The Mysteries of Udolpho

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The Mysteries of Udolpho, A Romance; Interspersed with Some Pieces of Poetry
MysteriesOfUdolpho cp.jpeg
Title page from first edition
Author Ann Radcliffe
LanguageEnglish
Genre Gothic novel
Publisher G. G. and J. Robinson
Publication date
8 May 1794 [1]
Publication placeEngland

The Mysteries of Udolpho is a Gothic romance novel by Ann Radcliffe, which appeared in four volumes on 8 May 1794 from G. G. and J. Robinson of London. Her fourth and most popular novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho tells of Emily St. Aubert, who suffers misadventures that include the death of her mother and father, supernatural terrors in a gloomy castle, and machinations of Italian brigand Signor Montoni. It is often cited as an archetypal example of the Gothic novel.

Contents

The popularity of The Mysteries of Udolpho helped cement the Gothic novel as a distinct genre, and has inspired many imitators since publication. It was a notable point of reference in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey , which both satirizes and pays homage to Gothic literature. [2] [3]

Summary

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 note that only about a third of the novel is set in the eponymous Italian Gothic castle, [4] while tone and style vary markedly between sections of the work, to which Radcliffe added extended descriptions of exotic landscapes in the Pyrenees and Apennines, and of Venice, none of which she had visited. [4] For details she relied on travel books, which led her to make several anachronisms. The novel, set in 1584 in Southern France and Northern Italy, explores the plight of Emily St. Aubert, a young French woman orphaned by the death of her father. She is imprisoned in Castle Udolpho by Signor Montoni, an Italian brigand who has married her aunt and guardian Madame Cheron. He and others frustrate Emily's romance with the dashing Valancourt. Emily also investigates a relationship between her father and the Marchioness de Villeroi, and its connection to Castle Udolpho.

Emily St. Aubert is the only child of a landed rural family whose fortunes are in decline. Emily and her father share a notably close bond over their shared appreciation for nature. They grow still closer after her mother's death from illness. Emily accompanies her father 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 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 for 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 him upon her. After discovering that Morano is nearly ruined, Montoni brings Emily and her aunt to his remote castle of Udolpho.

Emily fears she has lost Valancourt forever. Morano searches for Emily and tries to carry her off secretly from Udolpho, but Emily's heart still belongs to Valancourt, and she refuses. Morano's attempted escape is discovered by Montoni, who wounds the Count and chases him away. In subsequent months, Montoni threatens his wife with violence, trying to force her to sign over her properties in Toulouse that will otherwise go to Emily on 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 in the castle, but Emily manages to flee with the help of a secret admirer, Du Pont, also a prisoner there, and of the servants Annette and Ludovico. Returning to her aunt's estate, Emily learns that Valancourt has gone to Paris and lost his wealth. Nonetheless, she takes control of the property and is reunited with Valancourt in the end.

Characters

Publication

The Mysteries of Udolpho was published by the radical bookseller George Robinson's company G. G. and J. Robinson at 25, Paternoster Row, in the City of London. [5] The Robinsons paid her £500 for the manuscript and later also published her A Journey Made in the Summer of 1794 . [6]

Reception and influence

In August 1794, The Critical Review published a review of The Mysteries of Udolpho praising it as "the most interesting novel in the English language," but also criticizing the novel's excessive descriptions and anticlimactic ending. [7] Some scholars attribute the review to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, though others dispute this claim. [8]

Modern critics have noted the influence of The Mysteries of Udolpho on the works of many later writers, including Edgar Allan Poe, [9] John Keats, [10] and Henry James. [11]

References in other works

Notes

  1. Norton, Rictor (1999). Mistress of Udolpho: The life of Ann Radcliffe. Leicester University Press. p. 93. ISBN   0-7185-0202-7.
  2. Karafili Steiner, Enit (2012). Jane Austen's Civilized Women Morality, Gender and the Civilizing Process. Routledge. p. 47. ISBN   978-1-848-93178-7.
  3. Caroline Webber,"The Mysteries of Udolpho". The Literary Encyclopedia. 11 October 2008. Accessed 4 June 2011.
  4. 1 2 Radcliffe, Ann, ed. Terry Castle (1966). The Mysteries of Udolpho . Oxford University Press.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. DeLucia, JoEllen (2015). "Radcliffe, George Robinson and Eighteenth-Century Print Culture: Beyond the Circulating Library". Women's Writing. 22 (3): 287–299. doi:10.1080/09699082.2015.1037981.
  6. The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney (Madame d'Arblay) Vol. III, 1793–1797, ed. Joyce Hemlow etc. (Oxford: OUP, 1973), p. 63, n. 8; the contract for Udolpho is housed at the University of Virginia Library.
  7. Gamer, Michael (Winter 1993). "'The Most Interesting Novel in the English Language': An Unidentified Addendum to Coleridge's Review of Udolpho". The Wordsworth Circle . 24 (1): 53–54 via JSTOR.
  8. Roper, Derek (January 1960). "Coleridge and the 'Critical Review'". The Modern Language Review . 55 (1): 11–16 via JSTOR.
  9. Whitt, Celia (8 July 1937). "Poe and 'The Mysteries of Udolpho'". Studies in English . 17: 124–131 via JSTOR.
  10. Shackford, Marth Hale (March 1921). "The Eve of St. Agnes and the Mysteries of Udolpho". PMLA . 36 (1): 104–118 via JSTOR.
  11. Nettels, Elsa (November 1974). "'The Portrait of a Lady' and the Gothic Romance". South Atlantic Bulletin . 39 (4): 73–82 via JSTOR.
  12. Vanity Fair. New York: John Wurtele Lovell, 1881. p. 72.
  13. The Brothers Karamazov. Everyman's Library. Translated by Pevear; Volokhonsky. New York: Alfred A. Knopf (published 1992). 1880. pp. 731, 734.
  14. "Ann Radcliffe – the Mysteries of Udolpho". BBC Radio 4 Extra.
  15. "Drama, the Mysteries of Udolpho". BBC Radio 4.
  16. Pomplun, Tom: "Gothic Classics: Graphic Classics Volume 14". Eureka Productions, 2007.
  17. Retrieved 16 December 2019.
  18. Melville, Herman (1979). Billy Budd, Sailor. New York: New American Library. p. 38. ISBN   9780451524461.

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Have you, indeed! How glad I am! What are they all?

I will read you their names directly; here they are, in my pocketbook. Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight Bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid Mysteries. Those will last us some time.

Yes, pretty well; but are they all horrid, are you sure they are all horrid?

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Have you, indeed! How glad I am! What are they all?

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