This Day in History: Writer Ann Radcliffe died on this day in 1823. Little known today, she was the highest paid author in the 1790's. She was one of the first of the Gothic writers, writing novels like The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Italian which inserted supernatural elements, though many complained that she failed to incorporate "real ghosts" into her stories. She influenced writers like Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Walter Scott and was admired by Honoré de Balzac, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Charles Baudelaire and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Jane Austen paid homage to Radcliffe in Northanger Abbey and in the 2007 movie Becoming Jane, starring Anne Hathaway as Jane Austen, the two actually meet.
See also: Many Penny Dreadfuls, Dime Novels and Gothic Novels on DVDrom
No comments:
Post a Comment