The Italian (Penguin Classics)

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

• Used

  Paperback
  2000

  $3.24

  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
  2008

  $3.24

  Written in 1796, The Italian , with its archetypal villain Schedoni, intense romance between Vincentio di Vivaldi and Elena di Rosalba, and immaculate poetics of the sublime is the masterpiece of gothic fiction. Enlisted by Vincentio's mother, Marchesa, the scheming monk Schedoni casts a malevolent presence throughout the book in his plot to corrupt the romance of the young lovers. On the backdrop of the Inquisition and the French Revolution, it is a tale of the heroic struggle of love in the face of vindictive Machiavellian deceit told through the intensel descriptive landscapes of the Bay of Naples.

• New

  Paperback
  2000

  $11.77

  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.