Ann Radcliffe

This is the biography of the Gothic novelist, Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823), author of "The Mysteries of Udolpho", the world's first "best seller". The text clarifies Radcliffe's emergence from a Dissenting Unitarian, rather than a conventional Anglican, background. This places Radcliffe within the circle of other women writers nurtured in radical Dissenting backgrounds (such as Wollstonecraft, Hays, Inchbauld and Barbauld). Radcliffe's childhood and family background are documented and the rumours of her madness and reclusiveness investigated leading to an evaluation of the resons for her probable mental breakdown. The text constitutes a "cultural history" of a writing woman, demonstrating her place within radical culture, literary tradition and aesthetic discourse, and examining her role in the rise of the professional woman writer. Her novels are analyzed mainly in the context of her biography and sources.

To her contemporaries, Ann Radcliffe was 'The Great Enchantress'. Her wild and stormy Gothic romances made her one of the most popular and successful writers of the later eighteenth century.

This volume broadens the critical understanding of Ann Radcliffe’s work and includes explorations of the publication history of her work, her engagement with contemporary accounts of aesthetics, her travel writing, and her poetry. Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) was the best-selling author of the eighteenth century and her Gothic novels set the tone for a generation of Gothic writers. Regarded as having made a pioneering contribution to the Female Gothic of the period she was also an important critic of the Gothic’s different forms. This collection also includes an analysis of Radcliffe’s account of her medical ailments in her Commonplace Book which provides a new way of thinking about female bodies in pain and how they are represented in her novels. The collection provides an important critical reassessment of a major Gothic writer of the period. It will be of interest to scholars working on the Gothic, eighteenth-century literature, and women’s writing. This book was originally published as a special issue of Women’s Writing.

Arguably the most popular novelist of her day and the mother of the female Gothic literary tradition, Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) has received varying amounts of critical attention and is now being recognized for her important contribution to English literature. This volume recounts what little is known about her life and provides an extensive bibliographic overview of works by and about her. Included are annotated entries for editions and translations, reviews, critical studies of Radcliffe, and adaptations of her works. Ann Radcliffe wrote some of the most electrifying and popular novels of her day. Not only is she one of the most important Mothers of the novel, she almost singlehandedly developed the Female Gothic to explore female experience. This form has achieved almost mythical status. This volume is an indispensible guide to the life and work of this pioneering woman novelist. A biography provides new information on Radcliffe from a source that has been virtually ignored, the one substantial extant manuscript, her forty-two leaf commonplace book, which is in deteriorating condition. The remainder of the book is an extensive annotated bibliography of works by Radcliffe and critical studies of her writing. Included are entries for early and modern editions, early reviews, and bibliographic studies. Two chapters are devoted to 20th-century critical studies of Radcliffe, in response to the growing amount of material being written about her. Appendices record her artistic legacy as presented in adaptations, imitations, parodies, and abridgments; and the volume includes a list of works falsely attributed to her.

The Italian (1797) is a novel by Ann Radcliffe. Radcliffe’s final novel is a tragic story of romance and mystery set in Naples during the brutal years of the Holy Inquisition. Published in the aftermath of the French Revolution, the novel investigates the issues of religion and class that had inspired the Republican cause, changing Europe and the world forever. Considered an essential work of Gothic fiction, The Italian is an early example of her prowess as a leading novelist of suspense and the supernatural. A young Englishman meets a friar while touring Naples. At the church of Santa Maria del Pianto, he notices a shadowy stranger sitting near the confessional. When the friar informs him that the man is an assassin, his friend, an Italian, offers to send him the narrative containing the man’s shocking confession. Back at his hotel room, he reads a story beginning in 1758 at the church of San Lorenzo, where a young nobleman falls in love with a beautiful orphan named Ellena. When Vicentio informs his mother, the Marchesa, of his desire to marry the girl, she conspires with the wicked Father Schedoni to change her son’s mind. Soon, Ellena disappears, sending Vicentio di Vivaldi on a quest to save her life. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.