One of the most popular novelists of her era, Ann Ward Radcliffe created a female Gothic that transformed the emotional extravagances of the classic male Gothic novel, pioneered by Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764). Usually set in haunted castles, graveyards, ruins, or wild landscapes, the traditional male form inspires fear by emphasizing the supernatural and the macabre. Although Radcliffe's novels are replete with fantastic details, she uses such elements to create female fantasies that deal with issues such as female isolation and dependence in a patriarchal society.

Radcliffe's use of the unconscious, her development of fear and suspense, and her vivid poetic descriptions of architecture, landscape, weather, and lighting created a craze for the picturesque, sentimental, and sublime Gothic novel. Her widely translated work, which left its mark permanently on detective and horror literature, inspired countless adaptations and imitations and influenced such authors as Charles Robert Maturin...