The Mysteries of Udolpho
Ooh! A castle! Wow! Let’s check it out! Oh, and split up! I mean, that’s a good idea, right? Nothing bad could happen then!
Welcome to the Mysteries of Udolpho; cited by some as the archetypal Gothic novel.
As is common in Gothic fiction, the main character of this novel is female; ‘Emily St. Aubert.’ Raised as an only child, the novel begins with her and her father’s relationship. This grows stronger after the death of her mother, and during the mountainous trip they take after her death. (“Do you want the bad news, or the good news first? Well, your mother’s dead. But hey! We’re going on a holiday!”)
On this trip, Emily meets a man, the dashing Valancourt, and they quickly fall in love. However, at this point things take a downwards turn.
Emily’s father dies. She ends up forced to live with her aunt, who pretty much has me thinking Cinderella’s aunt. Nasty, self-centered. She and her dodgy Italian nobleman of a husband try to force Emily marry an even dodgier Italian Count, who dodgy Italian uncle then realizes is broke, and sends packing. The uncle then packs them off to his creeeepy old castle, in remote Italy, called Udolpho.
Lots of bad stuff happens, Dodgy-Broke Count fails to abduct Emily (twice!) people die (the aunt, for one, who dies due to heavy abuse by the uncle). There is a lot of stuff which happens in the castle that might or might not be supernatural. Eventually, Emily breaks out of Udolpho (with the help of a secret admirer, no less), and being the heir to her now dead aunt’s estate, goes there, takes control of the property, hears Valancourt went to Paris and ended up broke, doesn’t care, is reunited with him, and lives happily ever after.
This novel is significant to us because of the degree to which it is chiefly this novel Northanger Abby satirizes. It definitely takes the mickey out of Gothic fiction as a whole, but this novel is a key focus.
This was Ann Radcliffe’s fourth book, but is mainly known due to it’s significance in Northanger Abbey.
Nice satirical undertone Owen 🙂 Were you inspired to read Radcliffe’s novel by your research or does it sound too cliché for a modern day reader?
I think I’d have to say the latter. It really just sounded quite cringe-worthily chock-full of clichés. And somehow, it all ended happily, when it sounds like an ending that really shouldn’t work.
To add to that, most of the descriptions of foreign places (which are apparently a really significant part of the novel) were based on (very dated) travel brochures, and are supposed to be not all that spectacular. Especially to the knowledgeable modern reader, this is probably quite painful.
Building onto that, ill be bringing up the background on Ann Radcliff as well as the reception of her fore mentioned novel.
Little is known about Ann Radcliff, due to her being a recluse throughout a majority of her life (in fact someone called Christina Rosseti attempted to write a biography of her life but gave up due to lack of information) ,however there is some information regarding important hallmarks within her life as well as some details of her lineage.
Ann Radcliff (no association to Daniel Radcliff) was born on 9th of July 1764 in Holborn, London originally under the name of Ann Ward, her mother was Ann Oats and her father was William Ward who worked as a haberdasher which is basically a guy who sells capital goods for tailoring (e.g buttons, pieces of cloth, etc). He later on moved to Bath ( the city in England, not the thing in your bathroom) where he managed a china shop.
In the year 1787 she married a Oxford graduate and Journalist who goes by the name of William Radcliff who was a part owner and editor of and English paper called The English Chronicle. His profession caused him to come home late regularly which gave Ann plenty of spare time, which eventually led to her spending it writing and reading her written work to her husband after his eventual return home.
She eventually began publishing her writings, earning her a generous sum of money which allowed her and her husband to go traveling along with their dog. She later on died on the 7th of February 1823, according to her husband, of an asthma attack.
Now that we’ve got her bio out of the way lets look at the reception of her work within the 18th century.
THE CRITICS WORSHIPED THIS WOMAN. There were various titles given to her by critics as a result of the sheer positive reviews she received ( due mostly to her three Gothic romances she published) such as ” the great enchantress of her generation”, or “the mighty magicians of The Mysteries Of Udolpho”. Even though Gothic fiction during that time period was seen as a trashy form of cheap entertainment, people singled out Radcliffs’ as an exception who did not deserve the mass condemnation of Gothic fiction, which goes to show that women do have power unlike what we have seen in regards to their general treatment and restrictions during that time period, Ann Radcliff I solute you!.