The Mysteries of Udolpho is a Romance novel by Ann Radcliffe, which appeared in four volumes on 8 May 1794 from G. G. and J. Robinson of London. Her fourth and most popular novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho tells of Emily St. Aubert, who suffers misadventures that include the death of her mother and father, supernatural terrors in a gloomy castle, and machinations of Italian brigand Signor Motoni. It is often cited as an archetypal example of the Gothic novel.
The Mysteries of Udolpho is satirized in Jane Austen's 1817 novel Northanger Abbey, in which an impressionable young woman reader comes to see friends and acquaintances as Gothic villains and victims, with amusing results.[1]
