Escaped Nuns

Just five weeks after its publication in January 1836, Awful Disclosures of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery, billed as an escaped nun''s shocking expos? of convent life, had already sold more than 20,000 copies. The book detailed gothic-style horror stories of licentious priests and abusive mothers superior, tortured nuns and novices, and infanticide. By the time the book was revealed to be a fiction and t...