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The Mysteries of Udolpho

3.33 of 5 stars 3.33 · rating details · 4,786 ratings · 415 reviews

Beautiful young heiress Emily St. Aubert is frightened when she finds herself orphaned and in the hands of her cold and distant aunt, Madame Cheron. But her fear turns to terror when Madame Cheron agrees to marry the haughty and brooding Signor Montoni, and she finds herself trapped in the castle of Udolpho, threatened by Montoni's terrible greed and haunted by the secrets...more

Paperback, 875 pages

Published 2010 by Penguin Books (first published 1794)

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Dec 06, 2010 Bill Kerwin rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: weird-fiction, gothic, 18th-c-brit

This mammoth, prolix book--the first wildly popular gothic novel--is indifferently written, poorly planned,and inconsistent in purpose and tone. Radcliffe's style is irritating, filled with continual redundancies, superfluous commas and dialogue that is often stilted and improbable. The plot doesn't even get in gear until a third of the way through(two hundred pages!), and it loses its focus and dissipates its power in the last one hundred and fifty pages or so when Radcliffe introduces some p...more
This mammoth, prolix book--the first wildly popular gothic novel--is indifferently written, poorly planned,and inconsistent in purpose and tone. Radcliffe's style is irritating, filled with continual redundancies, superfluous commas and dialogue that is often stilted and improbable. The plot doesn't even get in gear until a third of the way through(two hundred pages!), and it loses its focus and dissipates its power in the last one hundred and fifty pages or so when Radcliffe introduces some pallid new characters and orchestrates a few second-rate thrills that--in their similarities to events of the earlier narrative--verge on self-parody.

Yet the novel has an undeniable power and charm. A lot of this is due to Emily, the virtuous and loving (but never stuffy) young lady protagonist who would certainly become a model for Austen (as well as a source of parody) not only because of her sensible moral nature and highly developed sensibility but also because of her willingness to modify her often mistaken judgments when confronted with more reliable information.

The villain Montoni is also memorable, the prototype of Heathcliffe, Rochester, de Winter and many more. He is not really evil so much as thoroughly selfish, completely arrogant, convinced of the absolute privilege of patriarchy and nobility. He is believable, and therefore infuriating, a worthy ancestor of a long line of gothic villains.

A great deal of the charm of this book, however, comes from the characters' appreciation of the beauty and power of landscapes: fathers educate daughters through landscapes,lovers gaze and comment upon landscapes to each other, evaluate the sincerity and subtlety of one another's character and consciousness based on their reaction to landscapes, and later, when circumstances have forced them apart, they will comfort themselves with the solitary contemplation of landscapes. The villains show no interest in landscapes whatsoever, and the good people, when oppressed and harried by evil, cease to be moved even by the beauties of nature, no matter how sublime they may be. Besides, I believe one of the reasons the book shifts from France to Italy--in addition to signaling a shift in narrative from pastoral simplicity to Machiavellian malice--is in order that the heroine may move from contemplating the tranquil landscapes of Claude Lorrain to surveying the craggier and threatening vistas of Salvator Rosa. "Landscape as character" is as important to "The Mysteries of Udolpho" as it is to "Wuthering Heights" or any Anthony Mann western. If you pay close attention to the landscapes of "Udolpho" (and Emily and Montoni as well) you just might enjoy--as I did--this unwieldy and often infuriating novel.(less)

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Jan 28, 2012 David rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

You can’t beat Ann Radcliffe’s masterpiece for pure escapism. Written in 1794, it was an immediate sensation, and has been popular ever since. It was published between her ‘Romance of the Forest’ (1791) and ‘The Italian’ (1797), her other two great works of Gothic fiction, and its fans included Byron, Scott and Coleridge. For years after its first appearance there were oblique references to it in Keats and Jane Austen, showing that they assumed familiarity with the book.

