HAPPY BIRTHDAY – Ann Radcliffe, born 9 July 1764
“There is some comfort in dying surrounded by one’s children.”
Ann Radcliffe
Like many people, I came to the writings of Ann Radcliffe through Jane Austen. It is Radcliffe’s novel The Mysteries of Udolpho that Catherine Morland reads with such delighted horror in Austen’s Northanger Abbey. I wanted so see what was giving Catherine such thrills, and what Austen was parodying, so read Radcliffe’s novel. It held my interest, but I did get impatient with heroines who faint on almost every page, and the novel seems so incredibly dated in comparison with Austen. However, reading the book certainly adds to one’s enjoyment of Northanger Abbey so I can recommend it.
Ann Radcliffe appears as a character in the movie Becoming Jane, but her life was an incredibly quiet and reclusive one. One early would-be biographer finally gave up on the project because there was so little to say!
Ann Radcliffe died on 7 February 1823, aged 58.
Have you read The Mysteries of Udolpho or any other of Ann Radcliffe’s work? Tell me in the comment area below.
The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe)
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