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One of her novels, Gaston de Blondeville, was published posthumously; but otherwise her whole literary production took place between the years 1789 and 1797. The first of these years saw The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne, a very immature work; the last The Italian, which is perhaps the best.
Next came The Romance of the Forest , followed by The Mysteries of Udolpho , and The Italian , a story of the Inquisition, the last of her works pub. during her life-time. Gaston de Blondeville, ed. by Sergeant Talfourd, was brought out posthumously. Mrs. R. has been called the Salvator Rosa of British novelists.
She applied these two principles to the working out, over and over again, of practically the same story the persecutions of a beautiful and virtuous heroine, and her final deliverance from them. Her first attempt, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne, appeared as early as 1789: and she left a posthumous romance, Gaston de Blondeville, which did not come out till 1826, four years after her death.
Radcliffe's novels, which were indeed a treasure trove; one of them was "Gaston de Blondeville," which I thought beautiful. I have regretted that I did not take care of it, for I have never seen another copy. Minerva was a woman of pretty good sense, but of slatternly habits. She had been so long without a lady to guide her that her original training was either forgotten or entirely disregarded.
The widowed heiress suffered much persecution from the different suitors for her hand, among whom figured her brother-in-law, John Lackland; and Henry, fearing her marriage with some powerful prince, so tormented her by threats of removing her son from her charge, that he forced her into a marriage with Ranulf de Blondeville, Count of Chester, grandson to an illegitimate son of Henry I., a man of violent, and ambitious temper, and of mean and ungraceful appearance.
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