Klosterheim, by John De Chancey (paperback)
- SKU:
- 9780941028363
De Quincey’s Klosterheim is an archtypal Gothic novel.
The setting is a mythical city called Klosterheim, located in southern Germany during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). This war, which devastated Germany, began as a conflict between German Protestant nobles and the Catholic Habsburgs of Austria. It erupted into general European war when Sweden and later France entered on the Protestant side, in an attempt to crush the Habsburg empire.
The man who rules Klosterheim is a villain who achieved his office by murdering the former landgrave. Though Klosterheim is loyal to the Austrian empire, the landgrave is in secret league with the Swedes, which in effect protects the city from the ravages of war. However, its citizens are tyrannized from within by the landgrave himself.
As the story opens, the Lady Paulina is one among a caravan of citizens traveling under Imperial guard from Vienna to the supposed refuge of Klosterheim. The caravan is attacked just short of its goal by a mercenary host, and though the enemies are driven off, they take captive an Imperial officer named Maximilian, who is the lover of Paulina.
Thereafter, a mysterious figure who calls himself the Masque begins to make strange appearances within the fortified walls of Klosterheim. Wielding what seem to be supernatural powers, he conducts a series of raids which embarrass and outrage the landgrave and his evil lieutenant, Luigi Adorni.
