The Secret Disclosed

In 1860, 23 year-old Margaretta Greene was inspired by unexplained phenomena in her family home (which was built into the ruins of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds) to write a historical novella which gave a narrative to Bury St Edmunds' best-known ghost, the infamous 'Grey Lady' who haunts the ruins of St Edmunds Abbey. Greene told the story of Maude Carew, a nun whose desperate love for a monk of St Edmunds Abbey leads her to conspire with Queen Margaret of Anjou and murder King Henry VI's uncle, Humphrey Duke of Gloucester. The novella proved so sensational in Victorian Bury that it even provoked a riot, but until now it has never been republished and has remained a scarce and elusive work. This edition reprints the original text of Greene's novella along with an extensive introduction by historian Francis Young. Fully referenced with an index and bibliography, this is an authoritative study of Greene's novella as well as an edition of the text.