The Mysteries of Udolpho by
Ann Radcliffe
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.
The Mysteries of Udolpho is a quintessential
Gothic romance,
replete with incidents of physical and psychological terror; remote,
crumbling castles; seemingly supernatural events; a brooding, scheming
villain; and a persecuted heroine.
Modern editors point out that only about one-third of the novel is
set in the eponymous Gothic castle, and that the tone and style vary
markedly between sections of the work. Radcliffe also added extensive
descriptions of exotic landscapes in the Pyrenees and Apennines, and of
Venice, none of which she had visited
[3]
and for details of which she relied on contemporary travel books,
leading to the introduction of several anachronisms. Set in 1584 in
southern France and northern Italy, the novel focuses on the plight of
Emily St. Aubert, a young French woman who is orphaned after the death
of her father. Emily suffers imprisonment in the castle Udolpho at the
hands of Signor Montoni, an Italian brigand who has married her aunt and
guardian Madame Cheron. Emily's romance with the dashing Valancourt is
frustrated by Montoni and others. Emily also investigates the mysterious
relationship between her father and the Marchioness de Villeroi, and
its connection to the castle at Udolpho.
Emily St. Aubert is the only child of a landed rural family whose
fortunes are now in decline. Emily and her father share an especially
close bond, due to their shared appreciation for nature. After her
mother's death from a serious illness, Emily and her father grow even
closer. She accompanies him on a journey from their native Gascony,
through the Pyrenees to the Mediterranean coast of Roussillon, over many
mountainous landscapes. During the journey, they encounter Valancourt, a
handsome man who also feels an almost mystical kinship with the natural
world. Emily and Valancourt quickly fall in love.
Emily's father succumbs to a long illness. Emily, now orphaned, is
forced by his wishes to live with her aunt, Madame Cheron, who shares
none of Emily's interests and shows little affection to her. Her aunt
marries Montoni, a dubious nobleman from Italy. He wants his friend
Count Morano to become Emily's husband and tries to force her to marry
him. After discovering that Morano is nearly ruined, Montoni brings
Emily and her aunt to his remote castle of Udolpho.
Emily fears to have lost Valancourt forever. Morano searches for
Emily and tries to carry her off secretly from Udolpho. Emily refuses to
join him because her heart still belongs to Valancourt. Morano's
attempt to escape is discovered by Montoni, who wounds the Count and
chases him away. In the following months, Montoni threatens his wife
with violence to force her to sign over her properties in Toulouse,
which would otherwise go to Emily upon his wife's death. Without
resigning her estate, Madame Cheron dies of a severe illness caused by
her husband's harshness.
Many frightening but coincidental events happen within the castle,
but Emily is able to flee from it with the help of her secret admirer Du
Pont, who was a prisoner at Udolpho, and the servants Annette and
Ludovico. Returning to the estate of her aunt, Emily learns that
Valancourt went to Paris and lost his wealth. In the end, she takes
control of the property and is reunited with Valancourt.
Radcliffe was born Ann Ward in Holborn, London, on 9 July 1764. Her
father was William Ward (1737–1798), a haberdasher, who moved the family
to Bath to manage a china shop in 1772. Her mother was Ann Oates
(1726–1800) of Chesterfield.
[2]
Radcliffe occasionally lived with her Uncle, Thomas Bentley, in
Chelsea, who was in partnership with a fellow Unitarian, Josiah
Wedgwood, maker of the famous Wedgwood china. Sukey, Wedgwood's
daughter, also stayed in Chelsea and is Radcliffe's only known childhood
companion. Sukey later married Dr Robert Darwin and had a son, Charles
Darwin. Although mixing in some distinguished circles, Radcliffe seems
to have made little impression in this society and was described by
Wedgwood as "Bentley's shy niece".
In 1787, she married the Oxford graduate and journalist William Radcliffe (1763–1830), part-owner and editor of the
English Chronicle.
He often came home late, and to occupy her time she began to write and
to read her work to him when he returned. Theirs was a childless but
seemingly happy marriage. Radcliffe 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. In her final years,
Radcliffe retreated from public life and was rumoured to have become
insane as a result of her writing.
Ann died on 7 February 1823 and was buried in a vault in the Chapel
of Ease at St George's, Hanover Square, London. Although she had
suffered from asthma for twelve years previously, her modern biographer,
Rictor Norton, cites the description given by her physician, Dr
Scudamore, of how "a new inflammation seized the membranes of the
brain," which led to "violent symptoms" and argues that they suggest a
"bronchial infection, leading to pneumonia, high fever, delirium and
death."
