The Mysteries of Udolpho is not Gothic fiction, Gothic fiction is The Mysteries of Udolpho. This best selling book popularized all the elements we associate with that genre. A prone to fainting heroine, a dastardly villain holding her against her will, crumbling castles, terrifying supernatural mysteries, and windswept gloomy landscapes. Those who want to understand the history of horror, Gothic novels, or even Jane Austen should read this book. In fact, I read this in preparation for Udolpho’s future parody - Northanger Abbey. But should you?

No. No you shouldn’t.

The only people who should read this are the historically curious- sickos like me. Udolpho is way too long at nearly 700 pages. The descriptions are never ending and the plot doesn’t even start until a third of the way in. Hell, the titular castle isn’t even mentioned until after 200 pages! Yet, it was massively popular in its day and inspired many writers like Edgar Alan Poe. So what went right back then, what went wrong for us today? There’s a lot to talk about so grab a coffee and get comfy. This is gonna be a long one.

France

The book opens with our heroine 17 year old Emily St Aubert and her parents traveling through the French Alps. The mother isn’t much of a character, but the father’s principle quality seems to be saintly benevolence. He’s loving to his children and wife. He’s strong as needed when faced with the death of his sons and enjoys walks in his garden. As Emily’s family is part of the landed gentry, he even goes personally to hand out retiree pensions.

He raised his eyes to heaven, as if in prayer, and then in a firmer tone, and with a look in which the tenderness of the father was dignified by the pious solemnity of the saint. p.75

You could almost see God and Garden of Eden metaphors in her father and their homely mansion in France. But there’s no depth to it, I think it was just made to emphasize how great her life was before the events of the book.

The beginning is almost dreamlike. The trip through the French alps is overflowing with flowery descriptions. Radcliffe had a real talent for describing awe inspiring mountain landscapes. She revels in her own descriptions and paints with a zealous brush. Which is a fitting metaphor because according to the book’s introduction, Radcliffe had never travelled to the novel’s setting and instead modeled much of her landscape impressions on the famous landscape paintings of the day.

Emily, often as she travelled among the clouds, watched in silent awe their billowy surges rolling below; sometimes, wholly closing upon the scene, they appeared like a world of chaos, and, at others, spreading thinly, they opened and admitted partial catches of the landscape - the torrent, whose astounding roar had never failed, tumbling down the rocky chasm, huge cliffs white with snow, or the dark summits of the pine forests, that stretched mid-way down the mountains p.165

The problem is the first third is filled with these endless pages of landscape descriptions. The trip is frequently paused to view the latest Kodak moment. We get some payoff with this later on the march to Venice.

Along the way they meet a kind and handsome young gentleman Monsieur Valancourt who happens to be going the same direction they do. Valancourt becomes Emily’s love interest. Eventually Valancourt has to part, and Emily’s mother and father both die of illness. Leaving Emily in the hands of her uncaring Aunt.

Her Aunt, Madame Cheron, shares none of Emily’s interests and cares little about her happiness. She’s short, curt, and frequently annoyed with Emily. I got the feeling she resents having been made Emily’s guardian.

Emily, extremely shocked at this course speech, attempted to interrupt it; but Madame Cherone would proceed, with all the self importance of a person, to whom power is new p.110

Emily herself isn’t much of a character either. She’s described in the book as kind, polite, and overly sensible. She’s so sensible she’s prone to fainting and does it so often it veers into self parody. In an action scene, her father mistakes Valancourt for a bandit and shoots him. Realizing his mistake, Monsieur St Aubert calls Emily for help, only to find her fainted in the stage coach. The juxtaposition between the needs of the action and the inaction of the main character was ridiculous enough to be comedy.

Emily is essentially a blank slate. Maybe this book was popular because Emily was easy for the reader to slip into, similar to a silent protagonist in the video games of today.

Eventually Madame Cheron meets and then marries the book’s villain- the evil Count Montoni.

While Montoni is a classic Gothic villain, he lacks any aspects other than his brooding anger and implied threats of violence. Emily’s inheritance is somehow tied up in her aunt so Montoni marries purely for greed. He spends his nights out gambling away his money and his friends are horrible people. A typical interaction between him and Emily is a wagging finger and his favorite vague threat: how much she won’t like what happens if she angers him:

[Montoni:] “I now remind you, for the last time, that you are a stranger, in a foreign country, and that it is in your interest to make me your friend; you know the means; if you compel me to become your enemy - I will venture to tell you, that the punishment shall exceed your expectation. You may know I am not to be trifled with.” p.217

Venice

After their wedding Montoni whisks the women away to his estate in Venice. When you contrast this trip to the one earlier, we finally get something out of all the endless descriptions from before. Earlier Emily and company had a wonderful time taking in the sights of their Alpine trip. Now though, Montoni does not share their love of beauty or art and the party takes no scenic detours. When they do catch a glimpse of the mountains they are appropriately craggy and gloomy. And the only time they stop is when their path crosses an Italian war force, a scary moment reminding Emily of the uncertainty of a war torn region.

Radcliffe had never been to Italy and largely used travel books for her research. This resulted in a lot of anachronisms. That said, Venice was described lively and the terrible people Montoni associated with brought some degree of interest. I wouldn’t say it started being good, but it at least stopped being bad.

Montoni’s friends give off so many red flags. One of Montoni’s favorites, Orsini, reminds me of Joe Pesci’s character in Goodfellas. Short tempered and easily offended, he actually hires an assassin to murder a Venetian nobleman over an insult. Montoni hides Orsini from the Venetian authorities. In this way, Montoni doesn’t have to be directly violent to be intimidating. His history, company, and attitude make his threats too plausible to ignore.

