A Sicilian Romance (Best Novel Classics #46)

A Sicilian Romance (Best Novel Classics #46)

Ann Ward Radcliffe
$11.24
This product is not returnable.
Publication Date: August 11th, 2016
Publisher:
Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN:
9781537040974
Pages:
158
Usually Ships in 1 to 5 Days

Description

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The plot concerns the fallen nobility of the house of Mazzini, on the northern shore of Sicily, as related by a tourist who learns of their turbulent history from a monk he meets at the ruins of their once-magnificent castle. The Mazzini sisters, Emilia and Julia are 'beautiful' young ladies with many talents.

Julia quickly falls in love with the young and handsome Italian count Hippolitus de Vereza, but to her dismay her father decides that she should marry Duke de Luovo instead. After much thought Julia attempts to elope with Hippolitus on the night before her wedding. However, their escape had been anticipated, and the Marquis, Julia's father, ambushes and seemingly kills Hippolitus whose body is carried away by his servants.

The Marquis tells Julia that she must marry the duke and after much difficulty she escapes again alone. The Marquis and the Duke spend much of the novel trying to catch Julia and force her to marry the duke. Julia has to flee from her various hiding places as she narrowly avoids capture and eventually ends up, by a secret tunnel, in the abandoned and seemingly haunted southern apartments of the Mazzini castle only to find that her mother, thought to be dead, had been imprisoned there for years by the Marquis, who had grown to despise her.

The Marquis's new wife, Maria de Vellorno, commits murder-suicide after the Marquis discovers and accuses her of infidelity, poisoning the Marquis and stabbing herself. Before he dies the Marquis confesses to Ferdinand, his son, that his mother has been imprisoned, and hands him the keys. However, his mother and Julia had already been freed by Hippolitus, who had recovered from his wounds. Ferdinand then finds them at a lighthouse on the coast, waiting to leave for Italy, and they are all joyfully reunited.

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Characters:

Ferdinand Mazzini - Marquis
Louisa Bernini - Ferdinand's first wife, mother of his three children
Maria de Vellorno - Ferdinand's second wife
Emilia - older daughter
Julia - younger daughter
Ferdinand - son
Madame de Menon - governess of Mazzini girls, childhood friend of Louisa Bernini
Vincent - servant Count Hippolitus de Vereza
Duke de Luovo
Robert - servant
Riccardo - de Luovo's son, leader of banditti
Peter - servant
Caterina - Julia's servant whose parents help hide her
Cornelia - nun at St. Augustin's, Hippolitus's sister.

About the Author

Ann Radcliffe (9 July 1764 - 7 February 1823) was an English author and pioneer of the Gothic novel. Her style is Romantic in its vivid descriptions of landscapes and long travel scenes, yet the Gothic element is obvious through her use of the supernatural. It was her technique "the explained supernatural", the final revelation of inexplicable phenomena, that helped the Gothic novel achieve respectability in the 1790s. Very little is known of Ann Radcliffe's life. In 1823, the year of her death, the Edinburgh Review, said: "She never appeared in public, nor mingled in private society, but kept herself apart, like the sweet bird that sings its solitary notes, shrouded and unseen." Radcliffe was born as Ann Ward in Holborn, London, on 9 July 1764. Her father was William Ward, a haberdasher, who later moved to Bath to manage a china shop. Her mother was Ann Oates. In 1787, she married the Oxford graduate and journalist William Radcliffe, part-owner and editor of the English Chronicle. He often came home late, and to occupy her time she began to write, and read her work to him when he returned home. Radcliffe's fiction is characterised by seemingly supernatural events that are then provided rational explanations. Throughout her work, traditional moral values are asserted, the rights of women are advocated, and reason prevails. Radcliffe is considered one of the founders of Gothic literature. While there were others that preceded her, Radcliffe was the one that legitimised the genre. Sir Walter Scott called her the "founder of a class or school," Radcliffe influenced many later authors, including the Marquis de Sade (1740-1814), Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), and Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), and of the many lesser imitators of the "Radcliffe School", such as Harriet Lee and Catherine Cuthbertson.

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