Among the controversial literary works published throughout world history, few have sparked the level of outrage and obsession associated with Matthew Lewis’ 1796 novel The Monk. Even before his book bugged out eyes all across London, the patriarch was feeling hesitant toward Gothic plots. On one hand, Ann Radcliffe’s narrative puzzleboxes were charmingly written. But on the other, her female characters were too pushy against their fathers, too resistant of assigned husbands, and too eager to run off on exotic adventures. A girl could get ideas reading such folly. What a mess that would be!

The Castle of Otranto was the Blair Witch Project of 1764. Both were game-changers which popularized a new genre. Blair Witch launched the “found footage” horror trope and Otranto inaugurated the “Gothic.”

Interestingly enough, Otranto also employs a “found footage” gimmick with its first edition, pretending that the original manuscript was hundreds of years old, unearthed from the dusty library of an “ancient Catholic family” and had to be translated from Italian. There’s a lengthy introduction written by the “translator” explaining all his theories about how much of the story might be true and what the author intended to achieve. This charade isn’t part of the game-changing nature of the novel, however, because such a tactic was in vogue at the time.

Originally published in 1813, The Forest of Valancourt is noteworthy for being a particularly rare Gothic novel. Prior to this re-publication, only one copy remained in existence at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Major kudos to Valancourt Books for bringing it back to life. Now they are a major publisher of the rare and obscure, but this appears to be one of their first re-print efforts. And quite a fitting title, I must say.

As for the novel itself, it’s pretty terrible. I’ve never read anything paced so furiously. Drama flies in all directions, with battles, breakups and blunders all happening simultaneously. No time to linger upon the conflict’s significance, we’re immediately set off to the next disaster. Nearly every paragraph begins with a “Three weeks later” or “later that day” or “suddenly” or “abruptly” to signify a vast transition. Further contributing to the cacophony of chaos is the large cast and shifting POV, which skips from person to person like a pebble in rapids.