Wade Walker’s new poetry collection Dead Love: Apocalyptic Pop Sonnets is a fascinating addition to Walker’s previous works, his two books of Gothic espionage Bite of the Wolf and Operation Frankenstein and the Halloween special novelette Night of the Pumpkin Man. Walker describes this lyrical collection as “gothic electro-rotic poems where romance and ruin are inseparable.”
While published in book form as poems, many of the pieces are really songs inspired by pop and other music forms. Other pieces resemble incantations with repeated choruses. Walker has written these poems over a lifetime from his teenage years to current middle age so they reflect a wide variety of experiences from young to mature love.
While the title references love that is dead, evoking the images of graveyards and corpses, and many of the poems fit that atmospheric context, other poems use the dead love metaphor to describe love that is lost, love that is broken, and unrequited love. Overall, it’s a varied, eerie, and striking collection of mixed humor, sadness, grief, and gruesomeness.
And on top of all that, it is groundbreaking for introducing the first-ever instrumental poem. Set toward the end of the collection, the poem serves as a nice interlude or even climax before the final poems. Titled “Instrumental,” and given that it has no words, it features a blank page. However, if you listen closely, I’ll bet you can hear its ghostly symphonic melodies.
As a lover of language, I especially enjoyed Walker’s whacky wordplay. (It’s really not whacky but quite clever—I just thought Walker’s whacky wordplay sounded cool.) A fine wordplay example comes in “There Will Be Love Tonight”:
Like a beast in the night, I howl with delight. Necromancer, neck-romancing you,
Who but Walker would think to twist a necromancer into someone necking?
Other examples are “Whore d’oeuvres” and “Ouija Bored.” The latter is the title of a poem in which the narrator declares:
I’ve not yet begun to become As horrible as I will be – I’m your October man.
It is worth noting here, as Walker makes clear in his introduction, that we cannot assume the poems’ narrator(s) is the author. Rather, the narrator is a fictional character himself. Walker makes that clear since he really isn’t into necrophilia beyond the literary kind. In fact, I know him personally as a very nice guy—with a dark side, of course.
That said, with Walker’s permission, I cannot resist quoting in full my favorite poem in the collection which is fragrant with necrophilia:
Undying Is an Art
I’ll claw my way up through this dirt, Six feet and rising through this earth. Now I’ve broken free of my tomb, And here I stand within your room.
I come before you as your corpse groom, To embrace you under the blood moon. Your breath catches, but you do not run, You knew this night would surely come.
You lit the candle, spoke the vow, And I am what you summoned now, Though cold my touch, my love burns hot, Flee my reach, you say, “Touch me not.”
Still I drag you to my plot, Into the soil, love forever forgot.
Back to my grave, where we both can rot.
While Gothic atmosphere pervades the poems, melancholy is also celebrated or at least indulged. I was particularly struck by these lines from “Nowhere Near”:
I awoke from a dream thinking it was 1999, Then found myself caught in the cobweb of time.
Far from everything being fine, Everyone’s dead and I’m alone, A living ghost in my own home.
I can relate to those lines since as I become older and lose family members and friends, I begin to feel myself alone, like a ghost from the past.
Whether you like a little gravity or gruesomeness in your poetry, or you enjoy clever song lyrics, you are bound to find a poem in Dead Love you’ll want to embrace and take to the grave with you.
For more information about Dead Love and Wade Walker in all his Gothic glory, visit www.CodeNameLoneWolf.com.
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Tyler R. Tichelaar, PhD, is the author of The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides: The Marriage of French and British Gothic Literature, Haunted Marquette: Ghost Stories from the Queen City, and The Mysteries of Marquette: A Novel, plus many other fiction and nonfiction titles. Visit Tyler at http://www.GothicWanderer.com, http://www.ChildrenofArthur.com, and http://www.MarquetteFiction.com.
Charlotte Dacre’s Zofloya, or The Moor (1806) is a seminal work in the history of Gothic literature. Dacre blends the schools of Radcliffe and Lewis in this novel, creating something similar to both and yet completely new. I read the Oxford World’s Classics edition with an introduction and notes by Kim Ian Michasiw. Michasiw not only provides an excellent argument for why Dacre deserves a major place in the Gothic pantheon but illuminates the novel’s relation to other Gothic and Romantic literature of the period.
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At the novel’s center is Victoria, our anti-heroine. The title character, Zofloya the Moor, does not appear until halfway through the novel, and he only becomes a significant character because of Victoria’s actions. The plot is full of the evil machinations a reader delights in, and while it starts off very much like a typical 1790s Gothic novel, it soon surpasses most other examples in the genre through the powerful depiction of Victoria’s character.
The story begins by introducing us to Victoria’s family at her fifteenth-birthday party in late fifteenth-century Venice. Victoria is the Marchese di Leonardi’s daughter, and she lives with her parents and sixteen-year-old brother Leonardo. The narrator tells us Victoria’s parents spoil her and Leonardo, so the children are proud, revengeful, and determined always to be the best, thus setting us up for their rash and often selfish actions to come. The party is interrupted by the arrival of a German, Count Ardolph. He brings letters of introduction from a German friend of the marchese. Count Ardolph becomes a family friend, but the narrator tell us he is like a demon disguised as an angel because he takes delight in destroying families by seducing married women.
Soon Ardolph has seduced the marchese’s wife, Laurina. She runs off with him, bringing shame upon her family. Upon learning of his mother’s shame, Leonardo rushes from the house and is not seen again. Not long after, Ardolph and the marchese meet in the street and fight. Ardolph wounds the marchese, who is carried home to die. Upon hearing the news, Laurina rushes to her husband’s side and receives his forgiveness. He makes her vow she will leave Ardolph, find Leonardo, and then live in isolation with her children, living a repentant and virtuous life. She makes such a promise, but soon after his death, she goes back to Ardolph.
Ardolph and Laurina decide they don’t want Victoria disturbing their love, so they visit a female relative and leave Victoria with her. Victoria is practically a prisoner at the relative’s castle until she escapes and returns to Venice. There she finds Berenza, a man who had previously shown an interest in her. However, Berenza is now only interested in her as his mistress rather than wife because of her family’s shame from her mother’s misbehavior. Berenza does not tell Victoria he feels this way, but she realizes it. At the same time, Berenza does sincerely love her and worries she does not love him to the same degree. The situation is resolved when an assassin breaks into their bedchamber to kill Berenza. Victoria is stabbed in trying to protect him. After the incident, Berenza realizes how much she does love him and agrees to marry her.
Victoria does not share with Berenza that she recognized the assassin who fled before he could be caught. It was her lost brother, Leonardo. The narrative now backtracks to share Leonardo’s story. He found shelter with an old peasant woman and cared for her until she died. He then met Megalena, a noblewoman, who is attracted to him and suspects he is more than the peasant he pretends to be. Eventually, she asks Leonardo to prove his love for her by assassinating Berenza. Berenza is her former lover and has incited her jealousy by being seen in public with Victoria. Leonardo agrees to execute the murder, not realizing Berenza is his sister’s lover.
Five years pass. During this time, Victoria is aware that she does not love Berenza as much as he loves her. She plays a game with him in which she wants to be loved but is incapable of truly loving. That changes when Berenza’s brother, Henrique, visits. He has returned to Venice after many years away because he is in love with a young woman named Lilla. She was only thirteen when he left Venice, at which time her father was against their marriage. Now her father has died, and Lilla is of age to marry whom she chooses. Henrique and Lilla become engaged, but Victoria has fallen in love with Henrique, so she begins to scheme to get him for herself.
Here Zofloya enters the narrative. He is Henrique’s companion, a servant who is more of a friend. Zofloya is a Moor, which makes his social status low among the Christian Italians, but the narrator tells us he is of noble ancestry. He was enslaved by a Spaniard who gifted him to Henrique. Henrique has great respect for Zofloya.
However, Zofloya has a mishap, falls into the canal, and is believed drowned. At this point, Victoria dreams Zofloya promises to give her what she wants—Henrique—if she will only say she will be wholly his in every other way. She agrees.
