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The Gothic Novel: Novelists of The Romantic Age

The document summarizes novelists from the Romantic period in England, including those who wrote Gothic novels. It discusses how Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto influenced Gothic novels featuring supernatural elements and mysteries. The most popular Gothic novelist of the time was Ann Radcliffe, best known for The Mysteries of Udolpho. Jane Austen also wrote during this period and is noted for her realistic novels including Pride and Prejudice. Sir Walter Scott first wrote novels set in familiar Scottish scenes but later became known for historical novels like Ivanhoe that featured accurate local details.

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1K views2 pages

The Gothic Novel: Novelists of The Romantic Age

The document summarizes novelists from the Romantic period in England, including those who wrote Gothic novels. It discusses how Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto influenced Gothic novels featuring supernatural elements and mysteries. The most popular Gothic novelist of the time was Ann Radcliffe, best known for The Mysteries of Udolpho. Jane Austen also wrote during this period and is noted for her realistic novels including Pride and Prejudice. Sir Walter Scott first wrote novels set in familiar Scottish scenes but later became known for historical novels like Ivanhoe that featured accurate local details.

Uploaded by

Intezar Lahasil
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Novelists of The Romantic Age

The great novelists of the Romantic period are Jane


Austen and Scott, but before them there appeared some
novelists who came under the spell of medievalism and
wrote novels of ‘terror’ or the ‘Gothic novels’. The origin of
this type of fiction can be ascribed to Horace Walpole’s
(1717-97) The Castle of Otranto (1746). Here the story in
set in medieval Italy and it includes a gigantic helmet that
can strike dead its victims, tyrants, supernatural intrusions,
mysteries and secrets. There were a number of imitators
of such a type of novel during the eighteenth century as
well as in the Romantic period.
 The Gothic Novel
The most popular of the writers of the ‘terror’ or ‘Gothic’
novel during the Romantic age was Mrs. Ann Radciffe
(1764-1823), of whose five novels the best-known are The
Mysteries of Udolpho and the Italian. She initiated the
mechanism of the ‘terror’ tale as practiced by Horace
Walpole and his followers, but combined it with
sentimental but effective description of scenery. The
Mysteries of Udolpho relates the story of an innocent and
sensitive girl who falls in the hands of a heartless villain
named Montoni. He keeps her in a grim and isolated
castle full of mystery and terror. The novels of Mrs.
Radcliffe became very popular, and they influenced some
of the great writers like Byron and Shelley. Later they
influenced the Bronte sisters whose imagination was
stimulated by these strange stories.
Jane Austen
Jane Austen wrote six novels—Pride and Prejudice,
Sense and Sensibility, Emma, Mansefield Park,
Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. Of these Pride and
Prejudice is the best and most widely read of her
novels. Sense and Sensibility, Emma and Mansefield are
now placed among the front rank of English novels. From
purely literary point of view Northanger Abbey gets the first
place on account of the subtle humour and delicate satire
it contains against the grotesque but popular ‘Gothic’
novels.

Sir Walter Scott


During his first five or six years of novel-writing Scott
confined himself to familiar scenes and characters. The
novels which have a local colour and are based on
personal observations are Guy Mannering, The Antiquary,
Old Mortality and The Heart of Midlothian. His first attempt
at a historical novel was Ivanhoe (1819) followed
by Kenilworth (1821), Quentin Durward (1823), and The
Talisman (1825). He returned to Scottish antiquity from
time to time as in The Monastery (1820) and St. Ronan’s
Well (1823).

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