Hence for many years it was concealed as effectively as
if it had lain in the haunted apartment of one of Mrs.
Radcliffe's Gothic abbeys. Among Jane Austen's early unpublished
writings were "burlesques ridiculing the improbable events and
exaggerated sentiments which she had met with in sundry silly
romances"; but her spirited defence of the novelist's art in
_Northanger Abbey_ is clear evidence that her raillery is
directed not against fiction in general, but rather against such
"horrid" stories as those included in the list supplied to
Isabella Thorpe by "a Miss Andrews, one of the sweetest creatures
in the world."
It has sometimes been supposed that the more fantastic titles in
this catalogue were figments of Jane Austen's imagination, but
the identity of each of the seven stories may be established
beyond question. Two of the stories--_The Necromancer of the
Black Forest_, a translation from the German, and _The Castle of
Wolfenbach_, by Mrs. Eliza Parsons (who was also responsible for
_Mysterious Warnings_)--may still be read in _The Romancist and
Novelist's Library_ (1839-1841), a treasure-hoard of forgotten
fiction. _Clermont_ (1798) was published by Mrs. Regina Maria
Roche, the authoress of _The Children of the Abbey_ (1798), a
story almost as famous in its day as _Udolpho_.
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