The next day, Zofloya reappears in the flesh. Everyone marvels that he is still alive. He claims he was fished out of the canal by a fisherman, and he recovered his health with the aid of an ancestral secret. He then gives Victoria a look of gratitude.
The narrative is not overly clear, but I suspect he is no longer Zofloya the Moor but more akin to Zofloya the Zombie. He has apparently risen from the dead through Victoria’s pledging herself to him. Rather than literally be Zofloya, he may be possessed by a supernatural being who has taken over his body, as will become more apparent at the novel’s end.
From here on, Zofloya and Victoria plot how she can get Henrique for herself. The novel builds suspense over how she will succeed in this goal, but in the end, like with all Faustian and Satanic pacts, she ends up being tricked, not receiving what she actually thought she was promised. Zofloya doesn’t exactly lie to her. He gives her what he says he will, but she assumes things, not listening carefully to his exact words. Even before Zofloya was resurrected, Victoria had dreamt of Lilla sprouting angel wings, taking Henrique’s hand, and rising from the earth. Victoria fails to understand the message here that death will result from her choices.
With Zofloya’s help, Victoria slowly poisons Berenza until he dies. She proclaims her love to Henrique once her husband is out of the way, but he rejects her. She then manages to get Henrique and Lilla separated. Finally, when she realizes Henrique will never willingly be hers, she agrees to Zofloya’s proposal that he make Henrique think she is Lilla. The illusion works, and she receives momentary joy when Henrique makes love to her. However, in the morning, Henrique is shocked to find Victoria lying beside him. Crazed and disgusted, he throws himself on his sword, dying “bathed in purple gore.” Upset she cannot now be with Henrique (and feeling Zofloya tricked her), Victoria goes to Lilla, tells her Henrique is dead, stabs her numerous times, and then pushes her over a cliff where Lilla dies in “crimson gore.” (Dacre loves colorful gore.)
Soon after, Victoria dreams of an angel who tells her to repent for her sins; it is not too late yet to save her soul. Victoria, however, is too fearful because Zofloya warns her the Inquisition will punish her for her crimes. Seizing upon his promise to protect her, Victoria leaves Venice with him. They end up being captured by banditti and taken to the banditti’s cave where they meet the leader and his wife. The leader seems to recognize Victoria and avoids her.
Next, the banditti capture Ardolph and Laurina. Ardolph is responsible for their capture because he was beating Laurina and her cries drew the banditti’s attention. Once Ardolph arrives, the bandit chief’s identity as Leonardo is revealed as is his companion as Megalena. Leonardo kills Ardolph. Then he and Victoria watch over their mother, who is dying from the beating she received. Leonardo forgives his mother before she dies, but Victoria refuses to forgive her, blaming her mother’s sins for her own. According to Michasiw, this is a Gothic convention reflecting beliefs in the period that sons are not affected by how their mothers raise them while daughters are. Leonardo, as a result, finds it difficult to understand why Victoria cannot forgive their mother.
A traitor among Leonardo’s ranks named Ginotti now informs the nearby government in Turin where the banditti are located. When the Turin forces arrive, Leonardo blames Megalena for leading him into a life of crime. She tries to kill Victoria, but Leonardo stops her. Megalena then kills herself. Next, Leonardo kills himself before the enemy can take him. Zofloya now uses his supernatural powers to cause an explosion so he and Victoria can escape the Turin guards.
Once Zofloya has transported them to a summit, Victoria understands Zofloya really will protect her in every situation, and she agrees to be completely his. Once that vow is made, Zofloya reveals himself to be Satan. He pushes Victoria off the cliff, reminding her that he had only promised that no more “worldly” ill would come to her.
The novel’s final paragraph argues that the evil in humans was not created by God; to believe so is an insult to the Deity. Rather, evil is the result of Satan’s influence. This statement opposes the concept of original sin. Victoria is seen as having chosen her situation rather than being the victim of circumstances.
Charlotte Dacre (c. 1772-1825)
Zofloya’s plot was revolutionary in many ways for its time. First, we can’t overlook the novel’s racist undertone, specifically because Zofloya is a person of color who turns out to be Satan. In Matthew Lewis’s The Monk (1796), Matilda also turns out to be Satan, and it’s known Lewis’s novel influenced Dacre. But why can’t a White male villain be Satan? Both Lewis and Dacre use “the Other” as their source of evil in the novel, and while Dacre’s novel is subversive in not letting her female main character submit to patriarchal rules about how women behave, the fear of female sexuality still exists in the novel just as it does in The Monk. At the same time, Dacre is careful not to cross the racial taboo line by letting Victoria desire Zofloya. Dacre also does try to whitewash her choice of a person of color to be Satan. Zofloya is not necessarily evil, although perhaps he was susceptible to Satan’s influence. Even so, Satan chose a man of darker skin color for his minion. Dacre makes it clear Zofloya is descended from nobility to make him less undesirable.
Its faults aside, Zofloya, or the Moor stands out as a significant Gothic novel for many reasons. It was both influenced by earlier Gothic novels and influenced later ones. For example, Michasiw includes an appendix showing how Dacre borrowed names or was inspired by other Gothic novels in choosing her characters’ names. For example, Victoria’s mother Laurina has a name similar to that of the evil nun Laurentini in The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794). Most importantly, her title character has a name beginning with a Z, a Gothic trait that reflects exoticism, but also suggests a Jewish connection. Michasiw cites examples like John Moore’s novel Zeluco (1789) and Thomas Morton’s play Zorinski (1795) as precursors in literature to Zofloya that have titular characters whose names begin with Z. She also discusses the influence of Dacre’s novels on Percy Shelley’s novels St. Irvyne and Zastrozzi (both 1810). Besides the Z name in Zastrozzi, St. Irvyne has characters named Ginotti and Megalena, names found in Zofloya.
Michasiw does not cite other authors influenced by Dacre, but I couldn’t help wondering if Bulwer-Lytton’s Zanoni (1842) is not indebted to Zofloya. Not only does Zanoni’s name starts with Z, but he is a Rosicrucian. While Zofloya is not named as a Rosicrucian, he does know the secrets of nature, of herbs and poisons, much like the Rosicrucians in Bulwer-Lytton’s novel. Furthermore, Shelley’s St. Irvyne is a Rosicrucian novel, so Shelley may interpret Zofloya as one, though he was also doubtless influenced by his father-in-law William Godwin’s Rosicrucian novel St. Leon (1799).
Another link to Rosicrucianism in St. Irvyne is that the demon Ginotti informs Wolfstein that every event in his life is known and controlled by him. This statement recalls the German Gothic novel by Christian August Vulpius’s Rinaldo Rinaldini (1798) which was said to have inspired Bulwer-Lytton’s Zanoni. Not only is Rinaldini a bandit chief like Leonardo in Zofloya, but a Rosicrucian character, the Old Man, is revealed to be manipulating Rinaldini’s life. I do not know if Dacre read Rinaldo Rinaldini, but Zofloya certainly manipulates Victoria throughout the novel, though a more immediate source for this situation is Lewis’ The Monk, in which the monk Ambrose is manipulated by his sexual desire for the nun Matilda, who, like Zofloya, will turn out to be Satan. (Notably, Lewis read Rinaldo Rinaldini in manuscript and corresponded with its author).
Zofloya is not as well known as The Mysteries of Udolpho or The Monk, but Michasiw makes an excellent argument that in some ways it improves upon them. The plotting is much tighter than in Udolpho, though that novel’s wandering is delightful in my opinion. As Michisaw observes Victoria’s road to damnation is also more gradual than that of Ambrose in Lewis’s novel.
However, Victoria’s refusal to be a victim is what makes the novel most significant. She is unrepentant in her sin, constantly pursuing her own desires and appetites whatever the cost. She might be the first major female villain in Gothic literature. There will be many wicked and unrepentant villainesses to come, but I cannot think of any who precede her.
