Other editions of book A Sicilian Romance

A Sicilian Romance is an early novel by one of the masters of Gothic fiction, Ann Radcliffe. Two young women live in an isolated mansion near the Straits of Messina. Mysterious sights and sounds begin haunting a neglected wing of the house, and their quest to discover the truth behind these mysteries leads them through the labyrinthine landscape of Sicily and into the darkest secrets of its aristoracy.

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A Sicilian Romance is a Gothic novel by Ann Radcliffe. It was her second published work, and was first published anonymously in 1790. The plot concerns the turbulent history of the fallen aristocrats of the house of Mazzini, on the northern shore of Sicily, as related by a tourist who becomes intrigued by the stories of a monk he meets in the ruins of their doomed castle.The introduction to the 'Worlds Classics' edition notes that in this novel "Ann Radcliffe began to forge the unique mixture of the psychology of terror and poetic description that would make her the great exemplar of the Gothic novel, and the idol of the Romantics". The novel explores the "cavernous landscapes and labyrinthine passages of Sicily's castles and convents to reveal the shameful secrets of its all-powerful aristocracy"First Page:A Sicilian Romance, by Ann RadcliffeThis eBook was produced by Jean Lefever

Ann Radcliffe presents a unique amalgamation of suspense, mystery and politics. Set in the later eighteenth century the story unfolds in ruined castles with secret passages and brilliant horror devices. Engrossing and picturesque descriptions paint amazing scenes in the imagination of readers! Brilliantly revealing the humiliating secrets of aristocracy, this is a spell-binding tale!

On the northern shore of Sicily are still to be seen the magnificent remains of a castle, which formerly belonged to the noble house of Mazzini. It stands in the centre of a small bay, and upon a gentle acclivity, which, on one side, slopes towards the sea, and on the other rises into an eminence crowned by dark woods. The situation is admirably beautiful and picturesque, and the ruins have an air of ancient grandeur, which, contrasted with the present solitude of the scene, impresses the traveller with awe and curiosity. During my travels abroad I visited this spot. As I walked over the loose fragments of stone, which lay scattered through the immense area of the fabrick, and surveyed the sublimity and grandeur of the ruins, I recurred, by a natural association of ideas, to the times when these walls stood proudly in their original splendour, when the halls were the scenes of hospitality and festive magnificence, and when they resounded with the voices of those whom death had long since swept from the earth. 'Thus,' said I, 'shall the present generation-he who now sinks in misery-and he who now swims in pleasure, alike pass away and be forgotten.'