A Footnote In History

Finished up The Castle of Wolfenbach last night. Very entertaining. Drama! Action! Lots and lots and lots of fainting! This book has at least two bloooody murders, two persecuted heroines, two mothers divided from their newborn children -- one believing her child is dead, the other not knowing, two psychotic villains, two deathbed confessions, two lost women restored to their noble families...really, there's even more than that. It's amazing this book is only 202 pages long (trade size paperback.) And it has a gorgeous cover



and Jane Austen's portrait on the back



which is a bit of a slam to Eliza Parsons, I have to say.

There are seven of the Northanger Horrid Novels; this is the first one I've read but I bought Clermont at the same time. I intend to read them all. I discovered them at the same time I was reading the Woman In White for KTC January; I enjoyed that book so much that I studied up on "horrid" novels and "gothic" thrillers. I ran across a reference to Northanger Abbey as "the most famous parody of the Gothic (novel)" and, at the same time learned about the books now known as the Northanger Horrid Novels.

I was interested in reading the books, but I didn't realize then that they haven't always been in wide circulation. I guess the fact that people thought for so long that Jane Austen invented them should have been a clue. They were reprinted as a hardback set in recent history (maybe the 80s?) -- I found a complete set on eBay UK that had just sold for about 275 pounds. It seemed like I was sunk until I discovered they are all being reprinted again by Valancourt Books. Valancourt Books is so awesome. Once again, though, they are being printed under the banner of Northanger Horrid Novels, thus Jane Austen's portrait on the back of Eliza Parsons' novel, and the reference in the editor's introduction to Castle as a "footnote in history."

The Castle of Wolfenbach deserves to be more than a footnote to literary history, read and remembered only because its title is mocked in Northanger Abbey. It can tell us much about the middle-class project in Britain during the 1790s and it can tell us much about how the gothic novel evolved. Diane Long Hoeveler

I can tell you also that, much as love Jane Austen, I feel a lot of personal empathy for Eliza Parsons. She was a luckless, struggling, widow who churned out potboilers to support herself and her eight kids. Austen's books are more polished and keener of wit, but Parsons wrote a lot of books in a hurry and she wrote for her audience because she had to sell to eat. Another of her books is on the Northanger list -- The Mysterious Warning. I'm really looking forward to it. As I mentioned, Clermont is the next Northanger book I'm going to read, but it is going to have to wait for the Mists of Avalon.

Note: While this post was waiting in my Draft box, I got an e-mail from the folks at Amazon -- who know me Oh So Well -- that Valancourt Books has just released Lady Athlyne by Bram Stoker. Man, I LOVE Valancourt Books.