Ann Radcliffe

Arguably the most popular novelist of her day and the mother of the female Gothic literary tradition, Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) has received varying amounts of critical attention and is now being recognized for her important contribution to English literature. This volume recounts what little is known about her life and provides an extensive bibliographic overview of works by and about her. Included are annotated entries for editions and translations, reviews, critical studies of Radcliffe, and adaptations of her works.Ann Radcliffe wrote some of the most electrifying and popular novels of her day. Not only is she one of the most important Mothers of the novel, she almost singlehandedly developed the Female Gothic to explore female experience. This form has achieved almost mythical status.This volume is an indispensible guide to the life and work of this pioneering woman novelist. A biography provides new information on Radcliffe from a source that has been virtually ignored, the one substantial extant manuscript, her forty-two leaf commonplace book, which is in deteriorating condition. The remainder of the book is an extensive annotated bibliography of works by Radcliffe and critical studies of her writing. Included are entries for early and modern editions, early reviews, and bibliographic studies. Two chapters are devoted to 20th-century critical studies of Radcliffe, in response to the growing amount of material being written about her. Appendices record her artistic legacy as presented in adaptations, imitations, parodies, and abridgments; and the volume includes a list of works falsely attributed to her.

.,." an outstanding work of scholarship that provides the definitive Radcliffe bibliography... by the world's leading Radcliffe scholar. Indispensable for scholars of Radcliffe, of the gothic, and of women writers generally, it provides new biographical information, shedding new light on Radcliffe's relationship with her mother. Highly recommended."-Josephine Donovan, University of Maine, "Rogers's annotated bibliography presents a chronological analysis of the critical reception accorded Ann Radcliffe beginning with contemporary reviews and extending through 1995....[T]he scholarship and research are sound and thorough....An admirable work with little competition, this should be considered for all college and university collections."-Choice, ?Rogers's annotated bibliography presents a chronological analysis of the critical reception accorded Ann Radcliffe beginning with contemporary reviews and extending through 1995....[T]he scholarship and research are sound and thorough....An admirable work with little competition, this should be considered for all college and university collections.?-Choice

DEBORAH D. ROGERS is Associate Professor of English at the University of Maine. Her books include Bookseller as Rogue: John Almon and the Politics of Eighteenth-Century Publishing (1986), The Critical Response to Ann Radcliffe (Greenwood, 1994), and Two Gothic Classics by Women (1995). 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.