I could just see how this book would influence Marianne. And this book is no exception! Your comment about Marianne Dashwood is right on point. I found it just about impossible to take any of them seriously-at least until we got to the books that built upon the conventions of the genre, like Northanger Abbey and Jane Eyre. Teresa: I took a course on the Gothic novel in college, and we studied Otranto, Udolpho (in an abridged version), The Monk, and several others. “What knockers!” “Oh, thank you, Doctor.” When we found our way to the ruined abbey, I kept thinking of Young Frankenstein. How would you have liked to be the one picking her up off the floor all the time, or offering fresh hankies? And the descriptions were delicious. I kept seeing her as Marianne Dashwood, a total annoyance to anyone with a lick of common sense.

Adeline, the heroine, was constantly either weeping or fainting, or else inventing execrable verse. But this time - oh, Teresa! No matter how hard I tried, I could not read this book with a straight face. So I am familiar with the genre, and of course I’ve read many Gothic descendants. Jenny: This is not the first Gothic novel I’ve read - years ago (perhaps 25 years ago) I read The Castle of Otranto and The Mysteries of Udolpho. Are we talking about Lemony Snicket and the ongoing trials of the Baudelaire children? No! Teresa and I read Ann Radcliffe’s wonderful, cobwebby, gloriously melodramatic 1791 classic The Romance of the Forest for this round of the Gothic Literature Classics Circuit. Ruined abbeys haunted by bats, owls, and other creatures of the night.

Radcliffe romance of the forest