Containing all the classi...more You can’t beat Ann Radcliffe’s masterpiece for pure escapism. Written in 1794, it was an immediate sensation, and has been popular ever since. It was published between her ‘Romance of the Forest’ (1791) and ‘The Italian’ (1797), her other two great works of Gothic fiction, and its fans included Byron, Scott and Coleridge. For years after its first appearance there were oblique references to it in Keats and Jane Austen, showing that they assumed familiarity with the book.

Containing all the classic ingredients of the Gothic genre, the story follows the heroine Emily, pure and innocent, from the idyll of life on the family estate with her father to the terrors of the castle of Udolpho in the high Apennines. After her father’s death, Emily is taken up by her aunt, who marries the desperate Montoni, and the two women end up in his castle in the mountains. The castle is a vast hulk of a fortress, full of dark, winding corridors, secret passages and mysterious chambers, and Montoni’s companions are a wild lot of heavy-drinking condotierri. The aunt is locked away and eventually dies, leaving Emily to face the terrors of the castle alone.

Actually, all of the supposed supernatural events in the novel are eventually explained rationally, and the explanations are usually pretty lame, but this is not the point. If the explanations are lame, you at least had your disbelief held in suspense for the bulk of the book, and if you feel a bit miffed by the eventual explanation you feel that it was a small price to pay for such a ride.

After Radcliffe, the genre tended to lean towards more graphic violence, torture and sadism and supernatural events, culminating in Lewis’s ‘The Monk and Maturin’s ‘Melmoth the Wanderer. The emphasis shifted over the years from the tale of terror to the tale of horror, and although Monk and Maturin are undeniably exciting and fascinating, you feel that Radcliffe represents more the pure Gothic tradition. Someone should make a film out of this book. Rachel Weisz would make a good Emily, with Alan Rickman of course as the dastardly Montoni, and Kathy Bates as the stupid aunt.
(less)

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Jun 14, 2009 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009, french-francophone, reviewed, boston-janeites, virginia-woolf-recommends, jane-austen-made-me-do-it

Pre-requisites to enjoy this book:

1. Have a long held belief that you are missing some of Jane Austen's jokes in Northanger Abbey.
2. Have read The Castle of Otranto A Gothic Story or a similar. It helps if you've studied early Gothic literature as well.
3. Go with your hopeless romantic streak and indulge in many solitary walks, poetry-writing hours, and sighing with dejection over the loss of a recent love (this is to put you in the mood).
4. Pretend you don't notice when Radcliffe mentions cafes...more

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Jan 13, 2009 Candi rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

Okay this book was written as historical fiction in 1794, telling a story set in the 1500s, by Ann Radcliffe who became popular because of this book, but always wanted to break into the "man's" art of poetry. Knowing that I expected this book to be full of poetry and enlightenment era(barely pre-Jane Austen) ideas/behaviors which it was. The plot of the book is fantastic, very complex and full with just the right amount of scenery, characters, and intrigue. I can see why it was so popular at the...more

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Dec 22, 2007 haley added it · review of another edition

The very first english class I took after I made the resolute decision to become, in fact, an "english major" was English 2330--A survey class of English lit from 1700-the present. My professor was the ex-head of the dept, knew her shit, and was really into cats, opera, and could rattle off all of Elegy in a Churchyard or any amout of Wordsworth by heart, like it was nothing. She was also really into gothic literature-not the Anne Rice variety, mind you- but the authentic progenitors of the genr...more

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Aug 13, 2007 Maeve rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: fans of crying

Shelves: had-to-read-for-uni

dry your eyes! if you get bored while you're reading this (and trust me, you will!) count how many times people cry or have their eyes glisten with tears while looking at a beautiful scene or are moved to tears by pity....argggghhh. really.

