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| Biographical Information |
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ANN RADCLIFFE
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Biographer's nightmare:
-" The Mistress of Udolpho is the first biography written about Ann Radcliffe and is titled after her famous book "The Mysteries of Udolpho"...
- One of the most esteemd and highly paid novelists of her time.
-Recieved praise from Mary Wollstonecraft and Marquis de Sade.
-Had few friends, wrote few letters, and only kept travel journals.
-Age of 32 stopped writing Gothic literature...for unknown reasons.
SHE IS AN EMIGMA like the people she brings to life in her books.
-She was the daughter of a successful buisnessman
-Married Willian Radcliffe, lawyer and Oxford graduate
-inherited a considerable fortune from her 70 year old father.
- husband dissipated her forture because of alcoholism.
- forced to send her seven sons away to school and to leave her daughters to the care of her mother.
-moved to London to find gainful employment as a governess and her husband took to place of a steward.
-it was here that she wrote about the situationso f women at the tome, of the rise of prostitution, and composed most of her poetry.
-rallied against traditional occupations for women.
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Quotations by Ann Radcliffe:
But hark! what shriek of death comes in the gale,
And in the distant ray what glimmering sail
Bends to the storm?--Now sinks the note of fear!
Ah! wretched mariners!--no more shall day
Unclose his cheering eye to light ye on your way!
- Mysteries of Udolpho--Shipwreck
Lightnings, that show the vast and foamy deep,
The rending thunders, as they onward roll,
The loud winds, that o'er the billows sweep--
Shake the firm nerve, appal the bravest soul!
- Mysteries of Udolpho--The Mariner (st. 9)
Fate sits on these dark battlements, and frowns;
And as the portals open to receive me,
Her voice, in sullen echoes, through the courts,
Tells of a nameless deed.
- The Motto to "The Mysteries of Udolpho"
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One of Ann's poems:
TO THE VISIONS OF FANCY.
"Dear, wild illusions of creative mind!
Whose varying hues arise to Fancy's art,
And by her magic force are swift combin'd
In forms that please, and scenes that touch the heart:
Oh! whether at her voice ye soft assume
The pensive grace of sorrow drooping low;
Or rise sublime on terror's lofty plume,
And shake the soul with wildly thrilling woe;
Or, sweetly bright, your gayer tints ye spread,
Bid scenes of pleasure steal upon my view,
Love wave his purple pinions o'er my head,
And wake the tender thought to passion true;
O! still--ye shadowy forms! attend my lonely hours,
Still chase my real cares with your illusive powers!"
-http://newarkwww.rutgers.edu/cgi-jlynch/18th.cgi?query=radcliffe
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