Northanger Horrid Novels

The Northanger Horrid Novels are seven early works of Gothic fiction recommended by Isabella Thorpe to Catherine Morland in Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey (1818):
The complete titles and authors of these books are:
*Castle of Wolfenbach (1793) by Eliza Parsons. London: Minerva Press.
*Clermont (1798) by Regina Maria Roche. London: Minerva Press.
*The Mysterious Warning, a German Tale (1796) by Eliza Parsons. London: Minerva Press.
*The Necromancer; or, The Tale of the Black Forest (1794) by 'Ludwig Flammenberg' (pseudonym for Carl Friedrich Kahlert; translated by Peter Teuthold). London: Minerva Press.
*The Midnight Bell (1798) by Francis Lathom. London: H. D. Symonds.
*The Orphan of the Rhine (1798) by Eleanor Sleath. London: Minerva Press.
*Horrid Mysteries (1796) by the Marquis de Grosse (translated by P. Will). London: Minerva Press.
These novels, with their lurid titles, were once thought to be the creations of Austen's imagination, but research in the first half of the 20th century by Michael Sadleir and Montague Summers confirmed that they did actually exist, and stimulated renewed interest in Gothic fiction. All seven were republished by the Folio Society in London in 1968, and starting in 2005 Valancourt Books has released new editions of the first six titles, with Horrid Mysteries due out in 2015.

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