The Veiled Picture; Or, the Mysteries of Gorgono by Ann Ward Radcliffe

The Veiled Picture; Or, the Mysteries of Gorgono by Ann Ward Radcliffe

Beautiful young Emily D'Orville lives a peaceful existence in the French countryside with her loving parents. But when tragedy strikes and leaves her an orphan, Emily is separated from her true love Angereau and imprisoned in the Castle of Gorgono, her sinister uncle's fortress in the Apennine Mountains. Can Emily escape the horrors of Gorgono, or will she fall victim to Signor Androssi and his murderous friends? And what is the mystery of the horrifying picture that hangs in a locked chamber, shrouded in a black veil?

First published in 1802, The Veiled Picture is a chapbook redaction of Ann Radcliffe's Gothic masterpiece The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794). The Veiled Picture faithfully preserves every major character and plot element from Udolpho while eliminating many of its details and descriptions, making it the ideal introduction to the study of Radcliffe's work.

This Valancourt Books edition includes a new introduction and notes by Jack G. Voller, as well as a wealth of appendices, including the complete text of contemporary reviews of Udolpho, contemporary reactions, mini essays on Gothic architecture and the sublime, and a comparison of key passages in The Veiled Picture and The Mysteries of Udolpho.

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	9780977784189
ISBN 10	0977784185
Title	The Veiled Picture; Or, the Mysteries of Gorgono
Author	Ann Ward Radcliffe
Series	Gothic Classics Ser
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Valancourt Books
Year published	2006-10-18
Number of pages	124
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.