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
Northanger Abbey the match between Catherine and Henry is implied as both smart and fitting. Tenille Nowak has noted that critics and editors of "Northanger Abbey" often suggest that the names Laurentina and St Aubin appearing in the text are misrememberings of character names from "Udolpho"; Nowak observes that due to there being very few copies of "The Orphan of the Rhine" available these critics did not realise that the names actually appear in their exact form Sleath's novel. Nowak observes other instances where Sleath's novel is echoed by Austen, particularly in her descriptions of place. A passage from the novel appears