Eleanor Sleath
‘As Cecilia advanced from the door, she thought the figures on the coffins began to move, their marble features became fleshy—the lights they held waxed pale—a strong sulphureous vapour rose from the tombs. Horror overwhelmed her, and again she made an effort to depart; but her feet, when she would have moved, sunk imperceptibly into the ground—a hot boiling fluid seemed to be gathering around them—and in a moment she was involved in a sea of blood!’Cecilia de St. Bertrand, an orphan of obscure origins who as an infant was abandoned to the care of a peasant woman, wants nothing more than to marry her true love, Varàno. But the objections of his father, the Marchese di Varàno, are not the only challenge Cecilia must overcome. Murderous banditti, a bloody corpse, mysterious manuscripts, the terrors of the Inquisition, and imprisonment in a ruined castle at the hands of a debauched count are only a few of the thrilling dangers and surprises Cecilia will encounter.With a narrative that ranges across Spain, France, Italy and Switzerland, from the palaces of the Venetian nobility to the blood-soaked lair of banditti and the dungeons of the Spanish Inquisition, Eleanor Sleath’s Who’s the Murderer? (1802) is a lost classic of Gothic fiction that ranks alongside The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Children of the Abbey. This first-ever reprint features a new introduction by J.S. Mackley.