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Nov 08, 2010 Lisa rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle, 1001-books-read, 18th-century, britain

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Nov 15, 2010 Michelle rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: stop-whining-hero, prose-tries-too-hard, not-so-classic-books, glad-i-read-it-anyway

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Slow to start, Udolpho is not what I expected from the allegedly archetypal Gothic romance novel. There are hardly any murders, and not one torture chamber to be found. Instead, we have poems and a bland romance, though counterbalanced with some genuine tension and surprises.
Emily, the heroine, can be very annoying, and I was more interested in the servants' stories than hers. At first, she was what I expected: a gentle, quiet girl who fainted so often you'd think she was narcoleptic. Then her...more Slow to start, Udolpho is not what I expected from the allegedly archetypal Gothic romance novel. There are hardly any murders, and not one torture chamber to be found. Instead, we have poems and a bland romance, though counterbalanced with some genuine tension and surprises.
Emily, the heroine, can be very annoying, and I was more interested in the servants' stories than hers. At first, she was what I expected: a gentle, quiet girl who fainted so often you'd think she was narcoleptic. Then her father died, and she proceeded to wallow in grief for months. After things picked up, she was bearable, but then Emily found out that her dear Valancourt wasn't the perfect shining knight she'd thought, all from from hearsay. She immediately decides that not only should she not give him an opportunity to explain himself, she will never speak to him again, period. There are many, many scenes of Emily encountering, being tormented with thoughts of, and rejecting Valancourt.
I would have liked to read more about the minor characters. Specifically, Anette, Emily's servant, her boyfriend Ludovico--he disappears without a trace from a locked, "haunted" room!--and Count Morano, the hot-headed guy Emily rejects. His dogged persistence in chasing her down and trying to run off with her intrigued me. Valancourt, after his fall from grace, became a more interesting character.
The plot is pretty good, after Emily comes home from vacation. A long, thoroughly described vacation. The villain, Montoni, didn't strike me as very threatening, due to his not actually doing anything to Emily or any of his other prisoners. He just hangs out in a castle and bullies Emily into signing over her property. Hence, I suppose it's all right that he receives his just deserts offscreen.
Conclusion: it's okay. Skimming the descriptions of scenery, the poems, and if Emily strikes you better than I, it's not a bad book. Yes, the prose is stilted in the usual really-old-book style, but unlike, say, Moby Dick, there aren't any chapters of abandoning the characters to describe something tangential to the plot.(less)

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Jul 28, 2008 Lauren rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Gothic genre enthusiasts

Hm. I suspect that the only reason I don't read modern gothic romances is that they are usually poorly written. I also suspect that this one, being old, may be well written. I don't know why I automatically assume that anything "old" must be good,or perhaps I am more forgiving of antiques... At any rate, I anticipate deriving an embarrassing amount of enjoyment from it. But we shall see.

100 pages in:
Radcliffe seems to pride herself on her effulgent descriptions of the French landscape, but I've...more

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Sep 07, 2010 "Aubri"/Lisa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was a difficult slog for me. While I understand this novel was written in a time that is very different from our own, the very slow pace made me consider giving it up on more than one occasion. With descriptions and sentences that go on for an entire paragraph (sometimes an entire page!) it was sometimes difficult to stay focused on what Radcliffe was doing to move the story forward. It is definitely a product of its time, but written today I think an editor would have cut the book nearly i...more

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Feb 17, 2009 Liz rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed, gothic, own

