The Mysteries of Udolpho (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading. The Mysteries of Udolpho has been thrilling readers for over two hundred years and holds a critically important place in the history of gothic literature, the rise of romanticism, and the development of the modern detective novel. The novel has something for everyone: Although Radcliffe subtitled The Mysteries of Udolpho "a romance," this gothic thriller is also in part a travelogue, a sentimental novel, a novel of manners, a female Bildungsroman, and a mystery--it even contains a selection of poems. While readers will enjoy wondering whether heroine Emily St. Aubert will ever escape the clutches of her step-uncle Montoni to reunite with her stalwart lover Valancourt, they will also ponder the eerie music, odd family resemblances, unexpected corpses, and sinister disappearances that haunt Emily--and whose mysteries Emily seeks to solve.