Book description
Ann Radcliffe's The Romance of the Forest, first published in 1791,
is the epitome of the Gothic novel: a beautiful, orphaned heiress, a
dashing hero, a dissolute, aristocratic villain and a ruined abbey
deep in a great forest are combined by the author in a tale of
suspense where danger lurks behind every secret trap-door. Reprinted
four times between 1791 and 1795 and satirised as represented of the
Gothic genre by Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey, Radcliffe's tense
masterpiece, in which the heroine is afraid even to look in the mirror
for fear of what she might see behind her, established her reputation
as a writer and her brilliant descriptions of both characters and
scenes serve to create the perfect atmosphere for a novel packed with
emotional intensity.
