Details
RADCLIFFE, Ann. The Italian; or, The Confessional of the Black Penitents. A romance. London: for T. Cadell Jun. and W. Davies, 1797.
3 volumes, 12°. (Volume I with light creasemark to preliminaries and stain to catchword on M8r.) Contemporary polished calf gilt, Greek key pattern border, flat spines with repeated key pattern forming divisions, cross-hatching in compartments and crimson morocco lettering-pieces (joints lightly rubbed). Provenance: William Beckford (1759-1844, with bookseller's note "F. 23. vii. 83. Beckford copy"); Michael Sadleir (book label).
FIRST EDITION WITH A REMARKABLE PROVENANCE. As their titles are enough to suggest, Italy was Mrs Radcliffe's preferred setting for her gothic romances. In all, their abiding quality is high artifice rather than historical correctness. The Italian, her last and greatest novel, is the most atmospheric and shows the strongest preoccupation with monastic life, the half explained mysteries of Catholicism and the hidden terrors of the Inquisition; in Schedoni, the villain of the piece, she drew a character of unexplained aloofness and melancholy that came to epitomise the Romantic hero. Beckford, the owner of this finely-bound copy, had himself contributed to the genre with Vathek, 1781. Rothschild 1703; Block The English Novel p. 193; Summers pp. 135, 370.
3 volumes, 12°. (Volume I with light creasemark to preliminaries and stain to catchword on M8r.) Contemporary polished calf gilt, Greek key pattern border, flat spines with repeated key pattern forming divisions, cross-hatching in compartments and crimson morocco lettering-pieces (joints lightly rubbed). Provenance: William Beckford (1759-1844, with bookseller's note "F. 23. vii. 83. Beckford copy"); Michael Sadleir (book label).
FIRST EDITION WITH A REMARKABLE PROVENANCE. As their titles are enough to suggest, Italy was Mrs Radcliffe's preferred setting for her gothic romances. In all, their abiding quality is high artifice rather than historical correctness. The Italian, her last and greatest novel, is the most atmospheric and shows the strongest preoccupation with monastic life, the half explained mysteries of Catholicism and the hidden terrors of the Inquisition; in Schedoni, the villain of the piece, she drew a character of unexplained aloofness and melancholy that came to epitomise the Romantic hero. Beckford, the owner of this finely-bound copy, had himself contributed to the genre with Vathek, 1781. Rothschild 1703; Block The English Novel p. 193; Summers pp. 135, 370.