Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) was the most famous English Gothic novelist of her time, and the one best at melding themes of mystery, suspense, and romance. She was renowned for her use of veiled imagery.
The Italian was her fifth novel, published in 1797, and the last published during her life. The plot is complex, mysterious, and sombre, and has themes of love, devotion, and persecution by the Inquisition. Honoré de Balzac praised the book in his 1843 novella
Honorine.
When
The Italian was published and for some years after it was standard practice to use 'the long s', as shown in the second part of the title page in this ebook. The text used in rest of this ebook was taken from the University of Adelaide ebook library, and checked against the Oxford Classics edition. It does not use 'the long s', but had several inconsistencies which I have silently corrected. Please let me know of any I have missed.
v2 A one letter error in the content.opf file has been corrected
This work is assumed to be in the Life+70 public domain OR the copyright holder has given specific permission for distribution. Copyright laws differ throughout the world, and it may still be under copyright in some countries. Before downloading, please check your country's copyright laws.
If the book is under copyright in your country, do not download or redistribute this work.
To report a copyright violation you can
contact us here.