The change of title is significant. The two
previous works have been romances, but it is now Mrs. Radcliffe's
intention to let herself go further in the direction of wonder
and suspense than she had hitherto ventured. She is like Scythrop
in _Nightmare Abbey_, of whom it was said:
"He had a strong tendency to love of mystery for its
own sake; that is to say, he would employ mystery to
serve a purpose, but would first choose his purpose by
its capability of mystery."
Yet Mrs. Radcliffe, at the opening of her story, is sparing in
her use of supernatural elements. We live by faith, and are drawn
forward by the hope of future mystifications. In the first volume
we saunter through idyllic scenes of domestic happiness in the
Chateau le Vert and wander with Emily and her dying father
through the Apennines, with only faint suggestions of excitement
to come. The second volume plunges us _in medias res_. The aunt,
to whose care Emily is entrusted, has imprudently married a
tempestuous tyrant, Montoni, who, to further his own ends,
hurries his wife and niece from the gaiety of Venice to the gloom
of Udolpho. After a journey fraught with terror, amid rugged,
lowering mountains and through dusky woods, we reach the castle
of Udolpho at nightfall.
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