Fallen fames and shabby abbeys BOOKS

BARRY HUMPHRIES It was in an old and sombrous bookshop in the purlieux of the city of Melbourne that 1 bought, for a few cents, my first gothick novel. The One-handed Monk by Thomas Peskett Prest is, of course, a book of the very last rarity, and as scarce today as the blue dahlia or the yellow aster but to me then it was merely an intriguing though quite undistinguished little volume, and I was as happy to offer its vendor the trifle she demanded, as was she, no doubt, caressing a chinchilla forelip, to be rid of that scuffed and fusty novel and its eponymous amputee.

That book, alas, was long ago lost in some Tumid tavern, and the bookshop is now an espresso bar, but I am still grateful to the hag who kept it for many a literary introduction. Were it not for her I should never have dis- covered the oriental romances of Marmaduke Pickthall, or delighted in Haldane MacFall's picaresque masterpiece, The Wooings of Jezebel Petty/er. which Meredith praised with the enigmatic afterthought that 'it ought never to have been written!' Perhaps, too, 1 might have overlooked the lesser known novels of J. J. Morier, author of Hajji Baba, and neglected altogether the Edwardian caprices of Mulvey Ouseley whose Kitty and the Viscount lacks, in my belief, the modern readership it deserves.

But The One-handed Monk was not the only gothick novel I- purchased at Mrs Quain's long defunct emporium. She had Anne Radcliffe's Romance of the Forest in a brittle saffron re- print, and Stella, or the Maniac of the Wood, a patheiick tale, erroneously ascribed to 'Monk' Lewis himself; and were it not for the widow Quain I might never have perused those two remarkable discourses by Anna Laetitia Aikin : 'On the Pleasure Derived from Objects of Terror,' and 'An Enquiry into those Kinds of Distress which Excite Agreeable Sensations,' both published between the same foxed covers as early as 1773. But perhaps my most precious acquisition was Maria Vanzee's ghastly romance, Fate, or Spong Castle in the original, and only edition of 1803.

Whose curious library had been absorbed by my bearded Melbourne bibliopole? For there were other, stranger items scattered amidst her draffish stock, bearing the same indecent book- plate by a. follower of Beardsley but no name.

Today, the 'tale of terror' is back-in fashion, and many a lickerish collector must wince to behold some assiduously acquired volume avail- able to all in a popular edition. Certain books have an especial charm because of their rarity, and indeed, the most delicious books of all are perhaps those which one has never read, so that to finally track down a long-sought title leaves one with no more appetising task than to read it—or destroy it.

In all .conscience, however, one cannot do less than applaud the Folio Press for their sump- tuous re-issue of the seven 'Northanger Novels' (Folio Press London,--seven volumes in slipcase, £17 17s) for these were the 'horrid' romances which readers of Jane Austen long supposed to be her invention, until the pioneer gothic re- searches of Montague Summers and the per- fervid advocacy of Sir Michael Sadleir brought the originals to light. Two of the 'horrid' novels

were reprinted in the nineteen twenties, and a third appeared, 1 believe, in a limited edition in the same decade, but now the entire septet is at last available, in rich funebrial bindings, each with a learned and entertaining introduction by Dr Devendra P. Varma of Dalhousie Univer- sity, Nova Scotia.

I have little doubt that we have Dr Varma to thank for this particularly beautiful and en- ticing publication, and although it were im- possible for any commentator on the Gothic Novel not to stand sometimes within the giant magenta shadow of Monsignor Summers, he contributes much fresh and original knowledge to the study of the Northanger canon.

Personally, I find it difficult to evince a strong preference for any one of these seven rare romances, though The Necromancer, or The Tale of the Black Forest takes some beating. Allegedly 'founded on facts,' and translated from the German of Lawrence Flammenberg by Peter Teuthold, this. novel opens with a paragraph memorable in its grum polyphony :

'The hurricane was howling, the hailstones beat against the windows, the hoarse croaking of the raven bidding adieu to autumn, and the weather- .cock's dismal creaking joined with the mourn- ful dirge of the solitary owl, when Herrmann and Hellfried, who had been united by the strongest bonds of friendship from their youth- ful days, were seated by the cheering fireside, hailing the approach of winter.'

Old MacDonald's farm could scarcely have been a less congenial venue for Hermann and Helifried's cosy get-together, and the Teutonic chums are permitted a two page rest while the off-stage cacophony subsides and they com- mence, one imagines, their raucous dialogue.

