The Confessional of the Black Penitents

Published in 1797 as The Italian, this Gothic novel follows Vincentio di Vivaldi, a Neapolitan noble, and Ellena Rosalba, the young woman he loves, whose obscure birth makes his mother the Marchesa determined to part them. She employs Father Schedoni, an ambiguous monk of the Black Penitents, to have Ellena removed to a convent and worse. Vivaldi's search leads through church prisons and the Inquisition. Apparitions and midnight voices are finally given human causes. The book is a novel of pursuit and clerical menace, not a theological treatise.

Bound in quarter black cloth with marbled boards. Black slipcase.