Ann Radcliffe and the Gothic Novel

"Terror and horror are so far opposite, that the first expands the soul, and awakes the faculties to a high degree of life; the other contracts, freezes, and nearly annihilates them. I apprehend that neither Shakespeare nor Milton by their fictions, nor Mr. Burke by his reasoning, anywhere looked to positive horror as a source of the sublime, though they all agree that terror is a very high one; and there lies the great difference between horror and terror, but in uncertainty and obscurity, that accompany the first, respecting the dreader evil." -- Ann Radcliffe
Ann Radcliffe was born on July 9, 1764 in Holborn, London, England to a haberdasher, which gave her entrance into the artistic world due to those with whom her father came in contact. She married a William Radcliffe, an editor of the English Chronicle in 1788. Without children in this marriage, Ann turned to writing to fill her time. Her husband much encouraged this pastime.
Publishing two works anonymously, Ann Radcliffe found acclaim in the genre of Gothic fiction. Although many of the highly educated and upper crust of society found these tales to be nothing more than "sensational women's entertainment" it influenced great writers such as Jane Austen, Sir Walter Scott, the Bronte sisters (esp. Jane Eyre), and Edgar Allen Poe. Still, she received great public acclaim and large compensations for her following two books; The Mysteries of Udolpho (published 1794 and our next reading) making her the most popular novelist in England at the time.
The Gothic genre was, early on, an attempt to meld the fantastic found in medieval literature with the realism in contemporary literature. Dark and dilapidated castles, swooning heroines, the supernatural along with combining both physical and mental horrors captivated readers of Gothic fiction. Radcliffe developed her style in response to trying to explain the supernatural. Demonstrated in her novels is the sense that even supernatural occurrences could be traced back to natural beginnings.
Although still finding favor and audience for her literature, Ann Radcliffe stepped out of the literary scene and was believed deceased in 1816. It was even published that she had died of "terrors." However, it wasn't until 7 February 1823 that she died, probably due to respiratory problems caused by pneumonia, complicated with her asthma. Again, upon her true passing, it was published more fantastically, touting that 'she died in a state of mental desolation not to be described'.
Radcliffe's influence upon the genre popularized the concept and many others copied the style, sacrificing it to an early death due to the unimaginative imitations of such works, leaving it to be mocked and parodied in other literature including Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey.