk. This was not all that unusual at the time: Father Innocent, Abbot of the Capuchins; or, The Crimes of Cloisters (1805) and The Castle of Lindenberg; or The History of Raymond and Agnes (1798) were also borderline plagiarisms of the same popular work.

Narrative Point of View

The White Cottage of the Valley is narrated by an unnamed narrator who is never a character in the story. They narrate entirely in third person and past tense, except at the beginning of extended backstory when they momentarily switch to present tense and use “we” to refer to the narration. The narrator often acts as an omniscient storyteller, relating how the characters feel and react to each other. Through the narrator, we are given insight into the characters’ thoughts and feelings. The language the narrator uses is formal and antiquated.

Sample Passage: 

She instantly summoned Alise and Anetta to her presence, that she might fully apprize them of the part they had to act before the stranger could converse them, and thus frustrate her intentions.

While she is conversing with her faithful domestics, we will look back a little to the events that preceded—the distress of mind into which the amiable Emma was now plunged.

Emma de Villeroy was a native of the southern part of France; she was the only child of a very respectable medical man, a descendant of a noble family. (4)

This method of omniscient storytelling allows readers access to what the characters are thinking, enabling readers to experience events more intimately with the characters. The narration also heightens the effect of the plot unfolding in real time by suggesting that Emma’s backstory can be provided during the period of time when “she is conversing with her faithful domestics” as if Emma is talking to her servants at the exact same moment that the narration is relaying her backstory. As a result, Emma, the third-person narration, and the readers are all waiting for the rest of Emma’s story to unfold in this moment.

Summary

The White Cottage of the Valley opens with its main character Emma crying because her husband has not come home. She eventually falls into a fitful sleep until late in the night, when the gate bell rings. Emma, convinced it is her husband, quickly answers it. It is not her husband, however, but a stranger asking for shelter out of the rain. Despite her reluctance, Emma allows him in and sets him up with a bed. The next morning, when she goes down to breakfast with her children, the stranger asks which of the two is hers. Emma, alarmed by this question, lies and says only Rosalthe is hers and that Adolphus is the child of her servant, Alise.

Example page of text from The White Cottage of the Valley

Here, the narrator backs up to talk a bit about Emma’s backstory. Emma de Villeroy is the daughter of a woman who married against the will of her parents. Emma’s grandparents were so against the marriage that her parents left and never contacted them again. The years passed, and eventually both of Emma’s parents died. On his deathbed, her father bid Emma to seek out her wealthy, noble grandparents because otherwise she would be left destitute. Unfortunately, he died before he could give any information about her grandparents, leaving Emma with no way to contact either of them. In cleaning out her parents’ house, Emma subsequently found a miniature of her mother and began to wear it on a necklace under her clothes.

One day, Emma met a young man named Adolphus Montreville who had taken a liking to her late father’s library so much that he wanted to purchase the books. When the two of them met, there was an immediate spark. Adolphus was very kind to Emma in a way that betrayed his emotions, but he never made any formal declarations of his passion. Eventually, Adolphus explained that his father, a greedy Earl, wants to marry him off to an heiress for the money. Adolphus expressed that while he has feelings for Emma, he cannot marry her publicly due to his father. Therefore, he suggested a private marriage. Emma accepted his proposal, without mentioning her wealthy grandparents. The next week, the pair were married. Almost immediately, however, Adolphus Montreville was called back to England. He promised to return as soon as possible, leaving a pregnant Emma with one of her parents’ servants, Alise.

Eventually, Emma had twins, Rosalthe and Adolphus, and travelled to Paris to meet her husband, still concealing their marriage. There, the pair attended an opera and Emma noticed a wealthy couple who she immediately believed to be her grandparents due to their resemblance to her late mother. She did not mention her suspicions to her husband, however, and eventually left France for Wales without any conclusion of this matter.

Two months after settling in a white cottage in the valley in Wales, Adolphus visited and he expressed to Emma his fears that their marriage had been discovered. The following night, he promises that he will be more explicit when he returns. However, after this visit, he does not come back.

Another example page of text from The White Cottage of the Valley

This is where the beginning of the story picks up again. That night, the second one the stranger stays in the cottage, Emma and Rosalthe are kidnapped by Adolphus Montreville’s father, the Earl of Clarencourt. The earl accuses Emma of deceiving him by denying Adolphus as her son. He informs Emma that her husband is also his prisoner and gives Emma a paper urging her to sign it. The paper proposes this agreement: the earl intends to fake his son’s death so that his younger brother, Edward, can marry the heiress. Emma and her family will be banished, but Emma’s son, Adolphus, will be raised by the earl. If Emma and Adolphus Montreville do not sign this paper, they will forever be confined to Milbury castle as they are now. 

Emma refuses to sign, making the earl angry and scaring Rosalthe in her arms. As Rosalthe clings to her, she pulls out the necklace Emma wears. The earl immediately recognizes it as a miniature of the daughter of the Marquis De Aubigne. When Emma tells him it was her mother’s, he realizes his mistake. He apologizes to Emma, and she and her husband are freed. Emma goes on to meet her grandparents, who accept her eagerly and apologize for their poor treatment of her mother. Emma inherits all of her grandparents’ wealth, and her family lives happily for the rest of their lives.

Bibliography

Hoeveler, Diane L., “Sarah Wilkinson: Female Gothic Entrepreneur.” Gothic Archive: Related Scholarship, 1 January 2015, 1–20. https://epublications.marquette.edu/gothic_scholar/7

Kelly, Gary. “Introduction.” Varieties of Female Gothic, Volume 2: Street Gothic. Taylor & Francis, 2002, pp. vii–xxiii. 

“The Life of an Authoress, Written by Herself,” Tale 57 in Tell-Tale Magazine (London: Ann Lemoine, 1803), p. 28 in The History of Gothic Publishing, 1800–1835: Exhuming the Trade, by Franz Potter. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. 

Wilkinson, Sarah Scudgell. The White Cottage of the Valley: Or the Mysterious Husband: An Original, Interesting Romance. Printed and Published by R. Harrild, n.d.

Researcher: Danner Alise Rebhun

The Round Tower

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 title page of The Round Tower.

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

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.

A sample page of The Twin Sisters.

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

Monkcliffe Abbey

Monkcliffe Abbey

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

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

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

Material History

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


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

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

Textual History


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

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

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


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

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

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

Narrative Point of View

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

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

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

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

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

Summary


The frontispiece for Monkcliffe Abbey.

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

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


Sample text from page 18 of Monkcliffe Abbey.

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

Bibliography

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Researcher: Grace C. Webb