As a fan of Austen's Northanger Abbey, I wanted to read this just to find out what all the fuss was about. It features the standard pure-as-the-driven-snow heroine, Emily St. Aubert, who, after the tragic death of her parents, is shipped off to live with her nasty aunt, who has no greater joy in life than to torment Emily, and keep her from her beloved suitor, Valancourt. Just when the nasty aunt finally agrees to let Emily be wed to Valancourt (after it becomes clear that Valancourt is actually...more As a fan of Austen's Northanger Abbey, I wanted to read this just to find out what all the fuss was about. It features the standard pure-as-the-driven-snow heroine, Emily St. Aubert, who, after the tragic death of her parents, is shipped off to live with her nasty aunt, who has no greater joy in life than to torment Emily, and keep her from her beloved suitor, Valancourt. Just when the nasty aunt finally agrees to let Emily be wed to Valancourt (after it becomes clear that Valancourt is actually a rather well-connected young man with Important Family Ties), in steps the villainous Montoni. Montoni is the smooth Italian Don Juan type, and in record time he manages to seduce the aunt and marry her. Immediately after the marriage, it becomes clear that he is actually a villain and a cad of the highest order, and he wastes no time in whisking Emily and her aunt away to his terrifying castle lair in the mountains of Italy. What horrors await her here are beyond imagination. In addition to the various scoundrels attempting to sully her virtue, Emily must cope with everything from mysterious prisoners to sinister locked rooms, not to mention the assorted corpses and possible ghosts scattered about for good measure. As the foreword to my copy of the book so helpfully points out, on average someone (usually Emily) faints every forty-eight pages in Udolpho. What will become of poor Emily? Will she EVER be reunited with her stalwart lover? Or will she perish alone in the moldering, gloomy hallways of Udolpho? *dun dun dun* In its day, this book was condemned as a "horrid novel". Nowadays, they'd probably call it fluff. All in all, I thought the book was great fun, but I probably won't be reading it again anytime soon. At seven hundred pages, with some very dense descriptive passages, it's a rather exhausting read (no wonder everyone was always fainting). I definitely felt it was worth the trouble, and will be keeping it on my shelf for when I recover (in a few years) to possibly re-read then. It has also given me a desire to read more of Ann Radcliffe's works, which I no doubt will be doing in the future.(less)

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Feb 04, 2013 Trevor Allen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

My review won't be terribly long because it has been a while since I have read this book. However, I think a lot of people have read this book expecting it to be like Jane Austen because it is after all a book she mentions in The Northanger Abbey -one of my favorites. Radcliffe I think is a wonderful author, though often times in our modern world you'd think her prose wordy or overly-worked. Some may have to rub their eyes after reading a few pages without advancing further than a grand descript...more

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Jan 15, 2013 Valerie Derbyshire rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this book at degree level for a module on the gothic romances and even that couldn't ruin it for me. Just in case you haven't read it/haven't got time to read 672 pages of small print in the World's Classics edition, here's The Mysteries of Udolpho in a nutshell:

Heroine Emily lives in domestic pastoral bliss with her benevolent father St Aubert and her mother who is generally assumed to be kind, but is glossed over so much in character that we know from page one that she's doomed to die a...more I read this book at degree level for a module on the gothic romances and even that couldn't ruin it for me. Just in case you haven't read it/haven't got time to read 672 pages of small print in the World's Classics edition, here's The Mysteries of Udolpho in a nutshell:

Heroine Emily lives in domestic pastoral bliss with her benevolent father St Aubert and her mother who is generally assumed to be kind, but is glossed over so much in character that we know from page one that she's doomed to die at an early juncture. Mother duly dies (very accomodating of her) and poor old St Aubert suffers paroxysms of grief as a result (there are a lot of paroxysms in this book, so brace yourself if you're going to read it - not a page will be turned without a paroxysm of something being suffered by one or other of the characters). St Aubert (who clearly has access to a better National Health Service than we all do) is prescribed a change of scene by his GP and with this in view he sets off across the Alps with his lovely daughter Emily in tow. During the journey, Emily and St Aubert meet with Valancourt (the love interest) and then St Aubert dies due to the exertions of travel (about the same standard of service as we can all expect from the NHS, after all, then). Emily is then left alone and she returns to her familial home La Vallee and then ends up in the care of St Aubert's selfish sister, her aunt, Madame Cheron. Madame Cheron badmouths Emily's virtues to everyone and anyone who will listen and at first sends Valancourt packing, but then upon finding out that he has a small fortune, encourages him back again to court Emily. Emily duly falls in love with the romantic and sensitive Valancourt. Then, in a new and unfortunate twist in Emily's fortunes, Madame Cheron marries Count Montoni, as villainous a character as you are ever likely to meet in a work of fiction (and the most likeable and interesting character in this book). Valancourt tries to get Emily to elope with him but Emily refuses and as a result, is carried off across the mountains to Italy where Count Montoni tries to force her into marriage with a succession of his villainous mates (Count Morani, Count Verezzi to name but two) in Venice and then finally in the Castle of Udolpho. Whilst at Udolpho, Emily is exposed to all sorts of terrors, not least seemingly finding the corpse of one of Montoni's murder victims. Also her aunt dies. With the help of Ludovico (one of the Count's servants, but one that doesn't particularly like him) and her Aunt's garrulous maidservant Annette (who is utterly charming - if Valancourt is the love interest, Annette is the token comic character), Emily manages to escapes with her virtue in tact, is then shipwrecked and ends up at Chateau Le Blanc - owned by the Count Villeroi who at first discourages her association with Valancourt as he has ruined himself at Paris; but then finds out he was mistaken after all, Valancourt is generally a nice all round chap and they eventually, after much soul-searching, outpourings of sensibility, strumming sad songs on their lutes and penning poetry, get married (and we assume, although it doesn't specifically state this, live happily ever after).

