It’s difficult to believe that when Ann Radcliffe penned her gothic romance novel, A Sicilian Romance (1790), she had never set foot in Sicily, or anywhere on the Continent.
Set in 16th century Sicily, the novel offers an abundance of forests, caves, ruins and castles – all described in a way that feels real and accurate to the landscape. Instead of writing from experience, Ann took inspiration from paintings and travel journals.
Horace Walpole had also never set foot in Puglia, Italy – the setting for his gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto. Published in 1764, it’s regarded as the first foray into the genre. It marked a move away from the realist novels of Henry Fielding and a shift into the haunting world of romantic landscapes and unsettled minds.
Radcliffe took this genre under her wing and crafted engrossing reads that gripped people’s imaginations, earning her the title of the ‘first lady of gothic’.
Ann inspired both the Romantics and an abundance of eighteenth century novelists, including Jane Austen and Bram Stoker. The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) remains her most popular book.
She didn’t simply try to dazzle readers with the gothic elements of castles, damsels in distress and references to the supernatural. She also homed in on the characters themselves. The gothic plot is infused with human emotion, as well as the influences of the natural landscape on both her female and male characters.
In A Sicilian Romance, we are introduced to sisters Julia and Emilia who are daughters of nobility. In the beginning, there is a sense of lighthearted youth and the promise of a good life. But when Julia refuses a love match made by her father events soon take a darker turn.
Under the rule of the malevolent Marquis, the castle quickly becomes a claustrophobic and fearful home for the two sisters. The labyrinthian castle is Radcliffe’s signature setting. A place in which it is easy to hide secrets, and equally difficult to escape.
Even outside the castle walls, the landscape is unfamiliar and filled with dangers at every turn.
Despite its short length, the novel is packed with suspense and action.
The plot presents the unlikeliest of coincidences and repetitive events. People you think have perished have a habit of coming back from the grave, and just when you think the heroine has finally been caught by her tyrannical father or ensnared by banditti, she miraculously manages to escape. This element of the story becomes a little wearisome and relies on the reader’s suspension of disbelief.
However, the point of the gothic genre was to depart from the everyday life of English society, and transport readers to the perils of the unfamiliar and sublime – something this book does very well.
The edition pictured above was published by Oxford University Press in 1999.
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