in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal.

Life in the Grey Nunnery was first published in Boston,
in 1857 by Edward P. Hood, who was credited as the book's
editor. It is likely that this account is by Sarah J.
Richardson "as told to" Edward Hood, though it may in
fact be completely fictional. It is clearly an
anti-Catholic book, an example of the genre of fiction
referred to as "the convent horror story." Anti-Catholic
sentiments were common in the United States during the
middle part of the 1800s probably directed at the relatively
large number of Catholic immigrants arriving from Germany,
and particularly Ireland during this period. These
sentiments resulted in riots and the burning of churches,
including the destruction by a mob of the Ursuline convent
and girl's school in Charlestown Massachusetts. During
this period a powerful nationalist political party the
"Know Nothings" also emerged, and won a number of
influential positions in the 1850s, particularly in New
England. They succeeded in creating legislation hostile
to the Catholic church, barring Catholics from various
positions and requiring Catholic institutions to submit
to hostile "inspections." The interested reader is
encouraged to use a literature search for the terms MARIA
MONK or KNOW NOTHINGS to learn more about this genre of
literature and the social circumstances in which it was
created.