RADCLIFFE, ANN (1764-1823). An English romancer, born in London, July 9, 1764. Her maiden name was Ward. In her twenty-third year she married William Radcliffe, a student of the law, afterwards editor and proprietor of the English Chronicle. The group of romances by which she became famous comprise: The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne (1789) ; A Sicilian Romance (1790, several times published in Italian) ; The Romance of the Forest (1791, translated into French and Italian and drama tized) ; The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794, trans lated into French by Chastenay) ; and The Ital ian, or the Confessional of the Black Penitents, badly dramatized by John Boaden, and put on at the Haymarket as the Italian Moak, and trans lated by the Abbe Morellet (1797). After 1797 Mrs. Radcliffe lived in retirement, and there were false rumors that she had gone insane over the horrors conjured up in Udolpho. After her death, February 7, 1823, appeared an historical romance, Gaston de Mondeville (1826). Of in
terest also is A Journey Through Holland and Germany (1795). Mrs. Radcliffe was an exceed ingly popular romancer. For Udolpho she re ceived £500, and for The Italian, £800—un precedented sums before the advent of lrarcrley. They were also translated into French. Mrs. Radcliffe gave vogue to the so-called Gothic ro mance founded by Horace Walpole, the motive of which is to awaken wonder and awe at mysteries, to be finally explained away. Having a real pas sion for deep woods, mountains, storm, and sea, she was able to add a new interest to fiction. Consult the brief memoir prefixed to Gaston de Mandeville (1826) ; Scott's introduction to her romances in Ballantyne's Novelists Library (London, 1824) ; Beers, English Ramanticism (New York, 1898) ; and see NOVEL.