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.
The Times did indeed review it, and using the extended metaphor of a hunt, pronounced it a good galloping novel . . . to be enjoyed rather than criticised,
Times. Times Publishing Company.
(18 November 1862): 4
and praised...
Literary responses
Sarah Harriet Burney
Charles Burney
, too, slighted his youngest daughter's work in comparison with the elder's.
Burney, Sarah Harriet. “Editor’s Introduction”. The Letters of Sarah Harriet Burney, edited by Lorna J. Clark, Georgia University Press.
lxii
Jane Austen
later noted that Clarentine seemed good on the first reading, not so good on the second, and unnatural...
Literary responses
Elizabeth Hervey
The Critical Review once again praised the style and characters. It judged the novel too long and its plot too complicated, but that the whole was certainly superior to the majority of flimsy publications of...
Literary responses
Anna Maria Mackenzie
The Critical Review was unimpressed, classifying this as an inadequate imitation of Radcliffe
, incorporating the apparently obligatory ingredients of cruel German counts, each with two wives—old castles—private doors—sliding panels—banditti—assassins—ghosts &c. This mixture, it...
Literary responses
Anna Maria Mackenzie
It provoked the Critical to extended complaint about the pains of reviewing. Nothing, it said, was so harrassing and tedious as a novel without a plan like this,
Garside, Peter et al., editors. The English Novel 1770-1829. Oxford University Press.
1: 684
in which detached scenes of...
Occupation
Sophia Lee
In 1795 SL
subscribed, as Miss Lee of Belvedere and clearly for the use of the school, to James Marshall's Library
of Bath, a circulating library with a comparatively small proportion of fiction in its...
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.
Publishing
Catherine Cuthbertson
It came out in four volumes from Robinson
, but many copies were burned in a warehouse fire. After this The Lady's Magazine reprinted it as a serial beginning in February 1804.
Mayo, Robert. The English Novel in the Magazines, 1740-1815. Northwestern University Press.
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
Reception
Helen Craik
Apparently the only journal to notice Adelaide de Narbonne was the Anti-Jacobin in January 1800: it wished that Craik had not left her own political stance inexplicit.
Craciun, Adriana, and Kari E. Lokke, editors. “The New Cordays: Helen Craik and British Representations of Charlotte Corday, 1793-1800”. Rebellious Hearts: British Women Writers and the French Revolution, State University of New York Press, pp. 193-32.
MJJ
used the Athenæum to express her opinions on women's writing. A review of Anna Maria Hall
's Sketches of Irish Character criticizes the author's erroneous ambition
Athenæum. J. Lection.
182 (1831): 262
in attempting to portray villains...
Textual Features
Mary Julia Young
MJY
foregrounds her own friendship with Anna Maria Crouch, and finds room for such details as the opinions of Crouch's father, Peregrine Phillips
, about novelists: he admired Charlotte Smith
, Anna Maria Bennett
,...
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...
Textual Features
Anna Letitia Barbauld
The series has a general introduction, On the Origin and Progress of Novel-Writing, and a Preface, Biographical and Critical for each novelist, which in its echo of the full and original title of Johnson's...
