Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Ann Radcliffe
-
Standard Name: Radcliffe, Ann
Birth Name: Ann Ward
Married Name: Ann Radcliffe
Pseudonym: The Author of A Sicilian Romance
Pseudonym: Adeline
AR
is well known as the mistress par excellence of eighteenth-century Gothic fiction, the continuing tradition of which she strongly marked with the characteristics of her individual style. She also produced poetry, travel writing, and criticism. She apparently wrote for her own enjoyment, not because she needed the money, and after five novels in seven years she stopped publishing. She held aloof from the company of other literary people, and kept her private life from the public eye.
It is set in France, and voices anti-Catholic sentiments. The poetry quoted in it (by poets of the Graveyard School like Edward Young
, Thomas Gray
, and Edward Young
, as well as...
Publishing
Regina Maria Roche
The usual US and Irish editions followed, plus a French translation. Valancourt Books
of Chicago (a Gothic reprint house named after the hero of Ann Radcliffe
's The Mysteries of Udolpho) has recently re-issued this novel.
Literary responses
Regina Maria Roche
The Critical Review was reminded unpleasantly of Ann Radcliffe
(from whom, indeed, says Rictor Norton
in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, passages are lifted without acknowledgement).
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.
The Critical summed up this novel as...
Textual Production
Christina Rossetti
In 1856, CR
published an historical short story, The Lost Titian, in The Crayon, a small magazine published in New York.
Smulders, Sharon. Christina Rossetti Revisited. Twayne.
100
Marsh, Jan. Christina Rossetti: A Writer’s Life. Viking.
176-9
. She also wrote some non-fiction on Italian writers (including...
Education
Christina Rossetti
Christina and her siblings were educated by their mother
, in reading, writing, the Bible and rudimentary French. The boys were sent to school when they were seven, while the girls continued at home. Their...
Birth
James Malcolm Rymer
JMR
was born in the Holborn district of London. He was baptized on the 30th of October at St Andrew's, Holborn, the same church where Ann Ward
(later famous as the gothic novelist Ann...
Textual Features
Vita Sackville-West
VSW
has a sharp eye for women in history, for non-noble individuals who touched the story of Knole. As well as queens, duchesses, and countesses, she provides lively sketches of the actresses Nell Gwyn
and...
Literary responses
Eleanor Sleath
The Critical Review observed crushingly that vapid and servile imitations like this one were a severe penance for critics who had been seduced by Ann Radcliffe
into admiration for the modern romance.
Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press.
It is set in a moated castle in seventeenth-century Gascony, with a dissipated Count who mistreats and imprisons his wife, banishes his wife's orphan nephew (the hero, Theodore), and has his niece Adelaide kidnapped...
Intertextuality and Influence
Charlotte Smith
The Critical Review, reviewing this book, called CS
a sister-queen
Fletcher, Loraine. Charlotte Smith: A Critical Biography. Macmillan.
On the strength of this novel the Critical Review hailed CS
as less agitating than Ann Radcliffe
, less diverting than Frances Burney
, but more true to nature than either. In the Monthly...
Education
Elizabeth Smith
From an early age Elizabeth supplemented whatever teaching she could gain by eager study for herself. She seems to have regarded reading and writing as intensely private pursuits: she told Lady Isabella King
that she...
Textual Production
Joanna Southcott
Having had her attention drawn to Ann Radcliffe
's The Romance of the Forest, JS
wrote (or received as dictated by the Spirit) a lengthy prose-and-verse commentary.
Norton, Rictor. Mistress of Udolpho: The Life of Ann Radcliffe. Leicester University Press.
90-1
Reception
Elizabeth Isabella Spence
Rictor Norton
says that this text is derivative from Ann Radcliffe
's A Sicilian Romance.
Norton, Rictor. Mistress of Udolpho: The Life of Ann Radcliffe. Leicester University Press.
207
Intertextuality and Influence
Elizabeth Isabella Spence
She begins with Wales (whose countryside she praises but whose peasants she fairly sweepingly dismisses).
Spence, Elizabeth Isabella. Summer Excursions. Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme.
1: 24-5
Although her title-page does not name it, she returned to Wales on a later journey, and devotes a...
