The Midnight Bell only to see her kidnapped by bandits. The latter third is set in the quintessentially gothic Cohenburg castle and features tales of ghostly apparitions who turn out to be diabolical Roman Catholic priests, another common gothic trope. The Midnight Bell of the title calls the villainous monks to their dark meeting place. The Midnight Bell The Midnight Bell is a gothic novel by Francis Lathom. It was one of the seven "horrid novels" lampooned by Jane Austen in her novel "Northanger Abbey". Dear creature! How much I am obliged to you; and when you have finished Udolpho, we will read
Belinda (Edgeworth novel) to this society novel's spirited heroine. Certainly when Austen was updating her early novel-draft 'Susan', which eventually appeared in print renamed as "Northanger Abbey", she added a reference to "Belinda":" 'Oh, it is only a novel...It is only "Cecilia" or "Camilla", or "Belinda" '; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed". "Belinda" was itself in the tradition of society novels by writers such as Frances Sheridan and Frances Burney, who also charted the travails of bright young women in search of a good marriage. Perhaps Edgeworth's best courtship novel, "Belinda" replaces