The Mysteries of Udolpho

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1794

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Volume 1, Chapters 1-5

Volume 1, Chapters 6-13

Volume 2, Chapters 1-6

Volume 2, Chapters 7-12

Volume 3, Chapters 1-6

Volume 3, Chapters 7-13

Volume 4, Chapters 1-7

Volume 4, Chapters 8-12

Volume 4, Chapters 13-19

Character Analysis

Themes

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Background

Critical Context: The Reception and Influence of The Mysteries of Udolpho

Radcliffe was an enormously popular writer in her day, comparable to Shakespeare in his time. Like Shakespeare, Radcliffe was popular both with the masses and critics. The Mysteries of Udolpho, Radcliffe’s most famous novel, was published in four volumes through 1794 and was an instant success. Her publishers bought the copyright for The Mysteries of Udolpho for £500, an impressive amount for the time. Contemporary critics praised the novel for its intelligent use of the supernatural. Rather than feature scenes of gratuitous violence and gore, The Mysteries of Udolpho used the supernatural to heighten the psychological terror of its protagonists. While avoiding the cliches of the supernatural genre, the novel was still filled with many elements designed to entice readers: a beautiful, beleaguered heroine, mysteries, twists, and lovely descriptions of nature.

Radcliffe’s popularity meant she inspired many other novelists; in fact, The Mysteries of Udolpho was so widely known and imitated that Jane Austen’s novel Northanger Abbey (1818) is a parody of Gothic conventions. In Northanger Abbey, the heroine is obsessed with The Mysteries of Udolpho and identifies with its heroine, Emily St. Aubert. Though some critics assume Austen meant only to satirize Radcliffe’s work, Austen’s writing actually displays a deep engagement with the Gothic genre and Radcliffe’s novel in particular.

The one criticism early critics and readers had against The Mysteries of Udolpho was its lack of real ghosts, since all the supernatural terrors in the plot turn out to have rational explanations. Responding to the criticism, Radcliffe is said to have given up her technique of explaining the supernatural. Indeed, her last, posthumously published novel, Gaston de Blondeville (1826), features an actual ghost.

Radcliffe’s popularity somewhat faded from the mid-19th century onwards, with many modern readers finding her descriptive writing style too languid. Furthermore, the literary canon often excluded Radcliffe in favor of other women writers, such as Jane Austen and George Eliot. As the Gothic began another resurgence toward the middle of the 20th century, there has been renewed interest in Radcliffe’s works. The Mysteries of Udolpho is now seen as a classic that reinvented the Gothic genre and a narrative that balances the ideals of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Genre Context: Gothic Literature

The Gothic is a continuing and evolving literary form, as can be seen in the popularity of stories and shows featuring haunted mansions, dark forests, and protagonists in mortal peril. Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Ortranto (1764) is considered the first novel-length work of Gothic fiction, but it was Radcliffe who reinvented it in a form still thriving in contemporary horror: the tale of psychological terror. Radcliffe uses elements of horror to depict the inner turmoil of her characters. In The Mysteries of Udolpho, the horror arises not from the actual apparitions Emily sees, but from her perception of the palpable menace around her. Unlike male writers of her time—whose works featured elements of external macabre, such as rapacious and lecherous monks, violence, and bloodshed—Radcliffe’s work deals more with terrors the mind conjures. The psychological turmoil Radcliffe’s heroines face is often rooted in real-world threats to women. Radcliffe’s literary contribution to the genre is what retrospectively came to be known as the Female Gothic form, in which novelists use Gothic conventions to highlight the very real terrors and biases women face under patriarchy.

The Mysteries of Udolpho features many scenes of description of nature, as well as 19 of Radcliffe’s own nature-inspired poems. Nature-lovers, like Emily and her father, are depicted as wise and virtuous, and the natural, wild landscape is shown to be a source of comfort and inspiration. This reverence for nature is typical of Romanticism, a prominent cultural movement that arose toward the end of the 18th century. Romanticism also stressed the centrality of the individual self and the primacy of feeling and imagination. The movement arose partly in reaction to Neoclassicism, the literary form of the early-18th century that emphasized reason and the need to control an excess of feeling.

In The Mysteries of Udolpho, one finds strains of both Romanticism and Neoclassicism. While Emily delights in nature and imagination, often spontaneously composing poems, she also realizes the need to balance her feelings with prudent actions and sensible decisions. Radcliffe’s work is therefore striking in the way it combines 18th- and 19th-century ideals.