![]() ![]() ![]() The vacant mind is ever on the watch for relief, and ready to plunge into error, to escape from the languor of idleness. Ī well-informed mind is the best security against the contagion of folly and of vice. In all of Radcliffe’s novels, “ a beautiful and solitary girl is persecuted in picturesque surroundings, and, after many fluctuations of fortune, during which she seems again and again on the point of reaching safety, only to be thrust back into the midst of perils, is restored to her friends and marries the man of her choice”. The focus of her books was on the romantic, pure and sensitive heroine, who in the course of the stories has to learn through frightening events to let her mind guide her feelings. This novel established her alongside Clara Reeve as the most influential representative of the gothic novel, which represented her own style within the genre, which clearly differed from that of the previous horror novels. The first edition was still published anonymously, but all others bore the name of the author. Her great breakthrough came with The Romance of the Forest (1791). Her first attempts were the romance novels The Castle of Athlin and Dunbayne (1789) and A Sicilian Romance (1790), both published anonymously. Radcliffe created the novel of suspense by combining the Gothic romance of Horace Walpole, who initiated the genre of Gothic novels with his rather popular ‘ Castle of Ortranto‘, with the novel of sensibility, which focused on an impeccable proper heroine and emphasized the love interest. Illustration from the French edition of The Mysteries of Udolpho (Les Mystères d’Udolphe, 1798) The Gothic Novels Another rumor tells the incredible story that she had been captured as a spy in Paris, or that she ate rare pork chops before retiring to stimulate nightmares for her novels. So it was reported that she had gone mad as a result of her dreadful imagination and been confined to an asylum. Rumors and Storiesīecause of so little was known about the life of Ann Radcliffe, apocryphal stories sprang up about her. Her husband claimed that she died of an asthma attack. When Ann died on February 7, 1823, there were some reports that she was insane. Ann called him her “ nearest relative and friend.” The money she earned from her novels later allowed them to travel together, along with their dog, Chance. They had a childless, but seemingly happy marriage. He often came home late, and to occupy her time she began to write and read her work to him when he returned home. In 1787, she married Oxford graduate and journalist William Radcliffe, part-owner and editor of the English Chronicle. She was born as Ann Ward in Holborn, London on 9 July 1764 to William Ward, a haberdasher, who later moved to Bath to manage a China shop, and her mother Ann Oates. Unfortunately, only very little is known about the life of Ann Radcliffe. – Ann Radcliffe, Udolpho (1794) Ann Radcliffe’s Life “Such is the inconsistency of real love, that it is always awake to suspicion, however unreasonable always requiring new assurances from the object of its interest.” BTW, did you know that Barbara Cartland according to her publisher has written more than 700(!) books, which reportedly sold more than 750 million copies? But, even contemporaries of Ann Raddcliff commented with mockery and sarcasm, most notably the famous Jane Austen, who herself wrote a persiflage on Ann Raddcliff with her notable early novel ‘ Northanger Abbey‘. Today you would probably call it a ‘penny-dreadful’ in the style of Barbara Cartland. The heroine, Emily St Aubert, is imprisoned in an Apennines fortress by a sadistic villain, Count Montoni, and at the mercy of her imagination. Take, as e.g., her most famous novel Udolpho written in 1794, a classic example of Gothic Romance fiction. You might have never heard of Ann Radcliffe, if you are not familiar with English literature, but her prose strongly influenced a literature style called ‘ Gothic novel’, where the supernatural comes into play and all of today’s vampire, horror, and fantastic literature has originated from. On July 9, 1764, English author and pioneer of Gothic novel Ann Radcliffe was born.
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