The Mystic Sepulchre (Gothic Classics)

“Vengeance flashed from his inflamed eye-balls: he drew a poniard from his bosom, and stabbed me to the heart; then, with a horrid shout of exultation, that made the vaulted roof resound, he hurled me headlong down the yawning chasm!”

Set in 15th-century Spain during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the novel opens on a stormy night, when a traveller, Carlos, finds an abandoned infant on the side of the road. Seeking refuge for himself and the child, he takes shelter at the nearby Castle of Henares, where Rodorigo, the villainous son of the noble Count Henares, is preparing his evil schemes. Carlos’s arrival sets in motion a sequence of events involving intrigue, mistaken identity, murder, and the horrors of the Inquisition!

Filled with the usual trappings of classic Gothic fiction – a ruined and haunted priory, a hero confined to a dank dungeon, a pack of banditti in a subterranean cavern, and numerous bloody murders – The Mystic Sepulchre, or, Such Things Have Been (1806) is extremely rare, with only two known surviving copies. This new edition features an introduction by Dr. Joel T. Terranova.