Clermont is a Gothic novel by Regina Maria Roche

Regina Maria Roche

Regina Maria Roche is considered today to be a minor Gothic novelist who wrote very much in the shadow of Ann Radcliffe. She was, however, a best seller in her own time...

. It was first published in 1798 by the sensationalist Minerva Press

Minerva Press

Minerva Press was a publishing house, noted for creating a lucrative market in sentimental and Gothic fiction in the late 18th century and early 19th century...

.

Plot

Clermont relates the story of the beautiful Madeline, who lives in seclusion with her eponymous father until they are visited by a mysterious Countess from Clermont's past.

Madeline travels to complete her education with her and a series of assaults by shadowy foes cannot dissuade her from unravelling the mystery of her father's past and pursuing her paramour De Sevignie. She uncovers the secret of her own noble origins and her virtue proves its strength through a series of trials and tribulations.

In other media

The novel was one of the seven "horrid novels"

Northanger Horrid Novels

The Northanger Horrid Novels are seven early works of Gothic fiction recommended by Isabella Thorpe to Catherine Morland in Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey :*Clermont, a Tale by Regina Maria Roche. London: Minerva Press....

 recommended by the character Isabella Thorpe in Jane Austen

Jane Austen

Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...

's novel Northanger Abbey

Northanger Abbey

Northanger Abbey was the first of Jane Austen's novels to be completed for publication, though she had previously made a start on Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice. According to Cassandra Austen's Memorandum, Susan was written approximately during 1798–99...

:

Dear creature! How much I am obliged to you; and when you have finished Udolpho, we will read the Italian together; and I have made out a list of ten or twelve more of the same kind for you.

Have you, indeed! How glad I am! What are they all?

I will read you their names directly; here they are, in my pocketbook. Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight Bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid Mysteries

Horrid Mysteries

The Horrid Mysteries, subtitled "A Story From the German Of The Marquis Of Grosse" is a translation by Peter Will of the German Gothic novel Der Genius by Carl Grosse. It was listed as one of the seven "horrid novels" by Jane Austen in her Northanger Abbey and also mentioned by Thomas Love Peacock...

. Those will last us some time.

Yes, pretty well; but are they all horrid, are you sure they are all horrid?

—Northanger Abbey, ch. 6

Clermont, as well as the other "horrid novels", were once thought to be the creations of Jane Austen's imagination, however research in the first half of the 20th century by Michael Sadleir

Michael Sadleir

Michael Sadleir was a British novelist and book collector.-Biography:He was born Michael Sadler, though upon beginning to publish novels he altered the spelling of his name to differentiate himself from his father, Michael Ernest Sadler, a historian and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leeds...

 and Montague Summers

Montague Summers

Augustus Montague Summers was an eccentric English author and clergyman. He is known primarily for his scholarly work on the English drama of the 17th century, as well as for his idiosyncratic studies on witches, vampires, and werewolves, in all of which he professed to believe...

confirmed that they did actually exist and stimulated renewed interest in the Gothic.