The narrative which follows is disjointed and extravagant, interweaving many local legends of the Black Forest with a tale of villainous out- laws who occupy a 'haunted' castle and prey on the credulity of the peasants. As a work of artifice The Necromancer has moments of sub- lime horror, though I would hesitate to place it beside a work of art like Bram Stoker's Dracula, as does Dr Varma.

Horrid Mysteries, translated from the Ger- man of the Marquis of Grosse by Peter Will, appears elsewhere than in the Northanger canon. Thomas Love Peacock's Scythrop in Nightmare Abbey, it will be remembered, 'slept with Horrid Mysteries under his pillow, and dreamed of venerable .eleutherarchs and ghastly confederates holding midnight con- ventions in subterranean caves.' Scythrop parodies Shelley's predilection for the German Schauerromane, and although one might hesitate to sleep with the present, rather solid edition of Horrid Mysteries under one's own pillow, the novel makes excellent bedside reading. It centres around a German sect openly professing satanism, and the narrative, at once apocalyptic and bizarre, places the book early in the tradition of Tieck, E.T.A. Hoffmann and German ultra-romanticism.

There is something altogether delightful about these 'translations from the German' which proliferated at the end of the eighteenth century. Many of them were, of course, genuine, but not a few of our English authors stooped to the blameless chicane of publishing, in the guise of a 'translation,' their own gaudy and grumous gothicisms. 'Monk' Lewis himself was not averse to this practice and I suspect that his little-known rendition, The Isle of Devils, knew no Hunnish original. By the same token, this author was without compunction in inscribing his own name to the creations of German poets, and his Tales of Terror and Wonder contains innumerable verses englished by Lewis himself, sans attribution.

As late as the eighteen nineties, Ambrose Bierce, the sardonic American author, published his famous gothick phantasy The Monk and the Hangman's Daughter, 'in collaboration with G. A. Danziger,' and his elaborate preface burlesques the whole school of Gothic trans- lation. 'The foundation of this narrative' avers Bierce solemnly, 'is an old manuscript originally belonging to the Franciscan monastery at Berchtesgaden, Bavaria. The manuscript was obtained from a peasant by Herr Richard Voss, of Heidelberg, from whose German version this is an adaptation.' How tantalizing!

In 1798, when The Midnight Bell. a German Story by Francis Lathom was first published, The Critical Review was sophisticated enough to comment : 'we know not whether it is a translation from the German, or an original work; but we are inclined to think that the latter description is more applicable to it.' In my view there is little doubt that the author of Astonish- ment!!! was more than able to write a romance like The Midnight Bell without recourse to a foreign original. Dr Varma casts new light on the biography of this perverse and endearing author, and it is to be hoped that some publisher as enterprising as the Folio Press will re-issue other works by this gifted eccentric, who was possessed of a sense of satire and humour rare amongst the Gothic novelists.

Clermont by that contemporary imitator of Ann Radcliffe, Regina Maria Roche, is the least lurid of the Northanger Novels, and admirers of The Mysteries of Udolpho will find this romance adroitly constructed, albeit pallid by comparison with Mrs Radcliffe's masterpiece. Not so with Eliza Parsons whose work bears the influence of Radcliffe yet has a gamey flavour all its own. Although never a best-seller as was Mrs Roche, Eliza Parsons quilled two pseudo-German stories in the 'Horrid' septet: The Castle of Wolfenbach (1793) and The Mysterious Warning (1796). Mrs Parsons canters through the mirksome and abysmal terrain of marvellous fiction like a favoured hack, jogging the reader agreeably past every fallen fane and shabby abbey in the gothick guidebook. Mrs Parsons is also most probably the author of The Wise Ones Bubbled,. or Lovers Triumphant, a work whose very title would seem to demand a modern reprint.

It remains for me to mention the last and rarest novel in the Northanger canon, Eleanor Sleath's Orphan of the Rhine. Until 1927, no copy of this work was supposed to exist, and before this publication a single copy only is known to have survived in the whole world!

Perhaps, if I had searched diligently enough through Mrs Quain's ramshackle shop in my yeanling years of book-collecting, I might have come upon a dusty edition of this four- decker romance, but I never did• explore those topmost shelves, there being no step-ladder, and this odd little gothick corner of Melbourne vanished, as I have said, long whiles agone.