Bibliograph

The Italian, or, The confessional of the Black Penitents, a romance, Ann Radcliffe ; edited by Frederick Garber ; revised and with an introduction and notes by Nick Groom

Type

Label

The Italian, or, The confessional of the Black Penitents, a romance, Ann Radcliffe ; edited by Frederick Garber ; revised and with an introduction and notes by Nick Groom

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (pages xlii-xlvi)

Index

no index present

Literary Form

fiction

Main title

The Italian, or, The confessional of the Black Penitents

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

960837852

Responsibility statement

Ann Radcliffe ; edited by Frederick Garber ; revised and with an introduction and notes by Nick Groom

Series statement

Oxford world's classics

Sub title

a romance

Summary

Father Schedoni is enlisted by the imperious Marchesa di Vivaldi to prevent her son from marrying the beautiful Ellena. Schedoni has no scruples in kidnapping Ellena and in undertaking whatever villainy will further his own ends. His menacing presence dominates a gripping tale of love and betrayal, abduction and assassination, and incarceration in the dreadful dungeons of the Inquisition. Uncertainty and doubt lie everywhere, in Radcliffe's last and most unnerving novel. Ann Radcliffe defined the "terror" genre of writing and helped to establish the Gothic novel, thrilling readers with her mysterious plots and eerie effects. In The Italian she rejects the rational certainties of the Enlightenment for a more ambiguous and unsettling account of what it is to be an individual - particularly a woman - in a culture haunted by history and dominated by institutional power. This new edition includes Radcliffe's important essay "On the Supernatural in Poetry, " in which she distinguishes terror writing from horror. -- Amazon.com

resource.variantTitle

Confessional of the Black Penitents, a romance

Classification