The Mysteries of Udolpho

Description

A beautifully crafted tale of gothic romance. Fresh with grief for her recently-deceased father and forced to live with an aunt who doesn't want her, Emily is plunged into a nightmarish world in this terrifying gothic classic by Ann Radcliffe. Having been forced apart from the man she loves, Emily finds herself at the mercy of her aunt's husband, the threatening Count Montoni, who imprisons her in the eerie Castle Udolpho. The cold intimidating fortress walls echo the desolation of Emily's own mind as she confronts the waking terrors of the castle and the machinations of Montoni. Steeped in atmosphere and full of dark sweeping landscapes, Radcliffe offers a disturbing tale couched in seductive language. FLAME TREE 451: From mystery to crime, supernatural to horror and fantasy to science fiction, Flame Tree 451 offers a healthy diet of werewolves and mechanical men, blood-lusty vampires, dastardly villains, mad scientists, secret worlds, lost civilizations and escapist fantasies. Discover a storehouse of tales gathered specifically for the reader of the fantastic. Each book features a brand new biography and glossary of Literary, Gothic and Victorian terms.

The first lady of Gothic fiction, Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) had among her devotees Jane Austen, Mary and Percy Shelley, Lord Byron and Matthew Lewis to name but a few. Her darkly mysterious romances explore far-off locations, where the supernatural lurks behind every pine tree, where she takes her characters and readers on a journey through tangled forests and ruined castles, deep into the very heart of desire. The Mysteries of Udolpho is perhaps her best known work, a work of such influential nature in shaping the early Gothic genre that it is even parodied in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey.