Memoirs of Henrietta Caracciolo, of the Princes of Forino, Ex-Benedictine Nun (1865)

Fourth edition of her Mysteries of the Neapolitan Cloister / Misteri del Chiostro Napoletano

Author

Publisher

Printing Details

Fourth edition. Hardback, half-leather with five raised bands to the spine and contrasting leather title label. Marbled paper covered boards. Pages edges dyed reddish orange. 16 × 10.5cm, 176pp.

This copy with the bookplate and manuscript ownership marks of Lieutenant General Somerset John Gough-Calthorpe (1831–1912), he was a Crimean War veteran acting as aide-de-camp to Lord Raglan, after which he commanded the 5th Dragoon Guards (the position he held when he owned this book), and he has dated this July 1865 from Newbridge Barracks in County Kildare.

First published in Italy as Misteri del Chiostro Napoletano in 1864, this work gives an intimate account of Caracciolo's twenty years of forced monasticism in a Benedictine convent. Her father, Gennaro Caracciolo, prince of Forino, had died leaving the family in financial difficulty and her mother sent her to a monastery in 1840. She was released from her vows in 1861.

This book describes her unhappy life in the monastery which she claims robbed her of her youth. It was incredibly popular with the readers of the time, and in particular, with the Protestant readership as it depicts the suppressed eroticism, physical and sexual abuse, thievery, deaths, and insanity of Catholic monastical life. Being so anti-Catholic in tone, she was excommunicated from the Church.

Condition

This copy is in good condition for age. There is surface wear and rubbing to the leather of the spine and upper board. Light spotted foxing to the title page but otherwise the main body of text is in very good condition, with secure binding. Slight trimming to the pages when rebound but no loss of text.