An excerpt of Monk's story was first published in the Protestant Vindicator on October 14th,
1835, followed by the full book in January 1836. It was advertised as the true story of a woman named
Maria Monk, 
detailing her life in the Hotel Dieu Nunnery
in Montreal. She shows how corrupt the Catholic priests are in daily life through stories which demonstrate
their debauchery. Monk reveals that there is a secret passage between the nearby seminary and the nunnery which
allows the priests to enter at any time and do what they want with the nuns living there. An especially
horrifying example is the lime-and-salt-lined pit in the basement where the babies that occur as a result
of the priests' abuse are thrown after being baptised and subsequently murdered.
The manuscript was originally offered to Harper Brothers, but as a successful publishing house they did not want to risk their reputation to publish something so scandalous. Instead, two employees temporarily establish a fake publishing company under their own names, Howe and Bates, and released the book in January 1836. Awful Disclosures flew off the shelves. According to the Protestant Vindicator, by the end of July, 1836 it had already sold over 26,000 copies. By the start of the Civil War, it sold 300,000 copies. There were numerous editions released in 1836, and almost immediately after its initial publication editions began appearing with appendixes and epilogues which extend her tale, give more information, and debate the truth or fiction of the work.
These new editions appeared because people wanted to profit off the sensationalism that Monk created;
as Billington notes in his article Maria Monk and her Influence,
the 'No Popery' crusade had created
an appetite for sensationalism among its followers and the success of the Awful Disclosures was due to
the timeliness rather than to literary merit (284). Though this may be the case, the question still remains:
who was Maria Monk? And did she actually write the book that has her name on the cover?