It's an irritating book (mainly for the outpourings of poetry - and one cannot help but think that Emily definitely has a dark turn of mind being that all of her poems inevitably end in disaster - i.e. If she's writing a poem about the sea, it will conclude with a shipwreck with massive loss of life; a poem about travelling will undoubedly conclude with the unwary traveller being knifed to death by roaming banditti), but it's one that everyone should read, not least because until as recently as the Victorian times, this was the one book that everyone who claimed to be educated read. If you claim to have sensibility, this is the book for you. Plus, there's also an awful lot of swashbuckling in it - if you are a fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean series, you'll love this book, which is full of murder, mystery, suspense, sword fights in the rambling passages and staircases of ancient edifices and the threat of ghosts (there are no actual ghosts - even the corpse at Udolpho turns out not to be real). Plus I've missed loads out in my two paragraph detail of this book (but you try fitting a book of this complexity and length into two paras). Definitely one for the reading list. (less)

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Jul 26, 2012 Amerynth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books, fiction, read-2012, romance, gothic

Give me a book about a troubled orphan, whose fate and fortunes are left in questionable hands and whose love life is in a shambles, and I'm a happy reader.

Ann Radcliffe's "The Mysteries of Udolpho" has all that in spades. The unfortunate heroine Emily St. Aubert struggles to keep her emotions in check as she is essentially imprisoned in the Gothic castle of Udolpho by the dastardly Montoni. Cue plenty of weeping and fainting as events unfold at the creepy castle.

Going in, you should know that R...more

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Jul 23, 2012 Amy rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When I first read The Scarlet Pimpernel I made the mistake of reading the introduction. It contained a great deal of nonsense mostly discussing the romantic elements of the relationship between Sir Percy and Lady Marguerite. I almost didn’t read further. What kind of horrible book was I getting myself into?! The sexuality of the couple’s affection? Once I got to the novel part, I read uber-carefully, looking for anything even mildly inappropriate or suspicious…
And there was nothing.
Not One Blood...more

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May 02, 2012 Verity Brown rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Fans of Northanger Abbey

Based on references to Ann Radcliffe in Jane Austen's works, and particularly to The Mysteries of Udolpho in Northanger Abbey, I've wanted to read this for a long time. Between Kindle and Project Gutenberg, I finally managed it.

Not that it was easy. In spite of having read (and enjoyed) any number of 18th-century novels, and in spite of knowing exactly what sort of thing I was getting into, I still found myself slogging along, sometimes by pure force of will, finally just skipping the execrable...more

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Apr 29, 2012 Mark rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

How many of those who laughed at Catherine Morland's breathless enjoyment of Udolpho in Jane Austen's "Northanger Abbey" actually went on to read "The Mysteries of Udolpho" itself? Probably not many, and when you first catch sight of the thick tome it's not hard to see why.

