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Audiobook editionPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
Behind Udolpho’s locked doors, Emily must guard more than her safety: she must keep hold of her own will.
Emily St. Aubert grows up among the woods and streams of Gascony, learning to love nature, poetry and a life of principle. After she loses her parents, her future rests with her worldly aunt, Madame Cheron. Emily loves Valancourt, a young man who shares her feelings for beauty, but her aunt’s marriage draws her toward a far darker world.
In a gloomy castle in the Italian mountains, Signor Montoni rules by force. Emily faces winding passages, midnight music and rooms the servants refuse to discuss. Ann Ward Radcliffe builds suspense through hints and uncertainty, while Emily struggles to keep fear from mastering her judgment. Against ruthless demands and unwanted courtship, her freedom and her loyalty to herself are at stake.
What you’ll discover
- A castle of secrets Enter echoing halls where shut doors and unexplained lights give Emily fresh reasons to fear.
- Courage without cruelty Follow a thoughtful heroine who tries to meet danger without surrendering her principles.
- Love under pressure Share Emily’s hopes for Valancourt as powerful people press their own wishes upon her.
- Beauty beside terror Move from woods and mountain views to a castle ruled by a ruthless man.
- Fear and the imagination Watch uncertainty deepen as Emily struggles to separate what she imagines from what she knows.
Who will love it
This book suits readers who love haunted castles, mountain storms, and candlelit corridors, and who enjoy a heroine tested by cruel guardians. It rewards anyone drawn to romantic landscape and suspense that builds room by room.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A quiet home teaches inner strength
- Valancourt earns trust through generous acts
- A promise keeps a secret alive
- New guardians narrow Emily's choices
- Venice hides coercion beneath its beauty
- Udolpho turns uncertainty into confinement
- Reason keeps fear from taking command
- Property becomes a struggle for freedom
- Emily's courage does not need display
Who’s who
- Emily St. AubertThe gentle, thoughtful heroine, trained by her father to master her feelings, who keeps her promises under pressure and longs for a safe home.
- Monsieur St. AubertEmily's loving father, a retired gentleman who loves books and nature, and who carries a private grief that he asks his daughter not to explore.
- ValancourtA warm, generous young hunter and poet whom Emily meets in the Pyrenees and who hopes to win her hand.
- Madame CheronEmily's vain, proud aunt, who takes charge of her niece, rejects Valancourt, and then marries Montoni in search of rank.
- Signor MontoniA haughty, ruined Italian nobleman who wants money and power and who controls his wife and niece without pity.
- Count MoranoA Venetian nobleman who pursues Emily with serenades and schemes, determined to make her his wife.
- AnnetteMadame Montoni's talkative maid, who loves rumors and ghost stories and becomes Emily's loyal companion in the castle.
- LudovicoA cheerful, clever servant at Udolpho, who befriends Annette and quietly wishes to leave Montoni's castle.
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The Mysteries of Udolpho
by Ann Ward Radcliffe · 1794
Emily St. Aubert, orphaned and far from home, is carried to a mountain castle where music drifts through the night.
Challenging10–20 hours to read20 languages
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“All excess is a vice.”
In short
What would you do if a promise to your dying father meant burning a stack of papers without reading a word? Emily St. Aubert faces that choice early in The Mysteries of Udolpho.
The Mysteries of Udolpho at a glance
- Reading time
- About 18 h 50 min14 h 55 min fast, 22 h 25 min slow
- Length
- 268,900 words
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- First published
- 1794by Ann Ward Radcliffe
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A peaceful Gascon home shapes Emily's character
The story opens in 1584 on the banks of the Garonne, where Monsieur St. Aubert lives with his wife and daughter. He has tasted the busy world and left it behind, choosing books, botany, and kindness to the poor. The book begins with this calm so that you know what is at stake later.
Emily has a nature that feels everything very strongly. Her father loves that sensitivity but fears it, so he trains her to govern her first impulses. He teaches her Latin, English, science, and poetry, because a full mind resists folly better than an empty one.
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Details
- First published
- 1794
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 21 h 15 min
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Radcliffe, Ann Ward. The Mysteries of Udolpho. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-mysteries-of-udolpho.
Radcliffe, A. W. (2026). The mysteries of Udolpho. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-mysteries-of-udolpho (Original work published 1794)
Radcliffe, Ann Ward. The Mysteries of Udolpho. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-mysteries-of-udolpho.
@book{radcliffe2026mysteries,
author = {Radcliffe, Ann Ward},
title = {The Mysteries of Udolpho},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-mysteries-of-udolpho},
note = {First published 1794}
}
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What is The Mysteries of Udolpho about?
It follows Emily St. Aubert, a gentle young woman who loses her parents and is taken by her aunt and a cruel Italian husband to a remote castle in the Apennines, where secrets and strange sounds surround her.
Who wrote The Mysteries of Udolpho and when was it published?
Ann Radcliffe wrote it, and it appeared in 1794. The story itself is set in 1584, in France and Italy, and it helped make the Gothic romance a popular form.
Is The Mysteries of Udolpho a true story?
No, it is an invented story. Radcliffe gives it a historical setting and real places such as Gascony, Venice, and the Pyrenees, but the people, the castle, and the mysteries are her own creation.
The author
Ann Ward Radcliffe
1764–1823 · English Gothic novelist
Ann Radcliffe, born Ann Ward, was an English novelist. She was born in London in 1764 and died there in 1823. She married William Radcliffe, a journalist, in 1787. Her novels include A Sicilian Romance (1790), The Romance of the Forest (1791), and The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794).
“All excess is a vice.”
More by Ann Ward Radcliffe
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