<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful Mystery
Review: The contrived situations, coincidences, and overwrought events in this book overwhelm what little character insight and logic are there. Plot-driven, it does engage the way an old fashioned horror movie might, but there are repetitious circlings in the narrative and such helplessness in the protagonist that reader frustration is inevitable. I would have loved this book as a young teen had I been able to master the older English.
Rating: 
Summary: Stereotypical Gothic
Review: The contrived situations, coincidences, and overwrought events in this book overwhelm what little character insight and logic are there. Plot-driven, it does engage the way an old fashioned horror movie might, but there are repetitious circlings in the narrative and such helplessness in the protagonist that reader frustration is inevitable. I would have loved this book as a young teen had I been able to master the older English.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful Mystery
Review: The story of a persecuted girl who is delivered from one person to another who are compelled by different motives to decide her destiny. Her beauty and refinement of character attract many to her, but only one wins her love and proves worthy of it by his noble actions.The plots of Radcliffe's mysteries have been efficiently summarized by Russell Noyes in an introduction of 1956: "The hero is a gentleman of noble birth, likely as not in some sort of disgrace; the heroine, an orphan-heiress, high-strung and sensitive, and highly susceptible to music and poetry and to nature in its most romantic moods. A prominent role is given to the tyrant-villain. He is a man of fierce and morose passions obsessed by the love of power and riches. The villain can usually be counted on to confine the heroine in the haunted wing of a castle because she refuses to marry someone she hates. Whatever the details, Mrs. Radcliffe generally manages the plot and action so that the chief impression is a sense of the young heroine's incessant danger. On oft-repeated midnight prowls about the gloomy passageways of a rambling, ruined castle, the heroine in a quiver of excitement (largely self-induced) experiences a series of hair-raising adventures and narrow escapes. Her emotional tension is kept to the pitch by a succession of strange sights and sounds . . . and by an assorted array of sliding panels, trap doors, faded hangings, veiled portraits, bloodstained garments, and even dark and desperate characters." Many reviewers claim that no other Radcliffe mystery measures up to her Mysteries of Udolpho. I was hesitant to read others after reading Udolpho and loving it, but I decided not to trust the reviewers and read three more. The same beautiful descriptions, the stories within stories and the mysteries appearing and perplexing the reader, then having full explanations continued to adorn her most marvellous writings. If you want one more page-turner, you have it in this story. The literary beauty and the mysterious characters and events will keep you reading.
Rating: 
Summary: gothic mystery
Review: this is the third of radcliffe's five "gothic romances" and it truly marks the emerging radcliffean heroine,scene painting, suspense and "romance" that Mother Radcliffe is known for. I am only going to point out that this is a strong novel and should be read with "The Italian" and her longer absolute masterpiece, "The Mysteries of Udolpho." If you are a fan of the gothic and wish to find out how the gothic was born and transformed by Mrs. Radcliffe in the revolutionary 1790s you must read this and the other two novels by her mentioned above.
Rating:
Summary: A very good read!
Review: this is the third of radcliffe's five "gothic romances" and it truly marks the emerging radcliffean heroine,scene painting, suspense and "romance" that Mother Radcliffe is known for. I am only going to point out that this is a strong novel and should be read with "The Italian" and her longer absolute masterpiece, "The Mysteries of Udolpho." If you are a fan of the gothic and wish to find out how the gothic was born and transformed by Mrs. Radcliffe in the revolutionary 1790s you must read this and the other two novels by her mentioned above.
<< 1 >>
| 
