The Mysteries of Udolpho - The Library of the Uncommons

Paperback, 650 pages

Published April 26, 2001 by Penguin Classics.

ISBN:: 978-0-14-043759-1

(1 review)

The Mysteries of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe, 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 an Italian brigand. Often cited as the archetypal Gothic novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho appears prominently in Jane Austen's 1817 novel Northanger Abbey, where an impressionable young woman reader comes to see friends and acquaintances as Gothic villains and victims, with amusing results. Source: Wikipedia (en)

1 edition

Beholderess reviewed The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

Review of 'The mysteries of Udolpho' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

I've read this book because of it's important role in the history of Gothic fiction.

Can't say it aged well - the descriptions of nature and random verses might be way too verbose for the modern reader, and the mores of time make what was then intended as a smart and likeable heroine to appear as a doormat.
Also, it is glaringly obvious that the book needed an editor - the pacing is odd, to say the least. It can go for several pages - or chapters - of pastoral descriptions of nature and of every minute sigh of the heroine as she thinks about her parents/love interest, and then suddenly throw the reader a lot of action in a single sentence. The resolution, where every mystery is cleanly tidied up in the span of a few paragraphs, sometimes with no foreshadowing to the conclusion whatsoever (what's behind the black …

I've read this book because of it's important role in the history of Gothic fiction.

Can't say it aged well - the descriptions of nature and random verses might be way too verbose for the modern reader, and the mores of time make what was then intended as a smart and likeable heroine to appear as a doormat.
Also, it is glaringly obvious that the book needed an editor - the pacing is odd, to say the least. It can go for several pages - or chapters - of pastoral descriptions of nature and of every minute sigh of the heroine as she thinks about her parents/love interest, and then suddenly throw the reader a lot of action in a single sentence. The resolution, where every mystery is cleanly tidied up in the span of a few paragraphs, sometimes with no foreshadowing to the conclusion whatsoever (what's behind the black veil? It will be so random that you will laugh), is especially glaring.

That being said, the novel was not quite what I expected in terms of tropes, and sometimes more smart than I gave it credit for. The heroine is not rescued by her love interest - in fact, the love interest plays only a peripheral role in the story and exists only to be the love interest - a satellite character function usually reserved for females. The closest this novel has for a dashing hero is a servant. The supernatural scares the heroes when it appears, but on the whole the heroine does not spend a lot of time worrying about it - the actual threats to her wellbeing she is concerned about are of wholly mortal origin.

Overall I am glad to have read the book, and it turned out better than I've expected in some aspects.