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About Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey 'Horrid Novels'

Before Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, there were the seven horrid novels that Isabella Thorpe recommended to Catherine Morland in Jane Austen's classic Northanger Abbey. After Northanger Abbey was published in 1818, these novels became so rare that until they were rediscovered by Michael Sadleir and Montague Summers in the 1920s and 1930s, many scholars and critics believed the books had never existed and that Austen had simply made the titles up.

Valancourt Books is pleased to present these seven wonderful and scarce Gothic novels in affordable new editions.  All include the unabridged text of the original novels, along with new introductions by top Gothic scholars.  Five titles are now available, with Eleanor Sleath's The Orphan of the Rhine (1798) to be released in 2014, and 
Carl Grosse's Horrid Mysteries (1796) to be released in 2015. 


Excerpt from Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey (Isabella Thorpe to Catherine Morland)

“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 pocket-book. 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?”

“Yes, quite sure; for a particular friend of mine, a Miss Andrews, a sweet girl, one of the sweetest creatures in the world, has read every one of them.”

OUR 'HORRID NOVEL' EDITIONS

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"We owe a debt of gratitude to the publisher Valancourt, whose aim is to resurrect some neglected works of literature, especially those incorporating a supernatural strand, and make them available to a new readership." 
- Times Literary Supplement

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