Radcliffe, whose
first novel, _The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne_,[36] appeared
in 1789. Considered historically, this immature work is full of
interest, for, with the notable exception of the supernatural, it
contains in embryo nearly all the elements of Mrs. Radcliffe's
future novels.
The scene is laid in Scotland, and the period, we are assured, is
that of the "dark ages"; but almost at the outset we are startled
rudely from our dreams of the mediaeval by the statement that
"the wrongfully imprisoned earl, when the sweet
tranquillity of evening threw an air of tender
melancholy over his mind ... composed the following
sonnet, which, having committed it to paper, he, the
next evening dropped upon the terrace."
The sonnet consists of four heroic quatrains somewhat curiously
resembling the manner of Gray. From this episode it may be
gathered that Mrs. Radcliffe did not aim at, or certainly did not
achieve, historical accuracy, but evolved most of her
descriptions, not from original sources in ancient documents, but
from her own inner consciousness. It was only in her last
novel--_Gaston de Blondeville_--that she made use of old
chronicles. Within the Scottish castle we meet a heroine with an
"expression of pensive melancholy" and a "smile softly clouded
with sorrow," a noble lord deprived of his rights by a villain
"whose life is marked with vice and whose death with the
bitterness of remorse.
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