Publication Details

The Mysteries of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe, was published in four volumes on 8 May 1794 by G. G. and J. Robinson of London. The firm paid her GBP500 for the manuscript. The contract is housed at the University of Virginia Library.

Plot and Significance

Her fourth and most popular novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho follows the fortunes of Emily St. Aubert, who suffers, among other misadventures, the death of her father, supernatural terrors in a gloomy castle and the machinations of an Italian brigand. Often cited as the archetypal Gothic novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho, along with Radcliffe's novel The Romance of the Forest, plays a prominent role in Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey, in which an impressionable young woman, after reading Radcliffe's novel, comes to see her friends and acquaintances as Gothic villains and victims with amusing results.

(Wikipedia)