These are impressive since Radcliffe did not apparently ever visit most of them, but they can be skipped without any apparent impact on the plot. So each day of these meanderings provides Radcliffe with opportunities to share her exhaustive (and exhausting) knowledge of the scenery, the flora, the butterflies et al. The heroine (Emily) and her father St Aubert set out on an ill-advised journey around the Pyrenees in France where they are forever in peril of not finding a bed for the night or even worse *shock horror* having to bed down in a *gasp* peasant’s cottage.

‘Padding’ to rival the most loquacious of authors.

I hope I would have remembered to do that too, because, my goodness, it does help when your life is in grave peril to have a nice book to read. ) I’m also impressed by Emily’s forethought in taking her books with her when she sets out to be murdered. (Mind you, you have to admire the fortitude of a heroine who can set herself to writing poetry when she has been despatched into the care of brigands who (she thinks) plan to murder her. Visit one of those Publish Your Poetry Here sites and you will get some idea though you will most likely escape the ‘merry swain’, the ‘thymy gales’ and ‘the fern crown’d nymphs of lake or brook’.

Excruciating passionate compositions from the beleaguered heroine.

Melancholy is right: my goodness, the heroine does a lot of weeping – and she even passes up a nicely cooked pheasant out of grief – what a waste! But ‘Elizabeth’ has omitted to mention that one also needs a high tolerance for

Look up the word melancholy in a good dictionary and get familiar with the many nuanced variations of its meaning. I can’t do better than to quote ‘Elizabeth’ from Good Reads who advises these pre-requisites to enjoy this book:ĥ. But The Mysteries of Udolpho is one that had escaped my attention until I was looking for something to read on the Kindle on the plane home to Oz – let’s just say I’m glad I didn’t come across it first all those years ago…I might well have taken up rock-climbing or tatting instead of reading in my spare time. I think today’s young people are deprived if they don’t get an introduction to these books at school because they are the bedrock of my love of reading.

I grew up on reading The Classics, and I studied some of them in (undergraduate) depth at university.

If, like me, you pay desultory attention to the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die you too might get sucked into reading The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe. I hesitated about blogging this one, in case it frightens away my readers… but then I thought it was only fair to warn you about it. Ann Radcliffe (Source: Wikipedia Commons)

Jane austen the mysteries of udolpho