Henry Summersett, the author of a number of extremely scarce Gothic romances with lurid, alluring titles like "Mad Man of the Mountain," "Final Retribution," and "The Wizard and the Sword," is one of the most fascinating and mysterious of the forgotten novelists of the long eighteenth century. His dark, brooding, and often shocking novels, told in a unique prose style influenced heavily by Shakespearean tragedy and German Romanticism, are intriguing rediscoveries that will be of great interest to scholars and fans of classic Gothic fiction alike.
In "Leopold Warndorf" (1800), Summersett combines the two dominant modes of popular fiction of the era, infusing a sentimental novel with a heavy dose of Gothic gloom. The title character is a young man of beauty and virtue who finds himself unjustly shunned by the world because his birth was illegitimate. Many years earlier, the libertine Baron Altenburg had seduced Leopold's mother, the ingenuous Josephine, who then died in childbirth. The unhappy outcast Leopold begins to see a brighter future ahead when he falls in love with the lovely and charming Augusta and plans to wed her. But little does he know that Augusta is in fact his sister, another illegitimate offspring of the rakish Baron. The unsuspecting Leopold is faced with tragedy on both sides: will he unknowingly consummate an incestuous marriage with his sister, or will he discover the truth and instead be forced to resign the only love he has ever known?
Published by the legendary Minerva Press in 1800, Summersett's powerful novel has never before been reprinted and is known to survive in only two copies worldwide. This new edition reprints the unabridged text of the original two-volume edition from the copy in the British Library and features a new introduction and notes by Steve Orman of Canterbury Christ Church University. Valancourt Books has previously published Summersett's "Mad Man of the Mountain" (1799) and "Martyn of Fenrose" (1801), and several of Summersett's other rare works, also edited by Orman, are forthcoming.

After critics condemned his sensational Gothic novel "Martyn of Fenrose; or, The Wizard and the Sword" (1801) as blasphemous, Henry Summersett returned with the very different "The Worst of Stains" (1804), ostensibly a moral tale about the importance of marital fidelity, but ironically featuring an ending far more horrific than anything found in his Gothic novels.
"The Worst of Stains" opens on a cold winter's night, when the village sexton, Gabriel Fellers, and his wife Mary have their quiet evening by the fireside interrupted by the arrival of a frantic stranger at their cottage door. The unexpected visitor is a young mother, driven mad with illness and shame, having been seduced and deserted by a rakish libertine. In a fit of insanity, she kills herself, leaving her infant, William Berrington, to be raised by the sexton's family.
Despite the stain of being born out of wedlock, Berrington grows into a fine young man and wins the love of the beautiful Lorina. But their domestic felicity is fated not to last: Berrington's friend Russel sows the seeds of jealousy in Lorina's mind, telling her that her husband is having an affair with the unprincipled Lady Augusta Hartley. Slowly and insidiously, Lorina observes the signs of her husband's supposed adultery while the wicked Russel schemes to win his friend's wife for himself. But Russel's machinations have unexpected consequences and will lead to a grisly and unforgettable climax . . .
An updating of Shakespeare's "Othello," Summersett's tale of love, jealousy, vengeance, and murder was first published in 1804 in an edition now so rare that only one copy is known to survive. This first-ever republication of the novel features a new introduction and notes by Steve Orman of Canterbury Christ Church University and a reproduction of the title page of the original edition.
About the Author
Henry Summersett was the author of several lurid Gothic novels, including "Mad Man of the Mountain" (1799), "Jaqueline of Olzeburg, or, Final Retribution" (1800), and "Martyn of Fenrose; or, The Wizard and the Sword" (1801). Little is known about his life, except that he was apparently a self-taught man who was passionately fond of Shakespearean tragedy and works of German Romanticism, both of which are significant influences on his novels.
About the Editor
Steve Orman is an Associate Lecturer in the Department of English & Language Studies at Canterbury Christ Church University.