from Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho, a Romance, 1794

The works of Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823) were tremendously popular, and inaugurated a period of proliferation of novels of “terror.” None was more successful than The Mysteries of Udolpho, for which Radcliffe was paid a copyright fee of £500, about fifty times the price of an average manuscript. Radcliffe received even more for her next novel, The Italian (1797), after which she retired from writing—a decision that prompted unfounded but persistent rumors that she had been driven mad by her own work. Her last novel, Gaston de Blondeville (1826), was published posthumously.

The plot of The Mysteries of Udolpho concerns Emily St. Aubert, a young woman whose prospects for marriage and fortune are manipulated by her aunt and her aunt’s new husband, the sinister Montoni. All of the following excerpts relate to a mysteriously veiled object at Udolpho, Montoni’s castle; they begin as Emily is examining paintings in the castle with her aunt’s maid, Annette.

Volume 2
Chapter 5

… Passing the light hastily over several other pictures, she came to one concealed by a veil of black silk. The singularity of the circumstance struck her, and she stopped before it, wishing to remove the veil, and examine what could thus carefully be concealed, but somewhat wanting courage. “Holy Virgin! what can this mean?” exclaimed Annette. “This is surely the picture they told me of at Venice.”

“What picture?” said Emily. “Why a picture—a picture,” replied Annette, hesitatingly—“but I never could make out exactly what it was about, either.”

“Remove the veil, Annette.”

“What! I, ma’amselle!—I! not for the world!” Emily, turning round, saw Annette’s countenance grow pale. “And pray, what have you heard of this picture, to terrify you so, my good girl?” said she. “Nothing, ma’amselle: I have heard nothing, only let us find our way out.”

“Certainly: but I wish first to examine the picture; take the light, Annette, while I lift the veil.” Annette took the light, and immediately walked away with it, disregarding Emily’s call to stay, who, not choosing to be left alone in the dark chamber, at length followed her. “What is the reason of this, Annette?” said Emily, when she overtook her, “what have you heard concerning that picture, which makes you so unwilling to stay when I bid you?”

“I don’t know what is the reason, ma’amselle,” replied Annette, “nor any thing about the picture, only I have heard there is something very dreadful belonging to it—and that it has been covered up in black EVER SINCE—and that nobody has looked at it for a great many years—and it somehow has to do with the owner of this castle before Signor Montoni came to the possession of it—and—”

“Well, Annette,” said Emily, smiling, “I perceive it is as you say—that you know nothing about the picture.”

“No, nothing, indeed, ma’amselle, for they made me promise never to tell:—but—”

“Well,” rejoined Emily, who observed that she was struggling between her inclination to reveal a secret, and her apprehension for the consequence, “I will inquire no further—”

“No, pray, ma’am, do not.”

“Lest you should tell all,” interrupted Emily. …

Chapter 6

… To withdraw her thoughts … from the subject of her misfortunes, she attempted to read, but her attention wandered from the page, and, at length, she threw aside the book, and determined to explore the adjoining chambers of the castle. Her imagination was pleased with the view of ancient grandeur, and an emotion of melancholy awe awakened all its powers, as she walked through rooms, obscure and desolate, where no footsteps had passed probably for many years, and remembered the strange history of the former possessor of the edifice. This brought to her recollection the veiled picture, which had attracted her curiosity, on the preceding night, and she resolved to examine it. As she passed through the chambers, that led to this, she found herself somewhat agitated; its connection with the late lady of the castle, and the conversation of Annette, together with the circumstance of the veil, throwing a mystery over the subject, that excited a faint degree of terror. But a terror of this nature, as it occupies and expands the mind, and elevates it to high expectation, is purely sublime, and leads us, by a kind of fascination, to seek even the object, from which we appear to shrink.

Emily passed on with faltering steps, and having paused a moment at the door, before she attempted to open it, she then hastily entered the chamber, and went towards the picture, which appeared to be enclosed in a frame of uncommon size, that hung in a dark part of the room. She paused again, and then, with a timid hand, lifted the veil; but instantly let it fall—perceiving that what it had concealed was no picture, and, before she could leave the chamber, she dropped senseless on the floor.

