The Mysteries of Udolpho

1794

De Beer Eb 1794 R

London: Printed for G.G. and J. Robinson

In a creative period of eight years, Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823) wrote five novels. Her success was such that writers like John Keats and Sir Walter Scott heaped praise on her. To Keats she was ‘Mother Radcliffe’. Scott proclaimed her the first poetess of romantic fiction, going further, in 1824 to state: ‘Mrs Radcliffe, as an author, has the most decided claim to take her place among the favoured few, who have been distinguished as the founders of a class, or school.’ That class or school was the Gothic novel, of which she was a pioneer. The Mysteries of Udolpho, which carries Radcliffe’s narrative technique of ‘explained supernatural’ was her fourth and most popular novel. Published in 1794 in four volumes, the London firm of G.G. and J. Robinson paid her £500 for the manuscript. This is the first edition, volume one.