Udolpho is a great, flabby monster of a book, with much roaming about the countryside of southern France and the Apennines. But taken within the context in which it was written, it becomes something else altogether.

In her day,...more

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Dec 30, 2011 Meg rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have wanted to read the Mysteries of Udolpho for many years now, since I read Northanger Abbey in college and my professor continuously refered to 'The veil, the black veil!' Having just purchased my Kindle, I was able to find a copy of Udolpho and read it for free.

I am exceedingly glad I did. I have read many Victorian and Edwardian short stories based on horror and ghosts, and I was simply under the impression that with a few select exceptions (The Pit and the Pendellum) the older a book is,...more

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Dec 05, 2011 Melanie rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I picked up The Mysteries of Udolpho second-hand a few years ago. After all, what literature nerd hasn't heard of it and been curious? I found reading it a hilarious journey into the history of popular fiction. It was, really, the "Twilight" of it's day, the must-read that would send young girls off into raptures (as evidenced in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey) complete with a stunningly beautiful and virtuous heroine who is adored by all men who set eyes on her, though she seems to split her ti...more

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Aug 18, 2011 Marissa Meyer rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm having a lot of trouble coming up with an adequate summary of this book. 1: because a lot happens that I feel giving away any element of the plot would require a lot of explanation, and 2: because just about anything I could tell you would probably be considered a spoiler to those who choose to read it.

But I'll try.... This is a gothic romance with all the usual elements: an orphaned girl left to the care of her greedy aunt and evil step-uncle who is stolen away from the love of her life and...more

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Mar 06, 2011 Alain Gomez rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"I believe that memory is responsible for nearly all these three-volume novels"
-Oscar Wilde

One thing I will say for this book is that it made Oscar Wilde's plays even more entertaining for me. I now know what he was talking about when he trashes books of "unusually revolting sentimentality." And what he says is very true. I am absolutely certain that Ann Radcliffe wrote this book as a sort of extended journal for her travels. At least half of it is devoted to scenery descriptions. Now this is...more "I believe that memory is responsible for nearly all these three-volume novels"
-Oscar Wilde

One thing I will say for this book is that it made Oscar Wilde's plays even more entertaining for me. I now know what he was talking about when he trashes books of "unusually revolting sentimentality." And what he says is very true. I am absolutely certain that Ann Radcliffe wrote this book as a sort of extended journal for her travels. At least half of it is devoted to scenery descriptions. Now this is not a bad thing in itself. I read "classics" all the time and I understand/appreciate that books tended to be more long winded due to the limited amounts of solo activities available at the time. But this is ridiculous.

I should point out that the full title of this book is "The Mysteries of Udolpho, A Romance; interspersed with some pieces of poetry by Ann Radcliffe." SOME pieces?!? Give me a break. She throws in her poetry every chance she gets. Her prose is neither creative or inspired. Every single verse is cheesy, lacking good poetic structure and ALWAYS about nature. This quickly gets redundant and I found myself skipping over her longer ones which can last for pages.

I have seen a few reviewers compare this book as the predecessor to Jane Austen. I beg to differ. I have read every single one of Jane Austen's books and these authors are separated by one very crucial fact: Jane Austen is a good writer and Ann Radcliffe is not. Radcliffe's writing style is extremely difficult to follow. Commas seem to be a critical plot point with her. Any kind of sentence and/or dialogue will read something like this:

"Emily, called, as she had requested, at an early hour, awoke, little refreshed by sleep, for uneasy dreams had pursued her, and marred the kindest blessing of the unhappy, but, when she opened her casement, looked out upon the woods, bright with the morning sun, and inspired the pure air, her mind was soothed."

Yes, that is all one sentence. I am almost positive that I've heard William Shatner talk more fluidly.

