Dear creature! How much I am obliged to you; and when you have finished Udolpho, we will read the Italian together; and I have made out a list of ten or twelve more of the same kind for you.’
‘Have you, indeed! How glad I am! What are they all?’
‘I will read you their names directly; here they are, in my pocketbook. Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight Bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid Mysteries. Those will last us some time.’
‘Yes, pretty well; but are they all horrid, are you sure they are all horrid?’
Friends and readers,
I am delighted to be able to announce the publication by Valancourt Press of a scholarly edition of what was once the rarest of the seven famous “horrid novels” listed in Austen’s Northanger Abbey: Eleanor Sleath’s The Orphan of the Rhine (1798). The text is based on the first edition and includes an accurate life of Eleanor Sleath (misidentified in the 1968 Folio Press edition) and useful bibliography. Readers will be able to experience for themselves the nature of the text, and another interesting woman writer is added to a fuller spectrum of gothic and women writers. The male lead is a secondary intriguing figure, who, together with the book’s heroine Julie de Rougine (Madame Chamont — characters regularly have more than one name), obliquely mirror a long-time love affair in Sleath’s life. The story belongs to a type outlined by Marianne Hirsh in her The Mother/Daughter Plot, except this solitary mother’s boy and girl grow up to become a Paul et Virginie pair (I allude to Bernardin St Pierre’s wildly popular novella, Englished by Helena Maria Williams). For myself the power of the novel resides in its many descriptive landscapes which capture some still or distant numinous pastoral vision whose deepest impulse is retreat.
Valancourt has also published Sleath’s Pyrenean Banditti (1811), introduction by Rebecca Czlapinski and Eric C. Wheeler
The gothic owes much … to the emancipation of the novel from overt moral commitment. Perhaps it derives most from the enormous interest around the turn of the century in the solitary eccentric, the misfit, the social outcast, or, to use the handy phrase, the guilt-haunted wanderer — Lowry Nelson, Jr, ‘Night Thoughts on the Gothic Novel’
Ellen
Reveries Under the Sign of Austen, Two 
Congratulations, Ellen, and thanks for letting me know also about the publication of “Pyrean Banditti” as well. I plan to finish the Northanger novels by reading “Horrid Mysteries” for Halloween, and then I’ll have check out Sleath’s other novel. Long live the Gothic!
Indeed. Let’s be grateful to Valancourt Press. They also publish lesser known minor Victorian novels and have a niche on gay novels of the 20th century. I noticed Michael Sadleir’s books back in print as Valancourt books: he crossed the terrain of Trollope and the gothic.
Yes, I own several volumes of Valancourt Press’ books from Northanger novels to Bram Stoker and Forrest Reid. They are definitely making worthwhile hard to find books available.
On the Dodo press edition: the text is filled with typos, gaps, and the chapters are screwed up. It’s a reprint of an uncorrected on-line text. There is no introduction. The Folio text is a good one, but Devendra P. Varma has a wrong candidate for Sleath; in my introduction I explain why and substitute an accurate life of the real Sleath and her writings.
Beppe wrote: “Hi Ellen,
By an odd coincidence, I’m just now reading Northanger Abbey for the first time. One of the last books on my bucket list, I must say–but I am reading it now! Jane’s weakest work, but still, despite that, needless to say, among the very most charming and important novels of all time. If you’re introducing Orphan of the Rhine, that’s enough for me–your recommendation in my mind weighs much more highly than that of Isabella Thorpe. Now, given that I had a rather cool or distant reaction, to Wuthering Heights, Rebecca, and Green Mansions–how do you think I would like the other entries on the Northanger list?
All the Best,
Beppe”
Given your cool reaction to the two last especially I recommend trying modern gothics: Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Markheim” (not modern, but near enough); Valerie Martin’s Mary Reilly; Suzy McKee Charnas’s Vampire Tapestry, Susan Hill’s Woman in Black, Shirley Jackson’s Haunting of Hill House come to mind. Edith Wharton’s ghost stories. M. R. James …. I am very fond of Northanger Abbey and it does not seem that weak to me; my daughter, Yvette, loved it.
John Ryland:
I generally don’t read the introductions to editions of literary works until I have read the work. I made an exception with Ellen’s review of The Orphan of the Rhine. I found that Ellen’s introduction did not have spoilers. It actually made me want to read the book. Her introduction was well-written and actually was full of interesting information. Ellen is one of the few scholars who can actually write. All one has to do is struggle through the essay on Phineas Finn that she passed along (on Trollope19thCstudies). That article had lots of interesting points, but was essentially unreadable.
By the way, Tyler’s book was in the bibliography. I guess I’ll have to buy this as well. I am running out of shelf space.
Thank you John. I’m trying to work on a good one for my edition of Smith’s Ethelinde for Valancourt. My edition of Ethelinde will really have been done by me: typed the text, decided on stuff, annotations all mine and a 1/3 longer introduction and longer bibliography. One does a good deed doing editions. I’ve three on my website: 2 18th century French novels by women (Caroline de Lichtfield by Isabelle de Montolieu and Amelie Mansfield by Sophie Cottin), and one 17th century autobiography by a Scots woman (Anne Murray Halkett’s story of her experience of the English Civil War and personal life). I began George Anne Bellamy’s 6 volume life of her time as a great tragic actress but when I discovered it is on ECCO, I left off. Too much of a hard job 6 volumes with the old S.
Yes I cited Tyler’s The Gothic Wanderer in the Valancourt select bibliography … 🙂