There are few artefacts or manuscripts that give insight into
Radcliffe's personal life, but in 2014 a rare letter from Radcliffe to
her mother-in-law was found in an archive at the British Library. Its
tone suggests a strained relationship between the two, which may have
inspired the relationshop between Ellena Rosalba and the Marchesa di
Vivaldi in her novel
The Italian.
Little is known of Ann Radcliffe's life. In 1823, the year of her death, the
Edinburgh Review
said, "She never appeared in public, nor mingled in private society,
but kept herself apart, like the sweet bird that sings its solitary
notes, shrouded and unseen." Christina Rossetti attempted to write a
biography of her, but abandoned it for lack of information.
According to Ruth Facer, "Physically, she was said to be 'exquisitely
proportioned' – quite short, complexion beautiful – 'as was her whole
countenance, especially her eyes, eyebrows and mouth.'"
Radcliffe published five novels during her lifetime, which she always referred to as "romances"; a final novel,
Gaston de Blondeville was published posthumously in 1826. She also published a travel narrative of her European travels,
A Journey Made in the Summer of 1794, through Holland and the Western Frontier of Germany,
in 1795. At a time when the average amount earned by an author for a
manuscript was £10, her publishers, G. G. and J. Robinson, bought the
copyright for
The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) for £500, while Cadell and Davies paid £800 for
The Italian (1797), making Radcliffe the highest-paid professional writer of the 1790s.
[1]
Jane Austen parodied
The Mysteries of Udolpho in
Northanger Abbey. Radcliffe did not like the direction in which Gothic literature was heading – one of her later novels,
The Italian, was written in response to Matthew Gregory Lewis's
The Monk.
Radcliffe portrayed her female characters as equal to male characters,
allowing them to dominate and overtake the typically powerful male
villains and heroes, creating new roles for women in literature
previously not available. It is assumed that this frustration is what
caused Radcliffe to cease writing. After Radcliffe's death, her husband
released her unfinished essay "On the Supernatural in Poetry", which
details the difference between the sensation of
terror her works aimed to achieve and the
horror
Lewis sought to evoke. Radcliffe stated that terror aims to stimulate
readers through imagination and perceived evils while horror closes them
off through fear and physical danger.
]
"Terror and Horror are so far opposite, that the first expands the soul
and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life; the other
contracts, freezes and nearly annihilates them."
Radcliffe's fiction is marked by seemingly supernatural events that
are then provided with rational explanations. Some modern critics have
been frustrated by her work, as she fails to include "real ghosts". This
could be motivated by the idea that works in the Romantic period, from
the late 18th century to the mid-19th century, had to undermine
Enlightenment values such as rationalism and realism. Throughout her
work, traditional moral values are asserted, the rights of women are
advocated, and reason prevails
Ann Radcliffe's works are traditionally regarded as anti-Catholic.
She was seen as one of the Gothic authors that brought this prejudice
more into the public eye of Anglican England. Her works, especially
The Italian,
often have Catholic ideas presented in a negative light, including
prejudices in the Inquisition, negative depictions of convents and nuns,
monks as villains, and ruined abbeys. The confessional is often
portrayed as a danger zone controlled by the power of the priest and the
church.
The Italian and
The Mysteries of Udolpho are
both set in Italy, a land historically predisposed towards Catholicism
and against Protestantism. Radcliffe's works would have left her
contemporary readers with an impression of Catholicism as something
ultimately cruel and corrupt, and of the author as alienated from the
denomination and its practitioners.
This connection to anti-Catholicism has been suggested to be at least
partially in response to the Catholic Relief Act of 1791, allowing
Catholics to practice law, open Catholic schools, and exercise their
religion.
Some think she was ultimately ambivalent toward Catholicism and more of a Latitudinarian Anglican, or even Unitarian.
Radcliffe's elaborate descriptions of
landscape were influenced by the painters Claude Lorrain and Salvator
Rosa. She often wrote about places she had never visited. Lorrain's
influence can be seen through Radcliffe's picturesque, romantic
descriptions, as seen in the first volume of The Mysteries of Udolpho. Rosa's influence can be seen through dark landscapes and elements of the Gothic.
Radcliffe said of Lorrain:
In a shaded corner, near the chimney, a most exquisite Claude, an
evening view, perhaps over the Campagna of Rome. The sight of this
picture imparted much of the luxurious repose and satisfaction, which we
derive from contemplating the finest scenes of nature. Here was the
poet, as well as the painter, touching the imagination, and making you
see more than the picture contained. You saw the real light of the sun,
you breathed the air of the country, you felt all the circumstances of a
luxurious climate on the most serene and beautiful landscape; and the
mind thus softened, you almost fancied you hear Italian music in the
air.
