by H. P. Lovecraft
(Copyright 1927 by W. Paul Cook)
The Gothic novel was now settled as a literary form, and instances
multiply bewilderingly as the eighteenth century drew toward its close.
"The Recess," written in 1785 by Mrs. Sophia Lee, has the historic
element, revolving round the twin daughters of Mary, Queen of Scots;
and though devoid of the supernatural, employs the Walpole scenery and
mechanism with great dexterity. Five years later, and all existing
lamps are paled by the rising of a fresh luminary of wholly superior
order--Mrs. Anne Radcliffe, (1764-1823) whose famous novels made
terror and suspense a fashion, and who set new and higher standards
in the domain of the macabre and fear-inspiring atmosphere despite a
provoking custom of destroying her own phantoms at the last through
laboured mechanical explanations. To the familiar Gothic trappings of
her predecessors, Mrs. Radcliffe added a genuine sense of the unearthly
in scene and incident which closely approached genius; every touch
of setting and action contributing artistically to the impression of
illimitable frightfulness which she wished to convey. A few sinister
details like a track of blood on castle stairs, a groan from a distant
vault, or a weird song in a nocturnal forest can with her conjure
up the most powerful images of imminent horror, surpassing by far
the extravagant and toilsome elaborations of others. Nor are these
images in themselves any the less potent because they are explained
away before the end of the novel. Mrs. Radcliffe's visual imagination
was very strong, and appears as much in her delightful landscape
touches--always in broad, clamorously pictorial outline, and never
in close detail--as in her weird phantasies. Her prime weaknesses,
aside from the habit of prosaic disillusionment, are a tendency toward
erroneous geography and history and a fatal predilection for bestrewing
her novels with insipid little poems, attributed to one or another of
the characters.
Mrs. Radcliffe wrote six novels: "The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne,"
(1789) "A Sicilian Romance," (1790) "The Romance of the Forest," (1792)
"The Mysteries of Udolpho," (1794) "The Italian," (1797) and "Gaston
de Blondeville," composed in 1802 but first published posthumously in
1826. Of these "Udolpho" is by far the most famous, and may be taken
as a type of the early Gothic tale at its best. It is the chronicle of
Emily, a young Frenchwoman transplanted to an ancient and portentous
castle in the Apennines through the death of her parents and the
marriage of her aunt to the lord of the castle--the scheming nobleman
Montoni. Mysterious sounds, opened doors, frightful legends, and a
nameless horror in a niche behind a black veil all operate in quick
succession to unnerve the heroine and her faithful attendant Anette;
but finally, after the death of her aunt, she escapes with the aid
of a fellow-prisoner whom she has discovered. On the way home, she
stops at a chateau filled with fresh horrors--the abandoned wing where
the departed chatelaine dwelt, and the bed of death with the black
pall--but is finally restored to security and happiness with her lover
Valancourt, after the clearing-up of a secret which seemed for a time
to involve her birth in mystery. Clearly, this is only the familiar
material re-worked; but it so well re-worked that "Udolpho" will always
be a classic. Mrs. Radcliffe's characters are puppets, but they are
less markedly so than those of her forerunners. And in atmospheric
creation she stands pre-eminent among those of her time.
Of Mrs. Radcliffe's countless imitators, the American novelist
Charles Brocken Brown stands the closest in spirit and method. Like
her, he injured his creations by natural explanations; but also like
her, he had an uncanny atmospheric power which gives his horrors a
frightful vitality as long as they remain unexplained. He differed
from her in contemptously discarding the external Gothic paraphernalia
and properties and choosing modern American scenes for his mysteries;
but this repudiation did not extend to the Gothic spirit and type of
incident. Brown's novels involve memorably frightful scenes, and excel
even Mrs. Radcliffe's in describing the operations of the perturbed
mind. "Edgar Huntly" starts with a sleep-walker digging a grave,
but is later impaired by touches of Godwinian didacticism. "Ormond"
involves a member of a sinister secret brotherhood. That and "Arthur
Mervyn" both describe the plague of yellow fever, which the author had
witnessed in Philadelphia and New York. But Brown's most famous book
is "Wieland; or, the Transformation," (1798) in which a Pennsylvania
German, engulfed by a wave of religious fanaticism, hears "voices" and
slays his wife and children as a sacrifice. His sister Clara, who tells
the story, narrowly escapes. The scene, laid at the woodland estate
of Mittingen on the Schuykill's remote reaches, is drawn with extreme
vividness; and the terrors of Clara, beset by spectral tones, gathering
fears, and the sound of strange footsteps in the lonely house, are all
shaped with truly artistic force. In the end, a lame ventriloquial
explanation is offered, but the atmosphere is genuine while it lasts.
Carwin, the malign ventriloquist, is a typical villain of the Manfred
or Montoni type.
(Next month Mr. Lovecraft takes up "The Apex of the Gothic Romance.")
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