Abbeys and monasteries feature very heavily in Radcliffe’s work and indeed in much of the genre after. They find shelter in a ruined abbey described as being a foreboding sight, surrounded by a “romantic gloom” which instils in our heroine “a kind of pleasing dread” (a term often used to describe the very appeal of the Gothic). Set in France, it follows the journey of young Adeline who, abandoned by her father, is taken in by the La Motte family as they flee Paris. Though not as well known now as her two later novels The Mysteries of Uldolpho and The Italian, in its day it was regarded as her best work. The Romance of the Forest is considered to be Radcliffe’s first success. But what is it that Radcliffe established and if her work was so extraordinary why is she not more widely read today?

Her fiction was so popular that her fourth novel, The Mysteries of Uldolpho was hailed as the first ‘bestseller’ and she set the record for the highest paid novelist of the day. In fact, Sir Walter Scott praised her as “the first poetess of romantic fiction” and she was considered by her contemporaries to be as significant as Shakespeare and Milton.

The ‘Great Enchantress’ of her age, Ann Radcliffe established many of the tropes of the Gothic, as well as providing literary weight to a genre that was regarded by many as mere sensationalist fiction. Of all the early Gothic writers, one woman in particular had a considerable impact on the genre.

Radcliffe romance of the forest