安·拉德克利夫

安·拉德克利夫（英语：Ann Radcliffe，1764年7月9日—1823年2月7日），英国作家，哥特小说先驱。她的风格是浪漫爱情和长途旅行场景，并具备明显的哥特小说元素。

生平

目前对于安·拉德克利夫的生活所知不多。1823年，她去世。爱丁堡评论说：她从来没有在公开场合露面，也没有公开其私生活。克里斯蒂娜·罗塞蒂试图写一本关于她的传记，但最终放弃。

Ann Radcliffe (née Ward; 9 July 1764 – 7 February 1823) was an English novelist and poet who pioneered the Gothic novel. Her fourth and most popular novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho, was published in 1794. She is also remembered for her third novel, The Romance of the Forest (1791) and her fifth novel, The Italian (1797). Her novels combine suspenseful narratives, exotic historical settings, and apparently-supernatural events.

Radcliffe was famously shy and reclusive, leaving little record of the details of her life. She was born in London to a middle-class family, and was raised between Bath and the estate of her uncle Thomas Bentley. In 1787, she married William Radcliffe, a journalist, and moved to London. She published five novels between 1789 and 1797 to increasing acclaim and financial success, becoming one of the highest-paid authors of the eighteenth century. She then lived entirely privately for twenty-six years, travelling frequently with her husband. She died in 1823, aged 58, and her final works were published posthumously in 1826.

In total, she wrote six novels, a travelogue, and numerous poems. Radcliffe was the most popular writer of her day and almost universally admired; contemporary critics called her a "mighty enchantress" and the Shakespeare of romance-writers. During her lifetime, Gothic novels were known as the "Radcliffe school" of fiction, and she inspired numerous later authors, including Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, and Walter Scott.

Biography

Early life

Radcliffe was born Ann Ward in Holborn, London on 9 July 1764. She was the only child of William Ward (1737–1798) and Ann Oates (1726–1800). At the time of her birth, her father owned a haberdashery shop in London. Her mother came from a family of leadmakers and glaziers. Her father had a famous uncle, William Cheselden, who was Surgeon to King George II; her mother descended from the De Witt family of Holland, with well-connected cousins including Sir Richard Jebb, a fashionable London physician, and Samuel Hallifax, a bishop.

In 1772, Radcliffe's father moved to Bath to manage a shop owned by Thomas Bentley and Josiah Wedgwood, makers of Wedgwood porcelain. The shop was intended to sell second-rate goods to the less-discerning tourists of Bath, and her father avidly promoted the business. He also supplemented his income by renting rooms to lodgers. Bentley was Radcliffe's maternal uncle, and more respectable as a land-owning member of the gentry. She often paid extended visits to his home in Chelsea, London and later Turnham Green. Wedgwood's daughter Susannah, known by the nickname Sukey, also stayed in Chelsea and is Radcliffe's only known childhood companion. 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 little niece". Bentley and Wedgwood were both Unitarians, as was Radcliffe's grand-uncle Dr. John Jebb. Radcliffe herself regularly attended Anglican church services, but her biographer Rictor Norton suggests that she remained sympathetic to Unitarians and Dissenters.

Marriage

In 1787, when Radcliffe was 23 years old, she married William Radcliffe (1763–1830). William was, like Radcliffe, the child of a haberdasher. He attended Cambridge briefly in 1780, and finished a B.A. at Oxford in 1785. He spent some time as 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. William published several translations from Latin and French to support them, and in 1790 began working for the Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser. According to the literary historian Nick Groom, this was "a fiercely radical paper that celebrated the French Revolution, freedom of the press, and Dissenters' rights." By many accounts, theirs was a happy marriage. Radcliffe called him her "nearest relative and friend".