The Orphan of the Rhine The Orphan of the Rhine The Orphan of the Rhine was a gothic novel by Eleanor Sleath, listed as one of the seven "horrid novels" by Jane Austen in her novel "Northanger Abbey". Subtitled "A Romance" it was published in four volumes the sensationalist Minerva Press in 1798. It was part of a brief but popular vogue of German tales, a fashion criticized in the "Critical Review" of June 1807 "So great is the rage for German tales, and German novels, that a cargo is no sooner imported than the booksellers' shops are filled with a multitude of translators, who
Georgian society in Jane Austen's novels titular "Northanger Abbey", or Donwell Abbey in "Emma"), parks (mansions surrounded by a vast park, like Mansfield Park in the novel of the same name, or Rosings Park in "Pride and Prejudice"), courts (another type of mansion, in theory approached via a vast courtyard, like Sotherton Court in "Mansfield Park"), halls (manors, like Uppercross Hall in "Persuasion", and finally simple houses, like Longbourn House, the home of the Bennet family in "Pride and Prejudice". This is why Catherine Morland is so delighted when she discovers Northanger Abbey, thinking, "With all the chances against her of house, hall, place, park, court,