The Necromancer; or, The Tale of the Black Forest
The Necromancer; or, The Tale of the Black Forest is a gothic novel first published in 1794. It is one of the seven 'horrid novels' lampooned by Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey[1].
The novel consists of a series of lurid tales of hauntings, violence, killings and the supernatural featuring the adventures of Hermann and Helfried and the mysterious wizard Volkert the Necromancer, who has seemingly come back from the dead, set in the Black Forest in Germany.
It has recently been republished in a modern edition by Valancourt Books which, for the first time, reveals the identity of the book's author. Originally credited said to have been "Translated from the German of Lawrence Flammenberg by Peter Teuthold" the novel was originally written in German by Karl Friedrich Kahlert and then translated by Peter Teuthold[2]. Michael Sadleir notes that "For magniloquent descriptions of 'horrid' episodes, for sheer stylistic fervour in the handling of the supernatural, the work can rank high among its contemporaries."[3]
Frederick Frank wrote that the novel is a "splendid instance of the Schauerroman at a point of no rational return."[4]
Footnotes
- ^ "Northanger Canon". University of Virginia (13 November 1998). Retrieved on 2007-12-12.
- ^ "Gothic Fiction Introduction". Adam Matthew Publications. Retrieved on 2007-12-12.
- ^ Sadleir, Michael (1944). Things Past. London: Constable, 191.
- ^ Frank, Frederick S. (1987). The First Gothics: A Critical Guide to the English Gothic Novel. New York: Garland Publishing, 177.
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