You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
This is the first full-scale biography of the famous Gothic novelist Ann Radcliffe, author of The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) the world's first best-seller.
Follow the fortunes of Emily St. Aubert who suffers, among other misadventures, the death of her father, supernatural terrors in a gloomy castle, and the machinations of an Italian brigand. Considered by many to be the first "Gothic" novel.
This Gothic mystery was Mrs Radcliffe's first novel and was considered by contemporary critics to be her finest.
In A Sicilian Romance (1790) Ann Radcliffe began to forge the unique mixture of the psychology of terror and poetic description that would make her the great exemplar of the Gothic novel, and the idol of the Romantics. This early novel explores the cavernous landscapes and labyrinthinepassages of Sicily's castles and convents to reveal the shameful secrets of its all-powerful aristocracy.
First published in 1791, Ann Radcliffe's "The Romance of the Forest," is a classic Gothic novel, a suspenseful mystery that examines the tension between hedonism and morality. An instant success for the author, this novel would establish Radcliffe's as the preeminent author of romances of her era. While Radcliffe's work was similar in many respects to her Gothic predecessors her work differed fundamentally in its breadth of development of her characters. The story concerns Monsieur Pierre de la Motte and his wife, Madame Constance de la Motte, who having fallen into financial troubles and are fleeing Paris in order to escape their debts. While "The Romance of the Forest" is not generally regarded as in the same league as "The Italian" and "The Mysteries of Udolpho," it was Radcliffe's first major literary success and would propel her career. Radcliffe's influence would be profound, helping greatly to establish literary validity for the Gothic genre.
The Mysteries of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe, was published in four volumes on 8 May 1794 by G. G. and J. Robinson of London. The firm paid her £500 for the manuscript. The contract is housed at the University of Virginia Library. Her fourth and most popular novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho follows the fortunes of Emily St. Aubert who suffers, among other misadventures, the death of her father, supernatural terrors in a gloomy castle, and the machinations of an Italian brigand. Often cited as the archetypal Gothic novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho, along with Radcliffe's novel The Romance of the Forest, plays a prominent role in Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey, in which an impressionable young woman, after reading Radcliffe's novel, comes to see her friends and acquaintances as Gothic villains and victims with amusing results.