Despite all my griping about this book, I think the thing that annoyed me the most was that I really just didn't care about Emily. She struck me as very spoiled and sheltered. She cries nonstop and is constantly wallowing in self pity. In reality, none of the characters (not even her "evil" uncle) really abuse her. They are strict and worldly, nothing more. In one especially nauseating scene she is driving in a carriage with her aunt and uncle, wallowing in self pity as usual, and sees some peasants playing instruments. She then thinks to herself how lovely it would be to be a peasant because then she could spend the whole day doing whatever she wanted and not be controlled by an evil aunt and uncle. Umm... what?!? Last time I checked, peasants did NOT live a charmed life.

In contrast to Emily and Valancourt, I found myself actually liking her "evil" stepuncle, Montoni. He was pretty much the only character with ANY kind of common sense.

To sum up, save yourself a painful +/- 700 page read. If you want a cute and light romance I suggest checking out books by Georgette Heyer. Or go to the Bronte sisters if you want something more Gothic and substantial. (less)

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Feb 15, 2011 Jamie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm just another one of those people who read this on Jane Austen's recommendation. (I do thing she's qualified, don't you?)

A Gothic Novel was never meant to be great literature. At the time of it's publication, fans of the genre were regarded the same as modern-day Anne Rice fans. ("Oh how nice, she's reading a book. At least she's not out having anonymous sex in exchange for drugs.") (Actually, you could argue that Anne Rice is a modern Gothic Novelist, but I digress.)

That being said, why aren...more

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Aug 20, 2010 Juushika rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: status-borrowed

In 1580s France, young Emily St. Aubert is orphaned and later imprisoned in a remote castle in this dreamlike, rambling gothic classic. Approach Udolpho burdened by expectation, and the book may be a disappointment. It's an influential, classic piece of gothic literature, yet two thirds of it takes place not in the dark halls of Udolpho but in the French countryside. It's both exemplified and criticized for its gothic clichés of haunted castles and fainting women, yet for every ghostly mystery i...more In 1580s France, young Emily St. Aubert is orphaned and later imprisoned in a remote castle in this dreamlike, rambling gothic classic. Approach Udolpho burdened by expectation, and the book may be a disappointment. It's an influential, classic piece of gothic literature, yet two thirds of it takes place not in the dark halls of Udolpho but in the French countryside. It's both exemplified and criticized for its gothic clichés of haunted castles and fainting women, yet for every ghostly mystery is a dry, factual explanation, and this insistance upon the "explained supernatural" can be both disappointing and anticlimactic. Slow pacing, clunky narrative arcs, and unrealistic explication may frustrate modern readers, but what makes the book a disappointment is that it doesn't not seem as gothic as it could be—or as popular knowledge represents it.

But approach the book with indulgence and patience, and it has moments to reward both. Fans of gothic literature will still find Udolpho an interesting view into the genre's development, particularly in the role of the sublime and the function of human imagination (in place of literal supernatural events) to create horror. And, in defiance of its other limitations, Udolpho has some exceptional moments—sympathetic and honest human interactions, perceptions into human thought, evocative atmospheric and natural descriptions. These moments vary from indulgently gothic to thoughtful or romantic, but each is a quiet delight. Udolpho may not have stood the test of time ("a lot of the book's emotional force has dissipated (xxi)," states Castle in the incisive, apt introduction to the Oxford World Classic edition), and the book is not for all readers, but it is an important and interesting historical selection of the gothic genre—and to the reader who has patience for the book's failings and interest in its strengths, there is something of value here: a number of surprisingly atmospheric, perceptive moments sprinkled within a dreamlike, rambling story of shifting tone and setting. I give it a mediocre recommendation—to the right sort of reader.(less)

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Mar 13, 2010 emily rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have never seen the word "melancholy" used as much as in this book, nor in such widely varied situations.