Michisaw makes another excellent point about how eighteenth-century literature usually only had one desirable partner for the hero or heroine. By the early nineteenth-century, this shifted to the main character often having two potential partners to choose from—for example, Rebecca and Rowena in Ivanhoe (1819). I would argue more accurately that a second love interest exists in many eighteenth-century novels, but the secondary female character is not desired by the male main character because she is usually crazy or hysterical. For example, Lady Olivia in Samuel Richardson’s Sir Charles Grandison (1753-4) and Elinor in Frances Burney’s The Wanderer (1814). These novels offer examples of women who are unsuitable because they throw themselves at men, openly declaring their love and in the process being deemed unladylike. Worse, both threaten to kill themselves because the man they love does not return their affection. Such hysterical extremism causes their rejections. They become warnings to women readers of what not to do to get a man.
Dacre, however, rejects this sense that a woman should not declare her love for a man or that she should repress her sexual appetites. While Victoria is rejected by Henrique just like Lady Olivia and Elinor are rejected by their potential suitors, Victoria doesn’t threaten to kill herself when rejected. Instead, she takes revenge on those who stand in her way. Female sexuality is, in a sense, honored in this respect while also becoming something fearful. Whether in Richardson, Burney, or Dacre, it threatens the status quo, but Victoria remains unrepentant for her actions, refusing to be simply a figure in a morality tale.
Both Victoria and Zofloya live on in the reader’s imagination long after the novel is finished. I have read and forgotten the plots of countless Gothic novels, but for me, Zofloya completes a trio of what might be termed the Big Three of early Gothic novels, joining The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Monk as key moments in the genre’s evolution. Dacre was clearly in conversation with these earlier novels, and the string of strong female characters who follow Victoria in Gothic literature, from French female vampires to true criminals like Agatha, who is almost remorseless, in Malcolm-Rymer’s The Black Monk (1844-5) owe a debt to Victoria. It might even not be going too far to say they owe their very souls to her.
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Tyler R. Tichelaar, PhD, is the author of The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides: The Marriage of French and British Gothic Literature, Haunted Marquette: Ghost Stories from the Queen City, and The Mysteries of Marquette: A Novel, plus many other fiction and nonfiction titles. Visit Tyler at http://www.GothicWanderer.com, http://www.ChildrenofArthur.com, and http://www.MarquetteFiction.com.
One of the loyal readers of this blog, Paula Cappa, recently shared with me that January is now International Gothic Reading Month (IGRM). It’s a chance for all of us to read Gothic novels, share our own Gothic writings, and promote Gothic literature in all its wonderful forms.
I’m thrilled to see the Gothic getting so much attention. It wasn’t long ago World Dracula Day was established (which by the way happens to be May 26, the date Dracula was published and coincidentally my birthday), but I never dreamed of a whole month devoted to Gothic literature and one that isn’t the same month that is Halloween. For me, January is the perfect month since I always get at least one or two Gothic novels for the holidays.
My own most Gothic work is The Mysteries of Marquette which I published in 2024.
I hope you’ll participate, posting your own Gothic works and reading others.
As a lifelong fan of Gothic literature, my taste tends toward the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century classics. While I’ve read many more recent Gothic works, few have grabbed my attention like Leigh M. Hall’s new novel The Chambermaids. This novel is so good it won a Claymore Award for Best Southern Gothic Novel before it was even published. What makes it so good? So many things, but most of all, the way Hall builds unrelenting suspense. Until the final chapter, you wonder what will happen, and let me tell you, you won’t see the ending coming. The conclusion completely surprised me. It seems to open up new vistas for Gothic literature. The Chambermaids is far from your typical nineteenth-century kill the monster or have the villain experience redemption plot.
Describing such a bone-chilling work is difficult since I don’t want to create any spoilers, but I’ll summarize a bit of the plot to give a sense of what it’s about.
Elouise and Wilbur Saxton have a farm in the East that has gradually failed. Wilbur is fifty-nine, and Elouise is his third wife. We aren’t told how old she is, but she can’t be more than thirty. We also aren’t told what year it is, but it’s definitely after the Civil War, and since Elouise reads Henry James’ A Portrait of a Lady (1880), it must be early in the 1880s. Wilbur and Elouise have been married for several years but have had no children. Wilbur has a son, Johnathan, from an earlier marriage. Johnathan is only four years younger than Elouise, and they have developed a strong friendship, which Elouise suspects at times makes Wilbur jealous, but Johnathan is now grown and living on his own.
When the novel opens, Elouise has just inherited her uncle’s farm in Texas. She remembers visiting it as a little girl with her sisters. However, her uncle left it solely to her, perhaps because she was the only one not married when he wrote his will. The farm is a godsend to Elouise and Wilbur because of their financial situation. They make their way to Texas, find a ride to the farm, and take up residence there. Elouise’s late uncle’s lawyer visits to go over the will, but other than that, they are completely alone and struggle to keep up with all the work.
Enter the chambermaids. Mary and Margo Malkowitz unexpectedly show up to offer their help. They explain they used to work for Elouise’s uncle, but at the end of his life, he sent them away, wanting to die alone. They have been living with the Wilkersons—Elouise and Wilbur’s nearest neighbors—near being fourteen miles away. Mary and Margo now want to work at the farm again, and they soon show Wilbur and Elouise how capable they are by capturing the bull who has been running loose.
Elouise realizes she should be grateful for the help, but something about the sisters doesn’t sit right with her. She feels they don’t know their place, are nosy, and try to have their own way about things. When a mailman stops by to deliver a letter from Johnathan saying he is coming to visit soon, Elouise asks the mailman about her neighbors. He has never heard of the Wilkersons. For Elouise, that confirms that her misgivings about the sisters are not just her imagination.
A series of events follows that makes Elouise not only suspicious of the sisters, but afraid something very strange is happening. Even before the sisters arrived, she was hearing whispers in the house, but no one was there. She also sees a tall, shadowy figure outside. She wonders who took care of the chickens after her uncle’s death, and she wonders how it is possible they are multiplying so quickly.
Once the sisters arrive, life does become easier Elouise and Wilbur until Johnathan comes to visit. Elouise is excited to see him, but he only stays a short time, and then mysteriously disappears at night. Later, Elouise comes upon a pile of smoldering ash outside. She is certain it is Johnathan’s wagon, and she fears he has been killed. When she breaks the news to Wilbur, he and the Malkowitz sisters go out to investigate, but they claim to have found nothing. Soon, Elouise fears she is hallucinating, delusional, perhaps even insane, or being tricked or drugged by the Malkowitz sisters.
I’m not giving anything away by saying that Mary and Margo appear to be sinister. But Hall does a wonderful job of keeping the reader guessing whether Elouise is really just losing her mind.
I think literary critics could have a field day with this novel. Perhaps I am overinterpreting, but the novel reminded me a lot of Dracula because Elouise and Wilbur’s surname is Saxton, a very English name, while the sisters’ name is Slavic name with Jewish connections. In Dracula, the vampire is also of Eastern European origins and has even been interpreted as Jewish, while, of course, the other characters are English. Dracula’s desire to conquer England has been read as a metaphor for fear of reverse colonization by all the Eastern immigrants flooding into England at the time. While I did not pick up any racial undertones in The Chambermaids, the choice of Malkowitz as a surname was curious since Texas in the nineteenth century didn’t have a large Slavic population.
Hall has done something else interesting by making the Malkowitz sisters appear to be tied to the land itself. In this novel, the Anglo-Saxon American characters are more like the invaders since they come to Texas from far away, though Elouise’s family roots are there. Rather than conquer, in the end, it seems they assimilate or are conquered by the sisters, or perhaps not—depending on how you read the novel’s end, which I don’t want to give away.
A feminist strain also flows through the novel. At first, it doesn’t seem like a feminist novel given that Elouise is at odd with the Malkowitz sisters through most of the novel, but the surprising end changes that.
