Mistress of Udolpho - Life of Ann Radcliffe (Paperback)

This is the first full-scale biography of the famous Gothic novelist, Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823), author of The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794), the world's first "best-seller." The author has unearthed new information about Radcliffe, and gives us a contextual picture of Radcliffe that is unlikely to be superseded. He clarifies Radcliffe's emergence from a Dissenting Unitarian, rather than a conventional Anglican, background. This discovery redraws the literary historical map to include Radcliffe within the circle of other women writers in radical Dissenting backgrounds (such as Wollstonecraft and Barbauld). Norton fully documents Radcliffe's childhood and family, investigates the rumors of her madness and her extraordinary reclusiveness, and evaluates the reasons for her probable mental breakdown. But it also constitutes a "cultural history" of a writing woman, demonstrating her place within radical culture and literary tradition, examining her crucial role in the rise of the professional woman writer. Her novels are analyzed mainly in the context of her biography and her sources, and some new dates for her posthumous work are established.