When she recovered her recollection, the remembrance of what she had seen had nearly deprived her of it a second time. …

Volume 3
Chapter 1
[Emily is locked into a room at Udolpho, and is afraid for the well-being of her aunt, as well as her own safety.]

… When her spirits had overcome the first shock of her situation, she held up the lamp to examine, if the chamber afforded a possibility of an escape. It was a spacious room, whose walls, wainscoted with rough oak, shewed no casement but the grated one, which Emily had left, and no other door than that, by which she had entered. The feeble rays of the lamp, however, did not allow her to see at once its full extent; she perceived no furniture, except, indeed, an iron chair, fastened in the centre of the chamber, immediately over which, depending on a chain from the ceiling, hung an iron ring. Having gazed upon these, for some time, with wonder and horror, she next observed iron bars below, made for the purpose of confining the feet, and on the arms of the chair were rings of the same metal. As she continued to survey them, she concluded, that they were instruments of torture, and it struck her, that some poor wretch had once been fastened in this chair, and had there been starved to death. She was chilled by the thought; but, what was her agony, when, in the next moment, it occurred to her, that her aunt might have been one of these victims, and that she herself might be the next! An acute pain seized her head, she was scarcely able to hold the lamp, and, looking round for support, was seating herself, unconsciously, in the iron chair itself; but suddenly perceiving where she was, she started from it in horror, and sprung towards a remote end of the room. Here again she looked round for a seat to sustain her, and perceived only a dark curtain, which, descending from the ceiling to the floor, was drawn along the whole side of the chamber. Ill as she was, the appearance of this curtain struck her, and she paused to gaze upon it, in wonder and apprehension.

It seemed to conceal a recess of the chamber; she wished, yet dreaded, to lift it, and to discover what it veiled: twice she was withheld by a recollection of the terrible spectacle her daring hand had formerly unveiled in an apartment of the castle, till, suddenly conjecturing, that it concealed the body of her murdered aunt, she seized it, in a fit of desperation, and drew it aside. Beyond, appeared a corpse, stretched on a kind of low couch, which was crimsoned with human blood, as was the floor beneath. The features, deformed by death, were ghastly and horrible, and more than one livid wound appeared in the face. Emily, bending over the body, gazed, for a moment, with an eager, frenzied eye; but, in the next, the lamp dropped from her hand, and she fell senseless at the foot of the couch. …

Chapter 17

… It may be remembered, that, in a chamber of Udolpho, hung a black veil, whose singular situation had excited Emily’s curiosity, and which afterwards disclosed an object, that had overwhelmed her with horror; for, on lifting it, there appeared, instead of the picture she had expected, within a recess of the wall, a human figure of ghastly paleness, stretched at its length, and dressed in the habiliments of the grave. What added to the horror of the spectacle, was, that the face appeared partly decayed and disfigured by worms, which were visible on the features and hands. On such an object, it will be readily believed, that no person could endure to look twice. Emily, it may be recollected, had, after the first glance, let the veil drop, and her terror had prevented her from ever after provoking a renewal of such suffering, as she had then experienced. Had she dared to look again, her delusion and her fears would have vanished together, and she would have perceived, that the figure before her was not human, but formed of wax. The history of it is somewhat extraordinary, though not without example in the records of that fierce severity, which monkish superstition has sometimes inflicted on mankind. A member of the house of Udolpho, having committed some offence against the prerogative of the church, had been condemned to the penance of contemplating, during certain hours of the day, a waxen image, made to resemble a human body in the state, to which it is reduced after death. This penance, serving as a memento of the condition at which he must himself arrive, had been designed to reprove the pride of the Marquis of Udolpho, which had formerly so much exasperated that of the Romish church; and he had not only superstitiously observed this penance himself, which, he had believed, was to obtain a pardon for all his sins, but had made it a condition in his will, that his descendants should preserve the image, on pain of forfeiting to the church a certain part of his domain, that they also might profit by the humiliating moral it conveyed. The figure, therefore, had been suffered to retain its station in the wall of the chamber, but his descendants excused themselves from observing the penance, to which he had been enjoined.

This image was so horribly natural, that it is not surprising Emily should have mistaken it for the object it resembled. …