However you choose to interpret The Chambermaids, I guarantee you will keep wondering what is about to happen. The climax is disturbing, yet the resolution is deeply satisfying in what remains a rather unsettling way. I guarantee the ending will stun you. I can barely restrain myself from writing about it because it is so completely different from the end of any other Gothic novel I’ve read. This novel is definitely pushing against the genre’s boundaries to create something new.
In the acknowledgments, Hall mentions that this is her fifteenth novel, but her first attempt at horror. She asks, “How did I do?” Leigh M. Hall, you totally creeped me out! The Malkowitz sisters will be haunting me for a long time to come. Neither Mrs. Radcliffe nor Bram Stoker could have done any better.
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Tyler R. Tichelaar, PhD, is the author of The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides: The Marriage of French and British Gothic Literature, Haunted Marquette: Ghost Stories from the Queen City, and The Mysteries of Marquette: A Novel, plus many other fiction and nonfiction titles. Visit Tyler at http://www.GothicWanderer.com, http://www.ChildrenofArthur.com, and http://www.MarquetteFiction.com.
In Chapter 34 of Anthony Trollope’s The Eustace Diamonds (1873) a character reads The Bandit Chief. Per the endnote (Penguin Classics edition), this book is The Bandit Chief, or Lords of Ursino (1818). Assuming it might be a Gothic novel, I tried to find it online, but unsuccessfully. However, I did discover The History of Rinaldo Rinaldini: The Bandit Chief (1798) by Christian August Vulpius (1762-1827). I had never heard of it or Vulpius, but what I treasure I found.
Christian August Vulpius
Vulpius was a German novelist and playwright who wrote a series of novels, operas, and plays on romantic themes, the most notable being Rinaldo Rinaldini. Today, he is best known as the brother-in-law of Goethe since his sister, Christine, married the famous author.
Rinaldo Rinaldini appears to have been all but forgotten today, at least in the English-speaking world though it seems to remain known in Germany. The few mentions of it online I found do not praise it. Wikipedia describes it as “A typical ‘penny dreadful’ of the period, it was often translated and much imitated, but unrivaled in its bad eminence.” This description is not accurate nor fair since penny dreadfuls originated in 1830s England, and it was written in Germany in 1798. It likely inspired English penny dreadfuls, and it reminded me of Varney the Vampire (1846) because its title character is full of remorse over the crimes he committed as a bandit. Similarly, Varney is remorseful about being a vampire. I am uncertain when Rinaldo Rinaldini became familiar to British audiences. I read an 1848 translation by L. Hinckley published in the United States. However, as I’ll mention below, it likely was known to several prominent British Gothic novelists.
But first, let’s look at what makes the novel fascinating. Admittedly, the plot and structure are clumsy, but some magnificent themes and moments in it make it noteworthy.
A more modern cover of the novel
The novel opens with Rinaldo being morose. The bandits he leads assume he is lovestruck, but he is actually unhappy with his lot as a bandit chief. Only at the novel’s end do we get his backstory, which appears to have been an afterthought by the author to explain what happens in the novel’s second half. Truthfully, the first half is readable enough, even if episodic without any real plot, but it transcends normal picaresque literature in its second half.
The plot itself is almost impossible to summarize. Rinaldo repeatedly robs people, then feels remorse. The sense is he is a type of Robin Hood, but we don’t really see him helping anyone. He frequently disguises himself as a nobleman or someone respectable. The result is he frequently overhears conversations by everyday people about himself. Sometimes he then reveals he is the famous bandit Rinaldo Rinaldini, creating shock and surprise. He constantly evades the law, but occasionally, he is captured and then escapes. He has affairs with more women than I could keep track of, including Aurelia, who marries another man; Rosalie, who follows him about but eventually dies; Olympia, whom he never seems to love but who keeps coming back because she’s in love with him; and Diaspora, whom he finally ends up with. These escapades with women and evasions of the law are all episodic, picaresque, and written in a similar vein to the 1830s English highwaymen or Newgate novels.
Most interesting to me was what makes the novel Gothic—its supernatural elements. To explore this, I’ll mention Rinaldo’s backstory first, even though we don’t learn it until the novel’s end. Rinaldo was born in the Italian part of Switzerland to poor parents. He grows up in a pastoral setting, caring for goats. One day he befriends a neighboring hermit named Ontario. This man teaches him how to read and introduces him to literature from the ancient Greek classics to history and romantic tales of knights. These books fuel Rinaldo’s imagination. Then one day Ontario disappears, but he leaves behind him directions that Rinaldo is to be his heir. Rinaldo sells everything except the books and uses the money to purchase a position in the army. When he becomes insubordinate and is punished, he kills his superior officer with a stiletto. After that “he wandered through Italy an outcast from society, and destitute of a place of rest.” Eventually, he joins a robber band and soon becomes their leader. He has been the band’s leader for many years when the novel opens.
Among the novels’ more interesting features is that one of Rinaldo’s chief companions is Ludovico. In one scene, he and Rinaldo explore a castle thought to be haunted. I was struck by this passage since Ludovico is a character in Mrs. Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), and he is the brave one who explores the haunted places in the novel. This makes me think Vulpius read Mrs. Radcliffe, who was extremely popular on the continent.
a more historical cover
More metaphysical and supernatural things happen when Rinaldo wanders outside of a castle he is staying at and falls asleep in the grass. He wakes to find an old man in a long robe reading a book near him. The man is watching over him and says he killed a serpent that was about to attack Rinaldo. The dead snake is nearby to prove the man has Rinaldo’s wellbeing at heart. This hermit turns out to be the Old Man of Frontenac as he is known in the novel. (Later, we will learn he is also Ontario, though Rinaldo does not recognize him). The Old Man invites Rinaldo to visit him, which Rinaldo does, discovering the Old Man has many acolytes, including twenty-one men and at least two women known as Daughters of Wisdom; they are all exploring the mysteries of nature. The Old Man tells Rinaldo his story as follows:
“‘From my earliest youth upward, I was a friend and eager inquirer into all mysteries, and to this day I must tell you, that I have always succeeded in developing the secrets of all ages and nations.’
“Rinaldo beheld him with surprise, and the old man proceeded.
“‘I studied the symbolical mythology of the Greeks and Egyptians, the theology, cosmogony, and all the sacred learning of the most ancient nations; I studied the sh aster of the Gentoo s [sic], the zendavesta of the Persians, the Edda of the Icelanders, the Chou-king and lying of the Chinese. Chinese. I developed the nature of the kakasophia and kakodaemonia, studied the anthroposophia, and at length became what I am now, a true theosophist. This name I have now adopted. You must imagine it took a long period of time to accomplish so much and that time heaven has granted me….”
The Old Man then tells Rinaldo the people at the castle where he is staying are uneasy about his absence, and to prove it, he shows him their images in a “large mirror formed of a plate of polished metal.” The mirror’s function is like a modern video camera. It would have been like magic in the eighteenth century, and I was reminded of the Magic Picture in L. Frank Baum’s Oz novels.
Next, the Old Man provides Rinaldo with insight into mysteries and even shows him the Karat repose:
“Rinaldo received from the old man some previous instruction relative to the secrets of the Egyptian mysteries, and then saw the spectacle performed, in which the initiated went through all the seven degrees of Karat Repose. He saw him ascending the holy ladder, consisting of seven steps, amid thunder and lightning—heard the language of Hicrophants—saw the gate of man and the black chamber, the temptation scene of the priestesses, opposite to whom the initiated stood, the water scene, the serpent chamber, the griffin and the columns. He saw the initiated pass through the gate of death, and refuse the crown; beheld him in Circus, and heard the lessons given him. Here he fancied he saw the battle of the shades, the pit of the fend, and the dead virgin. He saw the battle of Or us [sic] and Typhus, and the great trial by fire. He saw the initiated before the gate of the gods, the priest’s dance, representing the course of stars, after which the initiated drank the drink of Oimelas and his trials ended in his final reception into the great sanctuary.”
