The Horrid Mysteries
Volumes 1 and 2
by Karl Friedrich August Grosse
London: Robert Holden & Co. Ltd.
First Edition. 1927.
(These volumes are a reprint edition of the 1796 Minerva edition.)

One of 1500 copies issued as part of the publisher's "Horrid Novels" series--the seven novels mentioned in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey. The books were issued with a tissue wrapper with the title The Jane Austen Horrid Novels (missing from these particular volumes). Includes an introduction by the series editor Montague Summers.

These two very uncommon volumes are in nice condition considering their age and fragility. The second volume is missing part of the spine (see photo). The books are unread, free of any previous owner marks and are still vibrant in color. The distinct yellow color of the paper boards imitates a common design popular in the late 1800s to market entertaining reads in Great Britain.

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Summary: The hero of the tale, the Marquis of Grosse, finds himself embroiled in a secret revolutionary society which advocates murder and mayhem in pursuit of an early form of communism. He creates a rival society to combat them and finds himself hopelessly trapped between the two antagonistic forces. The book has been both praised and lambasted for its lurid portrayal of sex, violence and barbarism. H. P. Lovecraft, in his lengthy essay Supernatural Horror in Literature, dismissed it and others like it as "...the dreary plethora of trash like Marquis von Grosse's Horrid Mysteries...

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"One of the Seven Horrid Mysteries of Jane Austen's Gothic Parody Novel, Northanger Abbey"
by Lisa Newman, Lemuria Bookseller

One day when I was straightening the Fine First Editions room at Lemuria I came across a really unusual book--unusual for Lemuria and a truly rare book. The Horrid Mysteries has a colorful and scary-looking cover. The front cover shows hooded figures hovered around a frightened couple in the woods. The back cover features an advertisement for Pear's Soap from 1789 even though this edition was published in 1927.

I finally puzzled out the story of this book and was surprised when the answer led me to Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey published in 1818. Isabella Thorpe is one of the husband-seeking women of Jane Austen's gothic parody novel, Northanger Abbey. Isabella, knowing her friend Catherine's obsessions with gothic novels, suggests a list of horrid novels to Catherine. Here is the passage from Northanger Abbey:

"Dear Creature! how much I am obliged to you; and when you have finished Udolpho, we will read The Italian together; and I have made a list of ten or twelve more of the same kind to you."

"Have you, indeed! How glad I am!--What are they all?"

"I will read you their names directly; here they are, in my pocket-book. Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight Bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid Mysteries. Those will last us some time."

"Yes, pretty well; but they are all horrid, are you sure they are all horrid?"

"Yes, quite sure; for a particular friend of mine, a Miss Andrews, a sweet girl, one of the sweetest creatures in the world, has read every one of them."

"One of the sweetest creatures in the world" had read The Horrid Mysteries--a novel that H.P. Lovecraft called a "dreary plethora of trash" for its sex, violence and barbarism. Who would have thought that Jane Austen characters would have been reading such books? Over two hundred years later, Jane Austen still delights with her cleverness and humor.