Books

4 volumes. Large 12mo, 178 x 101 mms., pp. [iv], 428; [iv], 478; [iv], 463 [464 blank]; [iv], 427 [428 blank], including half-title in each volume, contemporary boards (very worn), rebacked in quarter antique-style calf, gilt spines; ex-library, with various library markings, library stamp in blind on title-page, stamps in blind on several leaves, but a serviceable set. When Mrs. Radcliffe's novel was first published in 1794, the anonymous reviewer in The Critical Review felt that it did not measure up to her earlier novel, Romance of the Forest: "Curiosity is raised oftener than it is gratified; or, rather, it is raised so high that no adequate gratification can be given it; the interest is completely dissolved when once the adventure is finished, and the reader, when he has got to the end of the work, looks about in vain for the spell which had bound him so strongly to it." Mr. Tilney in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey asserts "The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid. I have read all Mrs. Radcliffe's works, and most of them with great pleasure. The Mysteries of Udolpho, when I had once begun it, I could not lay down again; I remember finishing it in two days my hair standing on end the whole time." In 1810, Coleridge wrote to Wordsworth, "I amused myself a day or two ago on reading a Romance in Mrs. Radcliff's style with making out a scheme, which was to serve for all romances a priori--only varying the proportions . . . A Baron or Baroness ignorant of their birth, and in some dependent situation--Castle--on a Rock--a Sepulchre--at some distance from the Rock--Deserted Rooms--Underground Passages--Pictures--A ghost, so believed--or--a written record--blood on it! A wonderful Cut throat &c. &c. &c.".

A tale of mystery and terror set in the Appennines region of Italy, it follows the story of young Emily St. Aubert and the mysterious Montoni.