The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

Ann Radcliffe's narrative catapults the reader into a bygone age of fragile sensibilities and fiercely preserved honour. The story begins within the luxuriant woods and vine of Gascony and moves on into the rugged splendour of the Apennines.

Ann Radcliffe was born in 1764, the daughter of a London tradesman. In 1786 she married William Radcliffe, later the manager of The English Chronicle. She set her first novel, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne (1789), in Scotland, and it received little critical or public attention. Using more exotic locations in Europe, notably the 'sublime' landscapes of the Alps and Pyrenees, she wrote four more novels within ten years: A Sicilian Romance (1790), The Romance of the Forest (1791), The Mysteries of Udolfo (1794) and The Italian (1797), as well as a volume of descriptions of her travels in Holland, Germany and the Lake District.

The success of The Romance of the Forest established Radcliffe as the leading exponent of the historical Gothic Romance. Her later novels met with even greater attention, and produced many imitators (and, famously, Jane Austen's burlesque of The Romance of the Forest in Northanger Abbey), and influenced the work of Sir Walter Scott and Mary Wollstonecraft.

The Italian was the last book she published in her lifetime; a novel, Gaston de Blondeville, and St. Albans Abbey: A Metrical Tale were published posthumously. Despite the sensational nature of her romances and their enormous success, Radcliffe and her husband lived quietly--she made only one foreign journey and barely glimpsed the Alps that she wrote about so vividly. She died in 1823 from respiratory problems probably caused by pneumonia.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780192815026
ISBN 10	0192815024
Title	The Mysteries of Udolpho
Author	Ann Radcliffe
Series	^Aworld's Classics Ser
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Oxford University Press
Year published	1980-05-01
Number of pages	694
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.