Rinaldo then returns to the castle from which he came, but the Old Man continues to show up in the novel and provides evidence he has supernatural powers beyond those of normal men. He also has a number of followers, including Olympia, one of Rinaldo’s lovers. As the novel progresses, Olympia and the Old Man of Frontenac want Rinaldo to aid them in freeing Corsica from French rule. At first, Rinaldo agrees to this, seeing the opportunity to redeem his past villainy by being a hero. However, as the novel progresses, he changes his mind. When the Old Man tries to convince him, Rinaldo says he will not be the Old Man’s machine, but the Old Man says he already is and has been for some time:
“Old Man. You stipulate for no particular cases. We are treating generally, and in all cases. Give yourself up to me unconditionally, and I will rescue you from prison and from death.
“Rinaldo. I am no machine. Good night.
“Old Man. What ill-timed pride! You have been nothing but a machine ever since you began your celebrated career.
“Rinaldo. What say you?
“Old Man. You have—and that without knowing it.
“Rinaldo. Indeed!
“Old Man. Yes; a machine, and my machine—you behold me with wonder: I repeat it, you were my machine, are so still, and will continue so as long as I please. On me and my plans depend your destruction or salvation. ’Tis true your misfortunes were not my work, but I always knew how to save you, however frequently you would have run yourself into destruction.”
Rinaldo insists he’ll be free, but the Old Man says he’ll be tried by a criminal tribunal instead.
Eventually, Rinaldo has a run in with a tribunal, although they are not part of the government but vigilante renegades outside of the law. One night, a man in black enters Rinaldo’s room, summoning him to be judged for his crimes by a tribunal. Rinaldo tries to avoid the tribunal, shooting at the black figure when it reappears, but it throws him across a room with supernatural strength.
Rinaldo then meets Ludovico upon the road in bad shape. He has been beaten and flogged by the tribunal for his past crimes. Eventually, Rinaldo’s bandits have a final showdown with the black men or black judges. After several of them die in the skirmish and Rinaldo manages to steal their treasure, they send a letter asking that their parties join together. They wish him to become their general and lead an army against the tyrannical government, but Rinaldo refuses, saying he is no rebel against his king.
Eventually, Rinaldo reunites with Diaspora and her friend Violetta and they retreat to a Sicilian island to live in peace, but they know peace won’t last so they plan to migrate to the Canary Islands. However, before they can depart, the Old Man of Frontenac shows up saying that the rest of his followers accuse him of killing Rinaldo since he has disappeared. He asks Rinaldo to show himself to them so they will know he lives. Rinaldo refuses. Soon after, the Old Man also tells Rinaldo he will die the next day if he doesn’t leave the island and go to Corsica. Again, Rinaldo refuses.
However, troubled by the Old Man’s prediction, Rinaldo plans to depart the next day for the Canary Islands. Before he can leave, Sicilian soldiers surround his house. One of the black men enters and points him out to the soldiers. They are about to arrest him when the Old Man of Frontenac rushes into the room, stabs Rinaldo before the soldiers can take him, and tells him he should have become a hero rather than a robber (the future he had intended for Rinaldo when he had been his tutor Ontario).
But that is not the end of Rinaldo. The conclusion tells us he did not die from his wound. He and the Old Man were brought before the Sicilian authorities but rescued by powerful friends. Rather than be killed, they were banished. Rinaldo then went to France where he became known as the Chevalier de Bayard. He joined the Marquis de Lafayette and other foreigners in going to the United States to aid General Washington in the American Revolution, thus finally becoming the hero he was meant to be. After the war, Rinaldo took up residence in New York, dying there in August 1797.
A cover with Rinaldo perhaps fleeing from the law
Why is Rinaldo Rinaldini worth reading? Besides its intriguing and suspenseful story, Jess Nevins’ blogpost on The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana states that the Old Man was the inspiration for the title character in Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s novel Zanoni (1842). Nevins doesn’t cite her source for this statement, but elsewhere she references Patrick Bridgwater’s The German Gothic Novel in Anglo-German Perspective, which is likely the source. (I would have consulted Bridgwater’s book myself, but copies are $256, so I’ve added it to my wish list for someday.)
The novel’s secret tribunal also fascinates me because it predates similar secret vigilante groups in British Gothic novels such as Sir Walter Scott’s Anne of Geierstein (1829) and George W. M. Reynold’s Faust: A Romance of the Secret Tribunals (1847). Notably, though, another German novel Horrid Mysteries by Carl Grosse (published in England in 1796), has a secret society.
I would love to know more about whether Rinaldo Rinaldini did influence British Gothic novelists. Since it likely influenced Zanoni, a Rosicrucian novel (the Old Man says he is a theosophist but he speaks like a Rosicrucian, though he has no interest in the elixir of life or the philosopher’s stone), I wonder if the novel was known by William Godwin, whose Rosicrucian Gothic novel St. Leon (1799) appeared the next year. I could not find confirmation Bulwer-Lytton or Godwin read the novel when I searched online, but according to AI (no source given), Matthew Lewis, author of The Monk (1796) read the first draft “mit Vergnügen” (with pleasure) and suggested improvements in a letter to Vulpius. Lewis introduced a lot of German literature to British readers so this connection is not surprising.
Certainly, more research is needed on the novel’s influence. It must have been significant if fifty years after its publication, it was being translated in the United States. Wikipedia notes it was translated into many languages and some other German authors even wrote sequels to it. In the twentieth century, German films have been made of it.
According to Nevins referencing Bridgwater, Rinaldo Rinaldini is based on the thief Angelo Duca, hanged in Salerno in 1784, who acted like Rinaldini in protecting the weak and making his band of thieves act in a relatively moral way. Hinckley states he would not have translated the novel if not assured of it being a true story. More info on Duca can be found at the website Executed Today.
As for Christian August Vulpius, I think he deserves more attention than he has received. Goethe is the big name in German literature, but his The Sorrows of Young Werther bored me, despite its significant influence at the time. I’d rather read Rinaldo Rinaldini any day. I hope to explore more of Vulpius’ works, though they appear hard to find in English, other than out-of-print copies of The Knight of Malta.
Any lover of the Gothic could do worse than to explore the thrills of Rinaldo Rinaldini.
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Tyler R. Tichelaar, PhD, is the author of The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides: The Marriage of French and British Gothic Literature, Haunted Marquette: Ghost Stories from the Queen City, and The Mysteries of Marquette: A Novel, plus many other fiction and nonfiction titles. Visit Tyler at http://www.GothicWanderer.com, http://www.ChildrenofArthur.com, and http://www.MarquetteFiction.com.
Wade Walker is fast becoming my favorite living writer of Gothic literature. And while I like my Gothic gritty and atmospheric, and I’m not a big fan of humor writing, Walker knows how to blend genres seamlessly in a hilarious yet suspenseful way that leaves you completely wanting more.
His latest release is Night of the Pumpkin Man, the third installment in his Code Name: Lonewolf series. I previously reviewed here the first two books: Bite of the Wolf and Operation Frankenstein. This new book is not a full-length novel but a novelette with four acts. The 6×9 paperback is thirty pages and took me maybe an hour and fifteen minutes to read—it’s the perfect length for a film, and it would make a great film. It’s dubbed a “Halloween Special” and I hope there will be more Halloween Specials to come.
If you don’t know Lonewolf, the main thing to know is he is a secret operative named Val West who, in Bite of the Wolf, was bit by a werewolf. The government organization West works for decided it would be really cool to make him into a bionic werewolf so they could control him while using him to fight bad guys. The result is that we have a blend of werewolf horror with James Bond-type espionage.
Val West’s latest mission is to find out what happened to his former colleague, Diedrich Knickerbocker, who died in the town of Gallows End. Not only did the mysterious Pumpkin Man kill Knickerbocker, but he’s been terrorizing the local residents for some time.
West shows up in Gallows End and makes his way to the local bar, The Lusty Wench, where he befriends barmaid Trina and gets on the bad side of the bar’s owner. Not long after, West sees for himself the terrifying Pumpkin Man, whose head lights up like a Jack-o’-lantern, and who appears to have superhuman strength since even after West transforms into a werewolf, he finds himself bested and lying in a pumpkin patch after their first physical combat.
