The daughter of a haberdasher, Ann was self-educated and very well-read. In 1787, she married William Radcliffe, a former law student who had decided to take up a literary career. William became editor of The Gazetteer and, subsequently, owner of the English Chronicle. Encouraged by her husband, Ann began to write, at first producing some verse, before progressing to the novel. Her first novel, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne, was published in 1790 and was followed that same year by A Sicilian Romance. In 1791, she produced the hugely successful, The Romance of the Forest, said by some to be her finest literary work. In 1794, Ann published her most famous work, The Mysteries of Udolpho, which became an international best-seller and firmly established the Gothic genre during her generation. Her only travel outside England also occurred in 1794, when she visited Holland and Germany. This trip was described in A Journey Made in the Summer of 1794 (1795). In 1796, she published The Italian. Thereafter, she retired from the public eye, although she continued to write, producing some poetry and keeping her journal. Her final novel, Gaston de Bloneville, was published posthumously in 1826. Radcliffe's writing strongly influenced many writers of the supernatural including Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe. |
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