kumori's reviews
351 reviews

Now i can see why Mrs. Ann Radcliffe (reportedly) so disgusted by this book and she even wrote The Italian (also with a monk as one of the central figure+villain) which is the direct antithesis of The Monk as an act of retaliation lol. Surprisingly, eventhough i had prepared myself to dislike the book from the start but i ended up liking it? 

50 pages in i decided to skim it until the end and it turned out that the book is more a hisfic with only a few ghost appearances and without any gothic atmosphere whatsoever *sigh

Just a silly little book that is neither gothic nor victorian sensationalism (although the author clearly tried to include the elements of both) Idk if it's really the author's attention but by the time it reached the denouement i can only think of it as penny dreadful. Plus point for the old-school illustrations in the style of 19th century victorian novels. 

Just managed to read one story and well...there's a reason why these novellas are not well known among the early gothic literatures. Percy Shelley's writing skill at seventeen was definitely not the same as Mary Shelley's writing skill at nineteen 

For an 18th century gothic this book is fairly easy to read than let's say Ann Radcliffe's books. it still took me awhile to finished it though but i had expected that. What i did not expect is with a fancy name like De Sevignie, the hero, or rather the love interest of the gothic heroine in this story turns out even more useless than the useless Valancourt from The Mysteries of Udolpho lol 😭