But West is not one to give up. He knows something shady is going on, and his investigation will not only lead to a jailbreak but surprising developments about just who or what the Pumpkin Man is.
I fear I’ve already revealed too much. And I don’t want to end up the Pumpkin Man’s next victim by giving away his secrets. Instead, let me say Walker’s sense of humor and his ability to create a Gothic atmosphere are top-notch. From West’s witty repartee with the local “serving wench,” to the way seasonal pumpkin spice permeates everything, the reader gets sucked into the atmosphere of Gallows End like they entered a time warp into Sleepy Hollow, a ghost town haunted by the living. From the Pumpkin Man’s tricorne hat to the remnants of Cold War technology in the area, the reader could easily think they’ve traveled back in time. And let me tell you, Charlie Brown, the Pumpkin Man is not the Great Pumpkin. When the Pumpkin Man shows up, he is not bringing any candy.
Walker might let Val West experience a few tricks, but every page of this book was a treat for me, and it won’t leave you with a stomachache if you digest too much of it. Instead, Walker leaves you hungry for more.
Fortunately, Walker has another book, To Transylvania With Love, in the works. Until then, may visions of pumpkin heads dance in your head. Happy Halloween!
For more info on Walker and Night of the Pumpkin Man, visit https://www.codenamelonewolf.com/. The book is also available at Amazon in paperback and kindle editions.
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Tyler R. Tichelaar, PhD, is the author of The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides: The Marriage of French and British Gothic Literature, Haunted Marquette: Ghost Stories from the Queen City, and The Mysteries of Marquette: A Novel, plus many other fiction and nonfiction titles. Visit Tyler at http://www.GothicWanderer.com, http://www.ChildrenofArthur.com, and http://www.MarquetteFiction.com.
Aalysa Morales’ debut novel, Indecipherable, is a psychological thriller set in Baton Rouge and centering on the experiences of a group of college students in 2004. Although described as “Southern Gothic,” I admit I was a bit disappointed that the novel didn’t really have much Gothic atmosphere, and nothing supernatural happens, but that didn’t take away from the compelling story of a decades-old murder mystery and the twists that follow as the characters try to solve the murder while putting their own lives at risk.
The novel’s two main characters, Lorelai and Cordelia, are best friends who live together. Lorelai is a lesbian with an ex-girlfriend, Kayce, who cheated on her with a boy. Lorelai is angry at Kayce, but eventually will realize she needs her help. Cordelia is an exotic dancer, and Lorelai is in love with her, but so is Thomas, a young man who works at the college library’s archives.
The plot begins when the girls acquire an old game of Clue from a secondhand store. Inside they find hair from a deceased girl, which leads them to investigating a murder from twenty years before. It turns out two girls who were friends were murdered on the same college campus in 1984, and their killer was never caught (a situation that eerily foreshadows the friendship of Lorelai and Cordelia and the danger they will soon find themselves in). Cordelia wants to get rid of the evidence, finding it creepy, but Lorelai, concerned the murder might be a cold case and the evidence could help solve it, decides to investigate further before going to the police.
Lorelai visits the campus archives, searching for old newspaper articles and other information about the deceased girls. Because the archives are off limits to most students, she enlists Thomas’ help to get access. At the archives, she also makes the acquaintance of a man named McAllister. He has worked there since before the two girls were murdered. He remembers the victims and shares information with Lorelai.
As Lorelai continues to investigate, she decides to get Kayce involved. This leads to Kayce’s boyfriend, Luca, his friend, Jacques, and several other students also becoming interested in the murders. Their interest grows when Thomas gets fired and they realize the killer from decades ago is trying to prevent evidence from surfacing and might be ready to strike again. While the various characters’ investigations are carried on separately at first, by the end of the novel, all the threads come together.
Little do the characters realize the murderer is watching their every move. He is disgusted to learn that the evidence in the Clue game, which got lost when he moved, has surfaced, resulting in him again being under possible scrutiny. The memories of his former pleasure in murdering the two girls also returns in his new feelings for Lorelai. He befriends her without suspecting her his true motives, which at first are to make sure he is not caught, but it doesn’t take him long to fall in love with her.
I won’t give away more of the plot, but I will say I found the introspective moments inside the killer’s mind to be the most interesting. If the killer is not quite as creepy as in Michael Connelly’s The Poet, he stands out for originality in terms of his mental state. I guessed early on who the killer was, and Morales does not keep it a secret for long. This revelation allows us to watch him watch the girls and see how his madness slowly increases. I also enjoyed watching the relationship dynamics between all of the characters. I was reminded of my own college days and the network of people I knew, including friends of friends of friends. The way the novel treated the youthful confusion of the main characters in regard to their romantic feelings, sexuality, and unrequited love all felt true to life and their age group.
The novel opens and ends with a trial scene, but Morales keeps us guessing who the narrator of these scenes is until the end. The trial frame serves to engage us in the story before we travel back to the events leading up to the trial. What happens at the trial itself was especially unexpected. While some parts of the plot were a bit predictable, the concluding twists were far from it. Readers will be stunned by the dramatic rollercoaster ending. I was shocked, relieved, and shocked again. On the final page, I was left questioning what was real and what was not, and whether the narrator was hinting at a sequel to come.
For a first novel, Indecipherable has a few to-be-expected flaws. Sometimes the writing was a tad clunky or the tense shifted, but the characters were fully imagined, and while so many characters were a bit hard to keep track of, in the end, everything came together with clarity. I also loved the characters’ names, which were not that usual—I can’t imagine anyone wanting to be named Bonnibelle—and I wondered if they reflected Southern tastes. I’ve never been to Louisiana, unfortunately, but I appreciated the Southern elements in the novel. I wish the novel had more description of the buildings—a lot could have been done to make the library and houses creepier and add to the Gothic atmosphere—but perhaps that would have slowed down the story’s pace.
I congratulate Morales on her first novel. She shines at creating villains far scarier than any ghost would have been, and she has a knack for keeping us guessing until the end. Indecipherable: A Psychological Thriller is available in paperback and ebook formats at Amazon.
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Tyler R. Tichelaar, PhD, is the author of The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides: The Marriage of French and British Gothic Literature, Haunted Marquette: Ghost Stories from the Queen City, and The Mysteries of Marquette: A Novel, plus many other fiction and nonfiction titles. Visit Tyler at http://www.GothicWanderer.com, http://www.ChildrenofArthur.com, and http://www.MarquetteFiction.com.
As I work my way through the works of George W. M. Reynolds, I repeatedly am amazed by his ability to create engaging plots full of exciting twists and turns while also offering social criticism. Alfred, The Adventures of a French Gentleman (1838) is no disappointment in this regard, even though it is well into the novel before we meet the titular character. One of Reynolds’ earliest novels, it has all the signs of a precursor to his masterpiece The Mysteries of London (1844-1846). There is even a minor villain named Markham in it—the surname of the two brothers, one good, one evil, Reynolds would use in The Mysteries of London.
Although not a true Gothic novel, Alfred is full of interest, and because it is a little-known work, I’ll summarize the plot before mentioning a few of its interesting elements.
The novel begins when a French family escapes from The Reign of Terror to England in 1793. The father is the Marquis de Denneville, but he hides his identity in England to protect his family. Soon after arriving, his wife dies. His daughter, Eloise, is left under the guardianship of the Clayton family, which includes two brothers, William and Harry, who treat the marquis’ daughter like a sister. When he believes it safe, the marquis returns to France to try to regain his property, but he never returns. In time, his daughter grows up to marry Harry, never knowing the truth about her parents’ identity, though she believes her father was a French nobleman.