Do not go to Udolpho for character development (there's none -- people are wholly good, wholly servant-funny, wholly evil, or wholly conniving) or for rapid plot developments (we spend a lot of time looking at melancholy vistas, worrying about whether banditti may linger in the forests, or seeing peasant children from a distance and finding them picturesque). However, if you created the "Gr...more

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Mar 08, 2010 FiveBooks rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fivebooks-on-israel-palestine-art

Writer Alon Hilu has chosen to discuss Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho , on FiveBooks as one of the top five on his subject - Israel and Palestine in Art, saying that:

"When I sat down to write my latest book I decided I wanted it to be gothic. If you Google gothic you can find the name Ann Radcliffe and this is one of her most famous books. So I summarised it and made a list of the gothic motifs I wanted to include in my book, like events taking place at night and a raven."

The full...more

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Feb 06, 2010 Kristen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I admit it: I read this primarily because Northanger Abbey is one of my favorite books, and I wanted to understand more of the jokes.

The Mysteries of Udolpho is fun in its own right, though. It's not great literature, but it's never dull. The poor heroine is swept breathlessly from accident to tragedy to bliss back to misery without a pause, only to have everything wrapped up quite suddenly, and to perfect satisfaction at the end. This is exactly the sort of reading you can imagine a Georgian t...more

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Jan 18, 2013 Joanna rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Well, after three long years I finally finished this. I really only read it so I could read Northanger Abbey with some background knowledge.

This book makes it painfully obvious that they didn't have editors in 1790. I've never read something so repetitive about fluffy romantic descriptions of sunsets. I get it the sunset was pretty! It doesn't need to be described every chapter. And the commas! Good God the commas. Every, sentence is literally, written, like this; with copious amounts, of, comma...more

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Jun 17, 2012 Herman Gigglethorpe rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: why-is-this-a-classic

One of my friends often reads silly romances, and told me of a gothic novel parody called "Miss Butterworth and the Mad Baron" that often appears as a running gag in some of them. I thought that Mysteries of Udolpho would basically be that, except not as a joke. I expected a light read about a cackling supervillain that would make me laugh for a few days.

I WAS WRONG.

*JUST READ THESE SPOILERS AND SAVE YOURSELF THE TROUBLE OF READING THIS TRIPE*

This book is why God created editors, and why paying...more

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Mar 13, 2013 Geetika rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

One more successful addition of a classic novel on my read list.

About this novel, i actually liked in spite of my severe prejudice for them being slow in pace and unnecessarily filled with too much of details regarding the scenery and too much character assessment done by the protagonist of self and other characters around him.

Although, "The mysteries of Udolpho" too suffers from these classical weaknesses of the novels of the classical genre but still it becomes likable because of it clear-cu...more

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Feb 09, 2013 Leya rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classic, library-book

Well, it was a definite challenge. For me, at least.

I struggled with it all along. But I kept on reading, even though I found the writing to be flowery, it had a kind of poetry that kept me going. In all honesty I think the first hundred pages aren't needed - just my opinion - it just drags on and on.

But once it gets to the Gothic parts, it definitely turns around. It's more exciting and scary. And I think that's what appealed to me. I like dark and sinister stories, and I'm not afraid to admit...more

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About Ann Radcliffe

Ann Radcliffe was an English author, a pioneer of the gothic novel.

Radcliffe was born Ann Ward in Holborn. At the age of 22, she married journalist William Radcliffe, owner and editor of the English Chronicle, in Bath in 1788. The couple was childless and, to amuse herself, she began to write fiction, which her husband encouraged.

She published The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne in 1789. It set the...more

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Quotes from The Mysteries of Udolpho

“Such is the inconsistency of real love, that it is always awake to suspicion, however unreasonable; always requiring new assurances from the object of its interest.” — 9 people liked it

“A well-informed mind is the best security against the contagion of folly and vice. The vacant mind is ever on the watch for relief, and ready to plunge into error, to escape from the languor of idleness. Store it with ideas, teach it the pleasure of thinking; and the temptations of the world without, will be counteracted by the gratifications derived from the world within.” — 8 people liked it

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