The Mysteries of Udolpho Kindle Edition

The Mysteries of Udolpho first came off to me as a poorly written soap opera. The narrative is, at times, long-winded and overflowing with loquacious purple prose. The story could have easily been shortened to 70,000 words, in my opinion, without the narrative suffering.But, first, the characters. The sappy, sentimental neediness of the characters often grated upon my nerves. The only one who seemed to have an bit of common sense was the villain, Signor Morano. Although he may have been a detestable human being, at least Morano wasn't either bursting into tears or swooning over a chair every five minutes.I agree with the other reviewers who stated that Radcliff spent way too much time describing the scenery of a place that she had never actually visited. It quickly became tiresome reading endless descriptions of trees and mountain ranges. I was looking for a novel when I purchased this selection, not a French-Italian travel guide.On the up side, the story was appreciated for its simple, yet universal, morals of true love, devotion, and personal integrity. I also appreciated how the story was kept tethered to reality as the supposed supernatural occurrences were eventually revealed to be of natural origins.Once the reader manages to swim through a sea of tears shed by histrionic characters, and a narrative awash in excessive eloquence, a charming story may be found underneath.

Had to read this book because it is mentioned So often in Jane Austen’s novels! Next I will have to read the romance of the forest♥️ I did skip much of the poetry and descriptions —otherwise thoroughly enjoyed reading this book! Lots of good mystery and spookiness😁👏🏻

The first 3 pages had so many errors in English & so many anachronisms that it swiftly became clear that this version is a Google translation from a version of Mysteries of Udolpho sold in another language. It’s very bad practice for Amazon to sell pirated texts on this website & still worse practice to pirate a translator’s hard work.

The entire text is so tiny—possibly a 6 font—that it's illegible without major magnification. This "Classic Illustrated Edition" contains only nine smallish, generic gray-and-white illustrations. This publication is not for someone who actually wants to read the book. I recommend the Oxford World's Classics edition instead.

I purchased this book because it was mentioned in a couple of other things I have read. I tried two or three times, but just could not get into the story or the style. Since I am an avid reader and enjoy all sorts of books, that should say something.

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Ward Radcliffe is a wonderful intriguing mystery. I enjoyed it very much; and, will read and/or listen to it again! Alison’s narration was very, very good! I had a hard time putting it down. I also loved the poetry in-between chapters; because it is really nice. I recommend this enjoyable read to others.

I read this book because of the influence it had on Jane Austens writing of, "Northanger Abbey." Being an Austenophile, I was prepared for similarities between these books. Wrong. Ann Ward Radcliffe was a completely different classification of writer. This book would make a great movie, I give it that. However, the descriptive passages of scenery viewed by the travelers were repetitive, ridiculously rhapsodizing and tedious. How many ways can you describe rocks and trees? The main character, Emily, cries over just about anything, although some sadness is valid because of her father's death, Otherwise, the pages are sopping wet over good, bad, ugly and picturesque. Find your spine woman! Embroider a hanky, cease and desist from the incessant tears, near tears, tearing up, or just thinking about tears. As for Udolpho, there is no mystery....it's early gothic, nearly gruesome and most of the incidents are "what if" scenario speculations.The weird part is, after writing all this is.....I missed the characters after I finished reading the book...so I gave it an extra star on that point alone. Something must have connected.

The Gothic part is about 30% of the book, the rest being descriptions of the places and buildings the action takes place and inane internal dialogues. The heroine keeps passing out and losing her courage. I know, it was a different time, but it aggravated me to no end. The worst part is how the author keeps interrupting the action to recite poems that the heroine composes. Boring.

Rather ironically although today this is Radcliffe's most famous novel, in her lifetime it wasn't, and nor was her masterpiece, 'The Italian'. I see from some of the American reviews that they are claiming that there is no poetry here, but I think these reviews may have been taken from another version and cross posted by Amazon, as this edition does contain the poetry. I haven't as of yet got out my treebook version of this, or my book of just the poetry from this to double check, but I think all the poetry is here.Thanks to Jane Austen's  Northanger Abbey  this particular book has become extremely well known, despite the fact that lots of people haven't read it. If this is your first time reading this then I should caution you, this is a loose baggy affair and in today's world this would probably be 'tightened' up, although in the case of this it would take something away from this, possibly some of the charm. Quite a few people do describe this as 200 pages of excitement, with 500 pages of boredom, and this does have a lot of descriptive writing, as well as poetry in it. This is a gothic romance, but it is also much more than that, it contains mystery and adventure, just for starters.There are a lot of cliff hangers and 'hooks' here that will hopefully keep you interested and wanting to read more. Ann Radcliffe's husband was scared to read this alone, but I don't think that this would be the case these days as it is quite tame. If you are into or just getting into original gothic literature, then Radcliffe's novels are a must read. Northanger Abbey

This book is much too 'wordy' for most modern tastes, but it is worth persevering. It is a mixture of a Gothic horror story, an 18th century travelogue and some exquisite passages of pastoral description. I read it because of Ann Radcliffe's influence on Jane Austen and her references to it in 'Northanger Abbey'.The story itself is extremely complicated starting in Gascony, moving to Languedoc, then crossing the Alps from France to Italy to spend time in Venice. The Gothic horror part starts in the castle of Udolpho in the Apennines and continues at a chateau and convent in Languedoc. Be prepared for stories of mysterious deaths, ghostly music, phantom figures at midnight and the mystery behind the black veil! The explanations take place in France when the heroine and hero are reunited after a full Shakespearean quantity of misunderstandings. Unbelievable plot but exciting.I particularly enjoyed the descriptive passages of the Pyrenees and Languedoc, an area I know quite well and which was recognisable from these passages written over two hundred years ago.

The Mysteries of Udolpho is a gothic romance of the first order. Mrs. Radcliffe takes the reader through forests filled with supersticious people, ghosts of the past and bandits. The vague sense of unease she invokes when the story moves to Italy, where the reader is aware that something is amiss but isn't quite sure what, is pitch perfect and then her dipiction of the castle to which our heroine is eventually incarcerated must be the very one on which Hollywood would come to base it's sets; full of turrets, secret passageways and a room containing mysteries so terrible they cannot be named.If you like your gothic novel full blooded and strong, you will love The Mysteries of Udolpho.

I won't lie and say I liked the poetry of Emily st Aubert- for the most part I didn't see the relevance of it at all. But I would definitely recommend this book to people who enjoy classics, sudden twists, aren't afraid of long reads and can skim read the annoying overdone sections of description about some mountains.I honestly enjoyed this book a lot and definitely think if you like romantic novels and gothic scenes then it is definitely something you should read.But it is a long read. Do not underestimate it's four volumes. But there is plenty of excitement in each of them from deaths to ghosts to banditti, to scandalous murders and then to scenes of real romance that will (probably) make you aww aloud.Very glad I read it.

I liked it. I did, really. But, my goodness, didn't she go on! And on. And on. And on... If Ann Radcliffe wasn't long dead and buried, I'd have been tempted to contact her on Twitter and suggest that for her next excursion in to literature, she might like to leave out some of the pastoral scenes. Okay, most of them. But other than a lot of wandering around for seemingly no good reason, I enjoyed it and it kept my interest up to the final page. But that's the thing with female Gothic; the loose ends are always tied up...