In preparation for a visit to the Gothic exhibition at the British Library I’ve been dipping into the novels of Ann Ward Radcliffe, whose “Mysteries of Udolpho” famously featured in Jane Austen’s “Northanger Abbey”, her own bit of Gothic mystery. Radcliffe had a wonderful vocabulary and amazing sentence structure (long!). Heralded as the exemplar of the gothic novel she mixed terror with a travelogue through ancient castle ruins with strange histories, but the seemingly supernatural always had a rational explanation in the end.
“Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination” is on at the British Library until 20 January 2015.
“Terror and Wonder: The Gothic Imagination” is on at the British Library until 20 January 2015.
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