The Mysterious Warning, a German Tale

The Mysterious Warning, a German Tale
Author(s)	Eliza Parsons
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre(s)	Gothic fiction
Publication date	1796
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	c.200 pp
ISBN	NA

The Mysterious Warning, a German Tale is a novel by the English gothic novelist Eliza Parsons. It was first published in 1796 and is one of the seven "horrid novels" lampooned in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey.^[1]

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 out a list of ten or twelve more of the same kind for you.

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

I will read you their names directly; here they are, in my pocketbook. 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 are they all horrid, are you sure they are all horrid?

—Northanger Abbey, ch. 6

Subtitled "a German Tale" it was first published in London by the sensationalist Minerva Press and contains many familiar gothic tropes, including dark family secrets, incest and seduction and ghostly apparitions.^[2]

Editions

• 1824, London: S. Fisher

• 1835, London: Joseph Smith

• 1968, London: Folio Press

• 2007, Valancourt Books ISBN 978-1934555347

Footnotes

1. ^ Voller, Jack G. (21 June 2006). "The Northanger Novels". the Literary Gothic. http://www.litgothic.com/Topics/northanger.html. Retrieved 2007-12-12. 
2. ^ "Northanger Canon". University of Virginia. 13 November 1998. http://www.lib.virginia.edu/small/exhibits/gothic/north.html. Retrieved 2007-12-12.