Awful Disclosures

or, The Hidden Secrets of a Nun's Life in a Convent Exposed

by Maria Monk

English, published in 1836

102,962 words (299 pages)

Categories: Religion, Biography, Pulp, Fiction

Lurid and fictional tale of a woman's escape from a Montreal convent, the publication of which stirred anti-Catholic sentiment and discrimination against immigrants.

Excerpt

secure society against one of the most destructive but insidious institutions of popery; American females, an appeal to them of the most solemn kind, to beware of Convents, and all who attempt to inveigle our unsuspecting daughters into them, by the secret apparatus of Jesuit schools. The author of this book was a small, slender, uneducated, and persecuted young woman, who sought refuge in our country without a protector; but she showed the resolution and boldness of a heroine, in confronting her powerful enemies in their strong hold, and proved, by the simple force of truth, victorious in the violent conflicts which were waged against her by the Romish hierarchy of America and the popular press of the United States.

The publishers have thought the present an opportune period to place this work again in the hands of American readers, with such information, in a preface, as is necessary to acquaint readers of the present day with the leading circumstances attending and succeeding its original publication.

ReviewsAdd a review for this title.

Average Rating:

2009.04.01
mrs l mcgarry

To me there are questions for those who would doubt that this lady was indeed in the convent as she claims she was.First how did a protestant girl end up there?Is her mother to be believed she did this to her daughter when she put her in a place to be educated so secret that no one was able to visit her? For the priests and Nuns she was able to recite their names. How would she know their names if she had no contact with them.Its now well reconised that the Catholic Church will cover up any sexual behaviour of the Priests and many are just moved on when fault is found with them and this is now.They had control over woman by being sinless and manly nature could be excused.I have read this book and I feel pity for this young girl who had no life and found no peace.There is hope in Christ and the Nuns never seem to find peace.If Maria Monk was let down it was her own family who past the problem on

2008.02.25
Hugh B. Mulvaney Jr.

This scurrilous, anti-Catholic tract was published in 1836 by a Canadian-born woman who was supported in her lies by a group of Protestant clergymen in New York.
According to one account, author Maria Monk was a disturbed child who fled an asylum where her grandmother had committed her.
She disappeared in 1837 and resurfaced in Philadelphia, having deserted her husband and taken up with another man. She died in jail in 1849 after being arrested for pickpocketing in a bawdy house.
In 1874 a woman claiming to be her daughter published a book about her mother's last days and the daughter's conversion to Catholicism!