The haughty, manipulative Marchesa, determined to thwart the romance between her son, the young Neapolitan nobleman Vincentio di Vivaldi, and Elena di Rosalba, has enlisted the help of the villainous, scheming monk, Schedoni. With a livid paleness of face and a melancholy eye, whose brooding presence dominates the novel, Schedoni has become an archetype of Romantic literature. Set in the mid-eighteenth century against the dramatic, lush backdrop of the Bay of Naples, The
Italian is a tale of passion, deceit, abduction, and the horrors of the Inquisition.
In one of the most powerful Gothic tales ever written, Mrs. Radcliffe, the unrivalled master of the genre, skillfully combines traditional elements of danger, romance, and the supernatural with her abiding interest in history and considerable ability to paint poetic images of sublime landscape. In the introduction, Robert Miles examines the novel's literary and historical context.
An ingenious performance. (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
Author Bio: Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823), the leading writer of her time of Gothic fiction, published five novels in her lifetime, including The Mysteries of Udolfo (1794).
Robert Miles teaches English at Sheffield Hallam University. He is president of the International Gothic Association and editor-in-chief of the journal Gothic Studies.
