1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Monk, Maria

MONK, MARIA (c. 1817–1850), an adventuress and impostor, who, coming to New York in 1835, claimed to have escaped from the Montreal nunnery of the Hotel Dieu, concerning which, and the practices prevalent there, she circulated sensational charges in Awful Disclosures by Maria Monk (1836). Over 200,000 copies of this book and a sequel were sold, and a violent anti-Catholic agitation resulted. She was finally exposed as a woman of bad character, and her story proved to be absolutely false, but not until she had deceived many people of good standing.