He is all but forgotten today, but in his time, British author GEORGE WILLIAM MACARTHUR REYNOLDS (1814–1879) was a veritable Victorian Stephen King whose “penny dreadful” serials were more widely read than the works of Dickens, and shocked delighted readers with their lurid tales of murder, intrigue, and supernatural doings.

This “horrible” tale, first published in 1851–2, opens in the year 1510 in an actual Gothic hall, where a young lady of “exquisite beauty” has been terribly affrighted. From there flows a tale so fiendishly wicked—at least to 19th-century sensibilities—that even a King may find himself haunted...

Fans of horror and students of the history of pulp fiction will be enthralled by this little-remembered novel, which Cosimo is proud to present here in a charming replica of an 1857 edition, complete with the original illustrations.