 |
| An Engraving from The Mysteries of Udolpho |
Today is Ann Radcliffe's birthday - 9th July 1764. Radcliffe is one of the few novelists that we can say with certainty invented a new art form: the psychological novel of suspense and the supernatural - so much so that, within a few years of her first popular successes, critics had named this new kind of fiction "the Radcliffe school".
I love Ann Radliffe's novels, especially The Mysteries of Udolpho and I am delighted that she is receiving the attention and acclaim that she deserves. Her "terrifying Gothic novels" have influenced the work of Jane Austen, Lord Byron, John Keats, Mary Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Henry James, the Bronte sisters and Charles Dickens.
Happy Birthday Mrs Radcliffe, thank you for such wonderful novels.