May 23, 2024 - Sale 2670

Sale 2670 - Lot 13

Price Realized: $ 1,875
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,000
Radcliffe, Ann (1764-1823)
The Mysteries of Udolpho, First edition.

London: Printed for G.G. and J. Robinson, 1794.

First edition, four 12mo volumes; rebound in 19th century half-morocco and marbled boards, gilt stamped spines, all edges tinted yellow (scattered foxing concentrated at ends, occasional small stains and closed marginal tears not affecting text; joints cracked on each with repairs to vol. I, extremities rubbed, corners bumped, spines chipping with losses to caps on vols. I, II, and IV); all volumes 6 5/8 x 4 in.

One of the greatest of all Gothic novels, Radcliffe's third book was immensely popular with young women of the period, and famously satirized by Jane Austen in Northanger Abbey. The power of its legacy is easily recognizable in the later works of Edgar Allan Poe, John Keats, Henry James, Herman Melville, and others.

Bleiler, 1370; Block, p. 193; Rothschild 1701; Summers, p. 135, 443.