Harry and Eloise have a daughter named after her. (To eliminate confusion, I’ll refer to the daughter as Eloise below while Harry’s wife will be Mrs. Clayton.) Harry soon after dies, leaving Mrs. Clayton and Eloise under the care of Mrs. Clayton’s brother-in-law, William. When Eloise is a teenager, they travel to France to try to learn more about Mrs. Clayton’s parentage. There they encounter Alfred de Rosann, a young businessman, who immediately falls in love with Eloise. Alfred has inherited his father’s business, but he does not give it the attention it deserves, causing him eventually to get advice from LaMotte, a man who helps turn around the business, resulting in Alfred agreeing to make him his partner. But LaMotte only wishes to take advantage of Alfred. He dupes Alfred into signing certain papers for a fake loan, then flees to the Netherlands with Alfred’s money, leaving Alfred to be arrested when his business fails and he can’t pay the fake loan. Eloise pledges her love for Alfred and agrees to wait for him when he is sentenced to prison.
LaMotte tricks Alfred into signing the bills of exchange.
In prison, Alfred meets Belle-Rose, a hardened criminal, and Champignon, a restaurant owner who went to prison for crimes committed in an effort to destroy his competition. Eventually, Alfred and Belle-Rose escape from the prison with the help of LeBlond, an old acquaintance of Belle-Rose. LeBlond gives them two passports for when they escape. In exchange, he expects them to carry out services for a secret society when called upon. Later, we learn this society seeks to bring about a new government in France and possibly the world.
Before they escape from prison, Alfred and Belle-Rose learn the story of a prisoner who murdered a wealthy man and hid his papers in a farmhouse. Alfred and Belle-Rose, in their flight, happen to arrive at that very farmhouse, and in the night, Alfred discovers the papers and hides them on his person. He does this just before the farmhouse catches on fire. In the melee that follows, he helps rescue the farmer’s other guests, discovering them to be Eloise, Mrs. Clayton, and William. Eloise and Alfred again pledge their love for one another, and William Clayton supports their engagement, but Mrs. Clayton does not want her daughter to marry a penniless ex-convict. She vows she will never relent unless Alfred learns who her father was. Of course, the papers Alfred found belonged to the marquis, who had been murdered, and the reader guesses this when they are found, but the novel has to play itself out before Alfred can read the papers and make sufficient inquiries to realize Mrs. Clayton is the marquis’ daughter and restore the marquis’ property to her.
Alfred and Eloise meeting during the farmhouse fire
Alfred travels to England with the papers, thinking from what little he has read of them that he will be able to learn about the murdered marquis’ family there. Belle-Rose also travels there separately from him. Belle-Rose was awake when Alfred found the papers and saw him hide them. He is now determined to have them to use to receive some type of reward. He presents himself at the marquis’ banker in England before Alfred does, but the banker, Robson, trusts Alfred and not Belle-Rose. Robson is especially grateful to Alfred after he invites Alfred to dinner along with his future business partner, who turns out to be LaMotte, the very man who had cheated Alfred out of his business and framed him to go to prison. Robson is grateful to Alfred when he denounces LaMotte because it saves him from having LaMotte ruin him also. Belle-Rose fails to gain the papers, and in time, Alfred realizes Mrs. Clayton is the marquis’ daughter.
More twists and turns happen as Alfred tries to return to France, including a highway robbery scene, and Robson’s daughter, Selena, falling in love with Alfred, but Alfred remains true to Eloise. Alfred also secretly carries a small fortune back to Paris for LeBlond.
Alfred returns in time to be caught up in the July 1830 revolution, in which Belle-Rose dies. These scenes reminded me of Les Misérables (1862), a similarity also noted by Reynolds’ biographer, Stephen Basdeo (p. 30, Victorian England’s Bestselling Author: The Revolutionary Life of G. W. M. Reynolds). I think it a stretch to argue Hugo could have been influenced by the novel, plus he treats the 1832 Revolution instead. Still, I think Reynolds captures the feel of the period. He was himself a Francophile and lived in France from about 1832-1836, so he understood the French character and political situation of the time. That he chooses a Frenchman for his hero shows how sympathetic he was to the French people.
Belle-Rose wounded during the 1830 Revolution. The image depicts him dying in Alfred’s arms, but Alfred actually takes him to a nearby house where he dies later.
To make a long story short, in the end, Alfred reveals Mrs. Clayton is the marquis’ daughter, and he and Eloise are wed. LaMotte also asks Alfred’s forgiveness before he dies. He leaves Alfred his fortune as well as proof Alfred was innocent, which clears Alfred of all criminal charges.
This plot summary cannot convey the interest with which I read the novel. The main plot of how Mrs. Clayton will learn her true identity and regain her inheritance is largely predictable, but much of the novel is both sensational and surprising. Plenty of humor is also included in the novel, especially in the depiction of Champignon, who is obsessed with food.
As far as Gothic elements go, the most notable is the finding of the marquis’ manuscript in the farmhouse. Manuscripts that reveal family secrets are a staple of the Gothic. Notably, the farmer knows the marquis was murdered in that room, and when he offers the room to Belle-Rose and Alfred to sleep in, he warns them it is believed to be haunted, causing Belle-Rose to make jokes and reference the works of Mrs. Radcliffe.
Reynolds also has fun playing intertextual games. In one scene, a character sings a song Reynolds had previously published in Pickwick Abroad (1837-8), a novel in which he appropriated Dickens’ characters and sent them to France.
Alfred’s fighting in the 1830 Revolution and his helping the invisible secret society seem like precursors to how Richard Markham in The Mysteries of London will aid in bringing about a revolution in an Italian dukedom.
The peasants in the novel continue to revere Napoleon, even though the main action takes place in the late 1820s, but Reynolds says the ignorant peasants always will revere Napoleon, a sign Reynolds was not himself a fan of the man who was largely France’s national hero, but he ends the novel on a note of hope that France will know peace and prosperity now that the 1830 revolution is over.
Overall, the novel is a vital document, along with some of Reynolds’ other works, including The Modern Literature of France (1839), Pickwick Abroad, and Robert Macaire (1839), for our understanding of Reynolds’ favoritism toward French culture and literature. (See my book Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides for more on how Reynolds was influenced by French literature.) Alfred also shows mastery of complex and multiple plots and the weaving together of all the threads to a satisfying conclusion. Best of all, the reader’s interest never lags. The same year Alfred was being serialized, Dickens was serializing Nicholas Nickleby, a novel that is better known and still read today, yet Nicholas Nickleby largely wanders about without any clear purpose as if Dickens is just making it up as he goes along. From the beginning of Alfred, we know the purpose of the entire book is to find out what happened to the marquis and to have Eloise and her mother restored to their rightful property. Dickens is known to have hated Reynolds, and you can’t blame him after Reynolds’ appropriated his characters for Pickwick Abroad, but at the same time, Dickens could have learned a lot from Reynolds. As much as I admire Dickens, at times, he can easily put a reader to sleep, especially in his early novels. I can’t imagine falling asleep while reading anything by Reynolds.
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Tyler R. Tichelaar, PhD, is the author of The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides: The Marriage of French and British Gothic Literature, Haunted Marquette: Ghost Stories from the Queen City, and The Mysteries of Marquette: A Novel, plus many other fiction and nonfiction titles. Visit Tyler at http://www.GothicWanderer.com, http://www.ChildrenofArthur.com, and http://www.MarquetteFiction.com.
I’m pleased to host fellow author and lover of the Gothic, Dario Fero. He has written, or rather had the privilege of editing, a novel in the true spirit of the Gothic. Like so many classic Gothic novels, this book consists of a “found manuscript” that the author/editor has presented to the public. Such has been the case with many another wonderful Gothic novel from Mary Shelley’s The Last Man(1826), a novel written on Sibylline leaves, to the found manuscript in Edward Bulwer Lytton’s Zanoni (1842). In addition, the narrator/main character is a mysterious being, a sort of Gothic immortal, but of what kind is not clear—is he akin to a vampire or a Melmoth the Wanderer figure? You will have to read the manuscript yourself to determine that. And Fero is just as mysterious—little is known about him—in fact, his presenting me with this post is as enigmatic almost as the manuscript he received himself. But I will say no more. I will let Dario present his discovery in his own words from here and encourage you to read the fragment he offers as a preview of the novel to be published later this year. – Tyler R. Tichelaar
There are books we write, and books that happen to us.
