The Necromancer; or, The Tale of the Black Forest The Necromancer; or, The Tale of the Black Forest The Necromancer; or, The Tale of the Black Forest is a Gothic novel by Ludwig Flammenberg (which is a pseudonym for Carl Friedrich Kahlert) first published in 1794. It is one of the seven 'horrid novels' lampooned by Jane Austen in "Northanger Abbey", once thought not to exist except in the text of "Northanger Abbey". The novel consists of a series of lurid tales of hauntings, violence, killings and the supernatural featuring the adventures of Hermann and Helfried and the mysterious wizard Volkert the Necromancer, who has seemingly come back from
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