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Ann Radcliffe Biography & Facts

Ann Radcliffe (née Ward; 9 July 1764 – 7 February 1823) was an English novelist and a pioneer of Gothic fiction. Her technique of explaining apparently supernatural elements in her novels has been credited with gaining respectability for Gothic fiction in the 1790s. Radcliffe was the most popular writer of her day and almost universally admired; contemporary critics called her the mighty enchantress and the Shakespeare of romance-writers, and her popularity continued through the 19th century. Interest in Radcliffe and her work has revived in the early 21st century, with the publication of three biographies. Biography Early life Radcliffe was born Ann Ward in Holborn, London on 9 July 1764. She was the only child to William Ward (1737–1798) and Ann Oates (1726–1800), and her mother was 36 years old when she gave birth. Her father worked as a haberdasher in London before moving the family to Bath in 1772 to take over management of a porcelain shop for his business partners Thomas Bentley and Josiah Wedgwood. Both of her parents were relatively well connected. Her father had a famous uncle, William Cheselden, who was Surgeon to King George II, and her mother descended from the De Witt family of Holland and had a cousin, Sir Richard Jebb, who was a fashionable London physician. Growing up, Radcliffe often visited her maternal uncle, Thomas Bentley, in Chelsea, London and later Turnham Green. Bentley was business partners with a fellow Unitarian, Josiah Wedgwood, maker of Wedgwood china. Sukey, Wedgwood's daughter, also stayed in Chelsea and is Radcliffe's only known childhood companion. Sukey later married Dr. Robert Darwin and had a son, the naturalist Charles Darwin. Although mixing in some distinguished circles, Radcliffe seems to have made little impression in this society and was described by Wedgwood as "Bentley's shy niece". Marriage In 1787, when Radcliffe was 23 years old, she married William Radcliffe (1763–1830), an Oxford-educated journalist. William had initially been a student of law, but he did not complete his legal studies and instead turned his attention to literature and journalism. The couple were married in Bath, but soon after moved to London, where William Radcliffe got a job working for a paper. He wrote for (and soon became the editor of) the Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, a campaigning newspaper that "celebrated the French Revolution, freedom of the press, and Dissenters' rights." Ann and William Radcliffe never had children. By many accounts, theirs was a happy marriage. Radcliffe called him her "nearest relative and friend". According to Talfourd's memoir, Ann started writing while her husband remained out late most evenings for work. She published her first novel, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne, in 1789 at the age of 25, and published her next four novels in short succession. The money she earned from her novels later allowed her husband to quit his job, and the two of them travelled together, along with their dog, Chance. In 1794, they went to the Netherlands and Germany. This was Radcliffe's only trip abroad, and it became the inspiration for a travelogue, titled A Journey Made in the Summer of 1794, that she published a year later. On this trip, the Radcliffes were initially meant to go on to Switzerland, but this plan was "frustrated by a disobliging official, who refused to believe that they were English, and would not honour their passports." In 1795, William returned as editor of the Gazetteer, and a year later, he purchased the English Chronicle or Universal Evening Post, a Whig newspaper. Ann Radcliffe published The Italian in 1797, the last novel she would publish in her lifetime. She was paid £800 for it, which was three times her husband's yearly income. Later life In her final years, Radcliffe retreated from public life and was rumoured to have gone insane as a result of her writing. These rumours arose because Radcliffe seemingly abandoned writing after publishing her fifth novel and vanished from the public eye. While these rumours were later proven false, they were so popular that Talfourd's memoir included a statement from her physician that spoke about her mental condition in her later years. Radcliffe remained secluded for 26 years, with no explanation available to her many fans. However, this supposed seclusion is contradicted in The New Monthly Magazine, which states that the tenor of Radcliffe's life was characterized by the rare union of the literary gentlewoman and the active housewife. Instead of being in confinement in Derbyshire, as had been asserted, she was seen, every Sunday, at St James's Church; almost every fine day in Hyde Park; sometimes at the theatres, and very frequently at the Opera. Radcliffe spent the rest of her adult life travelling and living a comfortable life with her husband and their dog, Chance. They travelled domestically almost once a year from 1797 to 1811, and in later years, the Radcliffes hired a carriage during the summer months so that they could make trips to places near London. Radcliffe continued to write. She wrote poetry and another novel, Gaston de Blondeville, which was not published until after her death. She was said to have suffered from asthma, for which she received regular treatment. Death and posthumous work In 1823, Radcliffe went to Ramsgate, where she caught a fatal chest infection. She died 7 February 1823 at the age of 58 and was buried in a vault in the Chapel of Ease at St George's, Hanover Square, London. Although she had suffered from asthma for twelve years previously, her modern biographer, Rictor Norton, cites the description given by her physician, Dr. Scudamore, of how "a new inflammation seized the membranes of the brain", which led to "violent symptoms" and argues that they suggest a "bronchial infection, leading to pneumonia, high fever, delirium and death." Shortly after her death, Gaston de Blondeville was published by Henry Colburn, featuring A Memoir for the Authoress, the first known biographical piece on Radcliffe. It also contained some of her poetry and her essay "On the Supernatural in Poetry", which outlines her distinction between terror and horror. Christina Rossetti attempted to write a biography of Radcliffe in 1883, but abandoned it for lack of information. For 50 years, biographers stayed away from her as a subject, agreeing with Rossetti's estimation. Rictor Norton, author of Mistress of Udolpho: The Life of Ann Radcliffe (1999), argues that those 50 years were "dominated by interpretation rather than scholarship" where information (specifically on her rumoured madness) was repeated rather than traced to a reliable source. Literary life Radcliffe published five novels during her lifetime, which she always referred to as "romances". Her first novel, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne, was published anonymously in 1789. Early reviews were mostly unenthusiastic. The Monthly Review said that, while the novel was commendable .... Discover the Ann Radcliffe popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Ann Radcliffe books.