Q: When, where, and by whom was your text first printed?
The earliest texts I can find are from 1836, of which several are available online (yay for no copyright laws in 1836!):
This contains a small appendix of early reviews, which indicates it had been previously published.
Monk, Maria. Awful Disclosures by Maria Monk, of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery of Montreal, Revised, with an Appendix. New York: Maria Monk, 1836.
This text contains a nearly exhaustive appendix containing newspaper articles and reviews, a sequel recounting what happens to Monk after she leaves the convent, and a summary of the events surrounding the public’s response to the text, as well as an explication of the design of the convent depicted in the map that appears in the front matter of this edition.
Additionally, there exists from the same year a response to Monk’s account:
Monk, Maria. Further Disclosures by Maria Monk, Concerning the Hotel Dieu Nunnery of Montreal Also, Her Visit to Nuns' Island, and Disclosures Concerning That Secret Retreat: Preceded by a Reply to the Priests' Book. New York: J. J. Slocum, 1836.
The most commonly listed is the New York edition, apparently self-published. The multiplicity of editions within the first year of publication indicates that this case caused at least somewhat widespread controversy, thus the need for repeated explication. The first two (Manchester and New York) editions reference an earlier edition by Howe and Bates that I believe is this one:
Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk: As Exhibited in a Narrative of her Sufferings During a Residence of Five Years as a Novice, and Two Years as a Black Nun, in the Hoten Dieu Nunnery at Montreal. New York: Howe & Bates, 1936.
I have thus far been unable to obtain a copy of this first edition but have decided to use the New York self-published edition for research purposes, as it contains the author’s revisions and additions and seems to be most often cited. I found this edition on microfilm as well as online.
Q: How often was your text reprinted? List all of the reprints.
In addition to the early ones I have already mentioned:
Awful Disclosures by Maria Monk and the Startling Mysteries of a Convent Exposed. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson, 1836.
Awful Disclosures by Maria Monk or the Hidden Secrets of a Nun’s Life in a Convent Exposed. London: Cambridge Publishing Co., 1836.
Awful Disclosures by Maria Monk, of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery of Montreal. London: James S. Hodson, 1837.
Awful Disclosures, by Maria Monk, of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery of Montreal, Containing, also, Many Incidents Never Before Published. New York: DeWitt & Davenport, Publishers, 1855.
Awful Disclosures of Maria Monk, as Exhibited in a Narrative of her Sufferings during Her Residence of Five Years as a Black Nun in the Hotel Dieu Nunnery, at Montreal, Ont. New York: D. M. Bennett, 1878.
These are only a few; there are scores of editions, many of which are just reprints of earlier editions already mentioned that have been redistributed by different publishers. This indicates first that Monk’s work was often called into question and reevaluated and second that more or less anyone was authorized to reprint a text.
Q: What was the actual size of your text in inches or centimeters? What information can you find about its physical presence, binding, etc.? Do you think it was expensive or inexpensive?
As I haven’t had access to a physical copy of the book, this is hard to say; all editions I have encountered have been either in pdf or microfilm. Given the excess of editions, I would assume that this work was, in one form or other, easily accessible to many and thus relatively inexpensive.
Q: View the original title page using the digital database or microfilm. What is included there?
This is from the aforementioned 1836 self-published edition available online and on microfilm at UCF:
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Q: If there is more than one edition, compare the title pages.
The other 1836 editions:
The Further Disclosures title page is almost impossible to make out due to the quality of the image, but here it is anyway:
The 1855 edition:
It seems that, with the exception of the Further Disclosures text, the title pages seem to become less verbose as time goes on. Whether this is due to redundancy or just because it became over time less fashionable to summarize the entirety of a text’s contents on a title page, I’m not sure.
Q: What miscellaneous front matter exists?
The front matter is different among all the early editions. The main (New York) text begins with a map of the convent depicting the house, the grounds, the alleged undergound tunnel between the convent and the nunnery, and Maria Monk’s route of escape:
From the (presumably slightly earlier) Manchester 1836 text:
The 1855 edition has no front illustrations.
While the prefaces differ from edition to edition, the gist is similar: Monk defends the veracity of her claims and charges readers/reviewers/detractors to visit the convent in question and look at its architecture if they doubt her story. The presence of the map in the New York 1836 edition indicates further Monk’s insistence that the reader take her story as absolute truth; by providing a physical manifestation of her surroundings she helps eradicate doubt.
The fact that she not only defends her claims in the prefaces and the front art but also includes corroborating articles in multiple editions indicates that either her shocking account of her experiences in the convent is true and she is horrified at the possibility of its not being believed less atrocities continue or that she is casting a fictional story as truth for some other reason, whether for dramatic effect, fame, or personal gain. Either way, the prefaces point out the issue of truth versus fiction as central to research on this work.
Q: How long is your text? Is it broken into volumes and chapters or is it one big chunk? How many volumes and/or chapters? Is the print large and easy to read or dense, with many words on each page and lines close together?
The text appears more or less modern; the S’s don’t look like f’s and everything is typed similarly to the way it would be today; it’s well spaced and easily readable. The main text, including the appendices and blank pages, is 376 pages long.
The easy readability of the text in contrast to, for example, Winthrop or other earlier writers, situates the work as well into the twentieth century. The regime of the Puritans has been over for a while and thus is not a major issue in this text; twentieth century Catholicism is a new and different animal and must be treated as such in research.
Q. What back matter exists?
The revised text contains several appendices: a large collection of critical responses to the work, a detailed description of the topography of the convent, a summary of the hoopla surrounding the book’s publication, and a sequel. This back matter constitutes almost 150 pages; the book itself is just over 200. The fact that Monk goes to almost as much textual trouble proving her claims as she does making them leads one, again, to the theme of truth versus fiction in research on this text.
Q: Given all of the above, what might you wish to include as you think about creating a virtual/physical site for your project (your blog)?
I would like to include more recent resources evaluating whether this work is biography or fiction: was there actually a Maria Monk, was she actually in this convent, and was it as chock full of torture, gang rape, infanticide, and general craziness as the book depicts? I would also like to situate it contextually be researching similar stories (in particular the “Gates of Hell” story Monk was accused of plagiarizing, as well as other escaped nun tales and anti-Catholic literature from around the same time).
I find it fascinating that Monk republished her text to include an appendix full of proof, "almost 150 pages." That's almost as long as the text itself! She seems to be taking control of her story and her voice in a very direct manner.
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