Maria monk biography

MONK,MARIA, supposed author; b. 27 June in Dorchester (Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu), Lower Canada, daughter of William Monk and Isabella Mills; d. in the summer of at New York.

Maria Monk had a difficult childhood.

According to her mother, when she was about seven she stuck a slate-pencil into her ear, an accident that caused permanent brain damage. At an early age she showed signs of restlessness and she later engaged in prostitution.

In November her mother reportedly had her confined in the Charitable Institution for Female Penitents, a home established and run by Agathe-Henriette Huguet, dit Latour.

Maria monk book

But far from improving, Maria’s behaviour led to her expulsion in March ; she was pregnant by then.

Maria ran off to the United States. There she found herself at the centre of an anti-Catholic nativistic controversy that had reached a peak when a local mob set fire to the Ursuline convent in Charlestown (Boston) on 11 Aug.

In October a New York newspaper