The Italian (Penguin Classics)

by Robert Miles (Editor), Ann Radcliffe (Author), Ann Radcliffe (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2000

  $11.89

  From the first moment Vincentio di Vivaldi, a young nobleman, sets eyes on the veiled figure of Ellena, he is captivated by her enigmatic beauty and grace. But his haughty and manipulative mother is against the match and enlists the help of her confessor to come between them. Schedoni, previously a leading figure of the Inquisition, is a demonic, scheming monk with no qualms about the task, whether it entails abduction, torture - or even murder. The Italian secured Ann Radcliffe's position as the leading writer of Gothic romance of the age, for its atmosphere of supernatural and nightmarish horrors, combined with her evocation of sublime landscapes and chilling narrative.

• Used

  Paperback
  1981

  $5.00

  This is Ann Radcliffe's most complete success in fiction, and a fine example of Gothic romance. In it, primarily through the character of its extraordinary hero, Schedoni, the book becomes more than just a thriller. The elements of tragedy are there and sustained so as to take it beyond the artifices of the Gothic.