The Buckley School's founder believed all public speakers should hone their presentation skills by reading poetry out loud. We keep that worthwhile practice alive by including a poem in our magazine each month for you to read aloud.
"I have read all Mrs. Radcliffe's works, and most of them with great pleasure. 'The Mysteries of Udolpho,' when I had once begun it, I could not lay down again;—I remember finishing it in two days—my hair standing on end the whole time."
– the character Henry Tilney in Jane Austen's "Northanger Abbey "
As the world celebrates the 250th birthday of Jane Austen this year, we've been reading some of the authors Miss Austen read herself. (If you'd like to explore what was on Jane Austen's bookshelf, we've enjoyed this book by Rebecca Romney.)
One of the writers Austen read was Ann Radcliffe, who pioneered the Gothic novel, in particular The Mysteries of Udolpho. Austen's Northanger Abbey is both a tribute to and parody of Radcliffe's Gothic romances.
Radcliffe's work inspired Mary Shelley and Walter Scott, as well as Austen. She has been credited with inventing "the psychological novel of suspense and supernatural" by historian Michael Gamer.
Fyodor Dosotyevsky wrote that, as a child, "I used to spend the long winter hours before bed listening (for I could not yet read), agape with ecstasy and terror, as my parents read aloud to me from the novels of Ann Radcliffe. Then I would rave deliriously about them in my sleep."
The popularity of her books made her the highest paid author of the late 1790s.
Despite her power to wow readers, Radcliffe kept a low profile. She first started writing for her own amusement. Even as readers clamored to get her next novel, she remained reclusive.
Radcliffe wrote poetry, too. We provide one of her poems this month for you to read aloud.
To The Visions Of Fancy
by Ann Radcliffe
Dear, wild illusions of creative mind!
Whose varying hues arise to Fancy's art,
And by her magic force are swift combin'd
In forms that please, and scenes that touch the heart:
Oh! whether at her voice ye soft assume
The pensive grace of sorrow drooping low;
Or rise sublime on terror's lofty plume,
And shake the soul with wildly thrilling woe;
Or, sweetly bright, your gayer tints ye spread,
Bid scenes of pleasure steal upon my view,
Love wave his purple pinions o'er my head,
And wake the tender thought to passion true;
O! still—ye shadowy forms! attend my lonely hours,
Still chase my real cares with your illusive powers!"
