Read for a graduate seminar on Romantic Era Women Writers at CU Boulder.

I'd give this novel 3.5 stars, if such an option existed. As is, I'm rounding up!

I love how intricate the plot of this Gothic romance is - there really isn't a dull moment and the foreshadowing is not at all as obvious as it appears. That said - I could do without the excessive exclamation points (Perhaps Jay Anson was an avid reader of Radcliffe!) or the excessive exultations of the numerous servants/guides throughout the novel to which the main characters frequently failed to listen. As a plot device, I found that pretty weak - admittedly because my 21st Century sentiments were a bit vexed at the prospect of action moving forward because the rich guy ignored the poor guy.

That said - I'd recommend giving this one a read at some point in your life. ( )

Read for a graduate seminar on Romantic Era Women Writers at CU Boulder.

I'd give this novel 3.5 stars, if such an option existed. As is, I'm rounding up!

I love how intricate the plot of this Gothic romance is - there really isn't a dull moment and the foreshadowing is not at all as obvious as it appears. That said - I could do without the excessive exclamation points (Perhaps Jay Anson was an avid reader of Radcliffe!) or the excessive exultations of the numerous servants/guides throughout the novel to which the main characters frequently failed to listen. As a plot device, I found that pretty weak - admittedly because my 21st Century sentiments were a bit vexed at the prospect of action moving forward because the rich guy ignored the poor guy.

That said - I'd recommend giving this one a read at some point in your life. ( )

Less well-known than The Mysteries of Udolpho even though it is in some ways the better book, this is a classic Gothic romance. One of the founders of the genre, Radcliffe is well worth reading if you are interested in the best of what late eighteenth century literature has to offer. ( )

This one of Radcliffe's I didn't enjoy as much as the others by her that I've read; I found myself unintentionally skimming at times, which very rarely happens when I read. I found the plot mostly unsurprising and the characters fairly boring. ( )

A really good classic book by Ann Radcliffe. I really enjoyed Vivaldi as a character, and the amount of family related plot twists in this book is staggering, but fun. It was stressful following the characters around as they had their goalpost move every time they got close to resolving their struggles. I really enjoy how versatile of a character Schedoni is throughout the book, his chapters were some of my favorite. ( )

I wanted to like this book, it wasn't bad just so boring. The imagery was excellent, loved that part, but the plot it just took so long to move along. Ended up abandoning it.

I can see how later works reflect this, but it just wasn't for me. I found my mind wandering to other novels. ( )

Rather a long haul, this one, and not really worth the effort.

Scenes here and there are engaging, but overall this lengthy tome is slow-paced and lacklustre. ( )

A gothic novel complete with twists and turns and plenty of malign characters to frustrate the hero and heroine. Great Xmas read. ( )

I found this book fun and easier going than some of the other gothic novels I've read. This book had characters which could easily be identified and a plot that was fairly easy to follow. I did miss a few plot points, but was set straight by my tutor immediately - so no harm done. My only issue with this novel was that it was very verbose so that the story often got lost in all of the words. However, that was only a minor issue. The story moved along well, and the scenery seemed so magnificent that I wished I could have jumped into this novel to travel along with the characters (well, maybe not into the Inquisitor's prison!). ( )

Published in 1797 this was the final novel from one of the early initiators of Gothic Romance - and many would say the genre's queen. The story begins as a Romeo and Juliet type affair: Vivaldi has fallen for Ellena, an enigmatic orphan, but his family strongly oppose the match. There is also a seemingly supernatural element as young suitor is repeatedly warned to keep his distance by the ghostly appearance of a sinister black monk. The plot moves fast, with lots of gorgeous descriptions of travel in the Alps and across Italy, and it takes in along the way many of the deliciously overwrought staples of the genre: poison, deathbed confessions, evil priests, sequestered monasteries and even the Inquisition. The main character is one Father Schedoni, the confessor of Vivaldi's mother, who, once drawn in to oppose the match using any means possible, finds his own shady past and web of deceit begins to unravel.

This is worth a read, particularly if you are interested in the early history of the Gothic novel. But, though The Italian is commonly hailed as Radcliffe's finest work, I have to say I found this a bit of a slog in places and overall much preferred her earlier book, the beautifully creepy Mysteries of Udolpho. Also, the e-book I read was one of the worst Kindle editions I've seen: absolutely riddled with typos, which - even for 77p - was a real shame. ( )

I like Gothic novels all right, and I didn't mind The Mysteries of Udolpho any (I actually mostly enjoyed it), but wow was The Italian boring and frustrating. I wanted to like it, I truly did, but it's so very dry, and the passages upon passages of traveling through the sublime and/or picturesque scenery were a bit much to bear.

I feel that if you cut out most of the traveling scenes, and most of the scenes involving description of the setting, this book would be many times more enjoyable. It was pretty great once I got into it, but actually getting into the reading and not being easily distracted was difficult to do.

However, at the time of writing, it's been four or five years since I read it, so I don't remember it as clearly as I should, and I may simply be remembering the strongest of my post-reading impressions. At the very least, I never hated the book, and I've been unwilling to part with it, even as I've had to shrink my library several times. ( )

This book took forever to get through, but I liked it. ( )