The Setting

The Mysteries of Udolpho takes place in France and in northern Italy in 1584. Although Ann provide the readers with the information of date and place, that is about the extent of the formal setting. She purposefully wrote about different eras and different trends to keep the setting changing as if to add the mysteries of the novel.
To further understand the novel, I believe it is important to understand the time and place it was set in, 1584 France and Italy. At this time the French were getting out of a war that begun in 1577, it was the Third French war. A grouping was conflicts that spanned over many years. Henry VI was the king of France at the time.
Braque was the center of the art and music world. The Braque style was opulent and full of details. The fashion mimicked the art world. The style was very formal and restricted. I found this to be interesting because of the relax imagery Ann portrayed throughout her novel. In the second and third chapter she explains of a seemingly nomadic group of people that help with Emily and St. Aubert. These scenes contradicted the general manors of the time.

Inspiration for many!

Like I mentioned in my previous post Ann Radcliffe served as inspiration to many writers, poets, and novelist. Most famously she served as a great inspiration to the iconic and undeniably great Jane Austen.
A brief history of Jane, she was born in 1775, making her Ann 10 years her elder. In Jane’s life she published many items, but her six novels are the most acknowledged: Sense and Sensibility, Mansfield Park, Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, and Northanger Abbey. Like Ann’s Gaston de Blondeville, Jane’s Northanger Abbey was published posthumously. But where the difference lies is is when the books were written. Although Northanger Abbey was published last, it is actually Jane’s first attempt to novel writing. Because it was her first novel Jane pulls from inspiration of Ann. In Northanger Abbey makes strong references to Ann’s The Mysteries of Udolpho and mimics her writing style. This would explain the disconnection between Northanger Abbey and the remaining five novels.
Pamela Mooman suggests that Emma and Sense and Sensibility were also influenced by The Mysteries of Udolpho in her “How Ann Radcliffe Influenced Jane Austen: Ann Radcliffe’s Ideas on Sensibility Affected Jane Austen's Writings”. She draws a parallel between St. Aubert and Emily, and the sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. With each family one is rational and the other is not. Mooman writes, “Ann Radcliffe’s ideas on sentiment and richly expressed “fine feelings” definitely influenced Jane Austen, both in her disposition and her writing. True, Jane Austen was probably of a temperate disposition already, but Ann Radcliffe’s ideas built upon her own, and made them even more valid in Jane Austen’s mind.”
Jane was not the only writer that inspired by Ann. People such as Edgar Allen Poe, John Keats, and many others were inspired by her and referenced her work in their work as well.

An Introduction of Ann Radcliffe

Ann Radcliffe has been deemed as one of the most influential gothic novelist. That has influence many writers, novelist and poets because of her descriptions of the worlds she created. In Ruth Facer’s life history and description of Ann Facer writes, “Contemporary readers and modern day critics have variously dubbed Ann the ‘Mistress of Udolpho’, ‘The Great Enchantress’, and the ‘Mother of the Gothic’, but these are misleadingly exotic titles to bestow upon such a private person with such a prosaic life history.”
I would suggest the reason behind the fascination of Ann’s descriptions is simply because she was reclusive. From a review by The Edinburgh Review in 1823, “She never appeared in public, nor mingled in private society, but kept herself apart, like the sweet bird that sings its solitary notes, shrouded and unseen.” Because of her closed off life there is little known about her life.
Although she was reclusive she was married to William Radcliffe. They bore no children. Because of her marriage to William, she began to write. William was an editor for The English Chronicle this caused him to work late hours. To fill the time alone Ann began to write. In her life time she wrote six novels with the last being published posthumously. The first was The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne in 1789, The Italian, The Mysteries of Udolph, The Romance of the Forest, A Sicilian Romance, Gaston de Blondeville.
What little we know comes from daily records kept by Ann, Facer writes, ” According to Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd’s Memoir of the Author, prefixed to Gaston de Blondeville, Radcliffe kept daily accounts and spent her days reading poetry and novels. She sang with exquisite taste: her voice, though 'remarkably sweet, was limited in compass’. She was a frequent visitor to the Opera and enjoyed sacred music, especially Handel oratorios. She admired Mrs. Siddons and occasionally accompanied her husband to the theatre where she sat in the pit because it was warmer and she was less likely to be recognized. According to the Memoir, ‘the very thought of appearing in person as the author of her romances shocked the delicacy of her mind’.”
The latter part of Radcliffe is unknown. Some say that she became ill and simply died. Others suggest that she went insane from her imagination and the worlds that haunted her and she was committed. According to Facer her husband, William, denied all accusations.
Along with being a novelist Ann was also a poet. She wrote several poems that never amounted to much success or acknowledgment.


Works Cited
Facer, Ruth. “Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823)”. Chawton House Library, 1-6. Chawton.org.Web.