Critical Response to Ann Radcliffe

Ann Radcliffe was one of the most influential women writers of the 18th century. Best known as the author of The Italian and The Mysteries of Udolpho, she contributed to the rise of the English novel and the development of the female gothic. This book brings together, for the first time, almost one hundred documents on her work, including contemporary reviews, letters, diary entries, the most important critical assessments, and several new pieces. The volume begins with an extensive introductory essay on Radcliffe's work and the critical reception of it. The chapters that follow consist of chronologically arranged critical analyses of particular works by Radcliffe. Several chapters then present general critical responses to her writings. The book concludes with a bibliography of selected additional readings.

?This book provides a delightful crib of responses to Radcliffe's work. It also invites further criticism of Radcliffe's early novels and a more penetrating analysis of the reasons behind the shifts in her reputation. Roger's collection suggests that Radcliffe provides a mirror of the tensions in culture and criticism for the last two hundred years and prepares the way for other critics to explain them.?-Eighteenth-Century Fiction, "This book provides a delightful crib of responses to Radcliffe's work. It also invites further criticism of Radcliffe's early novels and a more penetrating analysis of the reasons behind the shifts in her reputation. Roger's collection suggests that Radcliffe provides a mirror of the tensions in culture and criticism for the last two hundred years and prepares the way for other critics to explain them."-Eighteenth-Century Fiction

DEBORAH D. ROGERS, an authority on 18th-century English literature, is Associate Professor of English at the University of Maine. She is the author of Bookseller as Rogue: John Almon and the Politics of Eighteenth-Century Publishing. Her articles have appeared in publications such as Eighteenth-Century Studies, Eighteenth-Century Fiction, Clio, The Journal of American Studies, and The New York Times.