For Ever and a Day was never mine. It came to me in fragments: unnumbered pages in yellowing envelopes, encrypted files I don’t recall opening, sentences I may have murmured once in my sleep. The voice that speaks within it is not mine—though at times, it feels as if I’ve heard it all my life.
Dario Fero, editor of For Ever and a Day
What I received—anonymously—was not a novel in any conventional sense. There was no plot, no origin, no intent. What it offered were reflections: sober, melancholic, at times tender—from a being unmoored from time. A consciousness, ancient and crumbling, alien and yet strangely familiar. He spoke of memory as disease, of silence as refuge, of love as a form of recognition beyond language. I was less editing than transcribing—not inventing, but assembling. And I tried to impose some sense of chronology.
For a long time, I couldn’t grasp what he was—or is. Being was the closest word he allowed, though even that felt clumsy. Too soaked in fiction. It did not glitter. It did not seduce. But it lingered. And I respected its choice.
What unsettled me most was not his strangeness, but his clarity. The quiet logic of someone who has watched centuries decay from the inside. He had no need to shout—he simply observed, and in that, there were startling insights and quiet revelations.
Editing his words was both burden and balm. I removed little, fearing the voice might deform. My task was not to polish, but to preserve. There are repetitions, yes—but I believe they are necessary. Memory moves in spirals. It does not march.
For those who wish to listen, two chapters are now quietly available at www.dariofero.com. The full edition will be released on December 24, 2025—the night before the light returns. Whether this book is a warning, a confession, or an elegy, I leave to the reader.
Rare book collector Rebecca Romney’s new book Jane Austen’s Bookshelf documents her personal quest to find the women writers who influenced Austen in writing her novels. I admit I had some qualms about this book when I first heard about it. What Romney discovered for herself about these authors was not news to me, nor is it to most literary critics with a specialization in eighteenth- or nineteenth-century British literature. All the women authors Romney discusses are at least known to me if not counted among my old favorite authors. Had this book been written fifty years ago, it would have been considered revolutionary. Today, it is worth reading if are a Janeite (fan of Jane Austen), but even as a literary scholar, I still found some valuable information I did not know before about these authors, and I was particularly interested in Romney’s explanations of what it means to collect rare books and how they can be of value. I have a few rare books in my own collection, but I don’t consider myself a collector, having usually been content with cheap paperbacks or scholarly editions rather than the originals. So, the rare book collector world was of interest to me.
Romney has selected eight authors to discuss in addition to Austen. Each author was chosen because it’s known Austen read or referenced her novels or letters. The authors are Frances Burney, Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Lennox, Hannah More, Charlotte Smith, Elizabeth Inchbald, Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi, and Maria Edgeworth. The only author who was a surprise to me was Mrs. Thrale/Piozzi since she was not a novelist, but the phrase “pride and prejudice” appears in one of her letters. It is usually assumed Austen got the title for her most famous novel from a phrase in Frances Burney’s 1782 novel Cecilia, or Memoirs of a Heiress, but Romney’s discovery of it in Mrs. Thrale’s letters, which Austen had read a collection of, suggests Mrs. Thrale may have influenced Burney’s use of the phrase or that it was a common phrase of the period.
Of the authors discussed, the ones of most interest to me because of Gothic elements in their novels are Burney, Radcliffe, Smith, and Edgeworth. I have written at length about Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and her influence on Gothic fiction in my books The Gothic Wanderer and Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides. Romney discusses Burney’s novel Evelina (1778) in detail, but ignores The Wanderer (1814), which we have no proof Austen read, though it is Burney’s most Gothic work and one I discussed in The Gothic Wanderer. Smith’s Montalbert (1795) isn’t discussed by Romney, but I have blogged about it as a Gothic novel—I was rather surprised Romney didn’t mention it since she discusses at length Smith’s horrible marriage and the novel is about a woman fleeing from an abusive husband. Edgeworth’s novel Belinda (1801) is also discussed at length, and I have also blogged about its Gothic elements.
Romney isn’t as interested in Gothic literature—though she loved The Mysteries of Udolpho—as she is in understanding why Austen’s novels are widely read today while these contemporary women authors have been almost completely forgotten except by literary scholars. She does an excellent job of discussing each author’s career as well as how her reputation declined, causing her to sink into oblivion. I knew the basics of most of these stories—the horrible reviews of Burney’s The Wanderer, the rumors that Radcliffe’s Gothic horrors had caused her own madness, etc. but I appreciated how Romney charted the decline in reputation, and not surprisingly, how it was often due to a male authors’ comments. For example, Wordsworth hurt Radcliffe’s reputation by saying she was representative of the Gothic novel school rather than saying she was the epitome of it that everyone copied. Charlotte Lennox suffered in the shadow of Samuel Johnson—Lennox’s final chapter of The Female Quixote was rumored to have been written by Johnson. Such a rumor didn’t surprise me. After all, Mary Shelley suffered a similar fate to Lennox in having it claimed her husband Percy helped her to write Frankenstein (1818). Mrs. Thrale was even subject to people thinking she had an affair with Samuel Johnson. Maria Edgeworth’s popularity declined because she was reduced to being considered a regional author because she wrote novels set in Ireland. Even though she was a huge influence on Sir Walter Scott in writing his regional Scottish fiction, Edgeworth has been largely forgotten in his shadow.
I was a bit disappointed that Mary Wollstonecraft and Jane and Maria Porter were not included in the book, but I assume we have no evidence Austen read either author. My point in mentioning them is that the number of women writers in Austen’s time were legion, and while Romney’s collection is admirable, it only touches the summit of women’s literature of the time. So much more remains to be explored outside the limits of who Jane Austen read.
Ultimately, Jane Austen’s Bookshelf is one that anyone who has read Jane Austen will find enlightening. I agree with Romney that some of these other authors even wrote novels that superseded some of Austen’s. Burney’s Evelina is funnier than any of Austen’s novels. Mrs. Radcliffe’s Gothic novels far exceed anything Austen could have tried in the genre. The result is that a disservice has been done to these authors to have it believed their only value is in their influence on Austen and that she continued their work and is the epitome of women’s fiction in her time. Honestly, if I could only choose one novel from all these women writers to have with me on a desert island, I’d take The Mysteries of Udolpho before I would take any of Austen’s, and Burney’s Evelina would likely be my second choice. Pride and Prejudice would only be third. Austen never described a landscape with the power of Radcliffe nor made us sit on the edge of our seats in terror. She never showed the extremes women suffered under at the hands of patriarchy that Burney was capable of showing in The Wanderer or Smith in Montalbert. Austen was a fabulous author, but she was not the only woman writer of her day. (Heck, Maria Edgeworth even though Emma was boring.) As a result, these other women’s voices deserve to be heard.
I am grateful that Romney has written this book to inform the legions of Janeites that other female writers of the period are well worth reading. Hopefully, it will result in more scholarly editions of their works being produced. Courses in Jane Austen and Her Contemporaries rather than solely in Jane Austen deserve to be taught with Romney’s book as supplemental reading. And Masterpiece Theatre, if you’re reading this, we don’t need any more remakes of Pride and Prejudice or even a The Watsons miniseries. It’s time to produce miniseries of Evelina, The Mysteries of Udolpho, and Belinda. Legions of Jane Austen fans are waiting!
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Tyler Tichelaar, PhD, is the author of The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides: The Marriage of French and British Gothic Literature, King Arthur’s Children: A Study in Fiction and Tradition, Haunted Marquette: Ghost Stories from the Queen City, and The Mysteries of Marquette: A Novel, plus many other fiction and nonfiction titles. Visit Tyler at http://www.GothicWanderer.com, http://www.ChildrenofArthur.com, and http://www.MarquetteFiction.com.
The Gothic Wanderer