“You speak like a heroine,” said Montoni, contemptuously; “we shall see whether you can suffer like one.” p.381

Meanwhile he’s pressuring Emily to marry the wealthy Venetian Nobleman Count Moreno. Throughout the book, Emily is fending off the advances of other men, a common trope of romances. Montoni and Madam Cheron want her to marry Moreno for the money and prestige that comes with it. But, Emily is still in love with Valancourt. She keeps trying to turn him down in clearer and clearer terms. No matter what she says, Montoni keeps upping the pressure, threats and tricks. Moreno, for his part, becomes more and more obsessed with Emily. Finally, when the pressure is at its peak, their shotgun wedding is scheduled for the next day and Emily is sent an invitation she can’t refuse. Emily spends her final night in dreadful anticipation.

I enjoyed the final buildup of the Venice chapters. I kept wondering how she was going to get out of marrying Moreno. But then Radcliffe denies us our catharsis and any agency of the main character. Early in the morning, like a deus ex machina, Montoni cancels the wedding and orders everyone to Castle Udolpho. No reason is given and we the reader have to accept it as another mystery.

The namesake of the book are the numerous mysteries Radcliffe weaves throughout the book. Some logical, some supernatural. Who wrote the poem on the shed? What ghost plays music near the abandoned castle? What did Emily see behind the black veil that made her faint (again)? Some mysteries are resolved within a couple pages. Others are set up early, and left for the entirety of the novel until the very last couple pages! The worst offenders are the soap opera like teases when characters say they’re going to expose a “terrible secret” and then spend the next 5 pages teasing the reveal. Perhaps the need for a resolution kept contemporary readers hooked.

Castle Udolpho

The first sighting of Udolpho (finally by page 226!) occurs during the last rays of the setting sun. Giving it a “gloomy and sublime” rendering. This was to be a place of danger and fear of what awaits the unknown; foreshadowing to later misfortunes.

Castle Udolpho is large, gloomy, and crumbling. Entire wings are derelict. Emily cannot feel safe in the castle at any time because in her room is a door that leads to a mysterious spiral staircase that locks on the outside. She cannot prevent someone from entering by that staircase. Where do the stairs go? Another mystery because Emily is too scared to explore it.

Count Moreno enters through that door late at night in the best scene of the book. Turns out Moreno is secretly broke and when Montoni found out, he cancelled the wedding and rushed everyone to his castle to escape the Venetian authorities. Moreno is still madly in love with Emily (and her money.) He has brought a couple of ruffians with him to kidnap her. Again, Emily does nothing and has to be rescued by Montoni. A fight breaks out and Montoni and Moreno duel. Montoni wins the upper hand complete with the cliched raised chin by the victor’s sword tip.

Moreno is let go and Emily explores the castle. She finds a mysterious, possibly supernatural apparition that turns out to be a captured prisoner- Monsieur Du Pont. Du Pont is actually from Emily’s home town (he was the one that left the poems in the fishing hut, another mystery resolved) and has a secret crush on her. But Emily still loves Valancourt so she turns him down. Meanwhile, Emily is getting the suspicion that Montoni is secretly broke and that he’s raiding neighboring towns and villages as a banditti captain. Montoni thinks Madame Cheron attempted to poison him and has her imprisoned in a remote part of the castle where she languishes and dies.

Chateau-le-Blanc

When Emily finally escapes Udolpho the pacing fizzles out. Emily spends the final 200 pages with the Villefort family, a loving family who own the castle near her father’s gravesite. It is here that Emily and Valancourt are finally reunited. The meeting is by chance and with minimal fanfare. The entire book has been building to this moment, and Radcliffe denies us yet again. Count De Villefort pulls Emily aside and tells her that Valancourt has gambled away his entire fortune and even spent time in prison.

[Villefort:] “And why should I conceal from you, that play is not his only vice? He appears to have a taste for every vicious pleasure.” p.507

Until now Valancourt has been portrayed as the noble romantic interest. Emily is horrified and in tears has to tell Valancourt that he is not marriage material. The dumbest part of the book is their confrontation. Valancourt and Emily are supposed to be discussing his allegedly “vicious pleasure”. Perhaps he could explain himself. Instead, they spend a page and a half crying how they have lost each other. Emily with her “falling esteem” and Valancourt with his guilt and grief.

Some other things happen that shed light on her father’s hidden past. Finally, at the end of the book we have the redemption of Valancourt’s character. The hinge of the entire second half and arguably the book, again, falls completely flat. In the last 20 pages a new character regales the tale of the time he and Valancourt spent in jail. This “reformation” is just a big misunderstanding. Valancourt is still broke, but what little money he has left he gives away to the poor. And he does NOT sleep with other women. I must have missed that part because I don’t remember that being an issue. He’s still broke though. But, this is apparently enough for Emily, and they get married and live long and happy.

Conclusion

Radcliffe really needed an editor to cut the excessive descriptions in the beginning and give Emily more agency. At one point Montoni locks her in a side room. There is a brawl amongst Montoni’s men and in the chaos Emily breaks free. But she doesn’t do anything, she wanders the halls and does fuck all before finding her room and sitting down.

I want to read all of Jane Austin’s novels before I die (she only wrote 6.) So far I’ve read Persuasion and Mansfield Park. I mentioned in my review of The Monk that I’m getting familiar with the Gothic genre in preparation for Northanger Abbey. That book is a parody of Gothic novels and The Mysteries of Udolpho is specifically called out by one of the characters as a “horrid little book.”

This book was a real challenge to get through and I hope to never read it again. Yet, here I am writing the longest review of my short blogging career. There’s admittedly more to this book than first impressions and perhaps I appreciate it more now after writing about it. Hopefully I never write another review as long as this. If you’re still here I want to thank you for sticking around.