Ann Radcliffe

Ann Radcliffe (née Ward; 9 July 1764 – 7 February 1823) was an English novelist and a pioneer of Gothic fiction. Her technique of explaining apparently supernatural elements in her novels has been credited with gaining respectability for Gothic fiction in the 1790s. Radcliffe was the most popular writer of her day and almost universally admired; contemporary critics called her the mighty enchantress and the Shakespeare of romance-writers, and her popularity continued through the 19th century. Interest has revived in the early 21st century, with the publication of three biographies. Biography Early life Radcliffe was born Ann Ward in Holborn, London on 9 July 1764. She was the only child to William Ward (1737–1798) and Ann Oates (1726–1800), and her mother was 36 years old when she gave birth. Her father worked as a haberdasher in London before moving the family to Bath in 1772 to take over management of a porcelain shop for his business partners Thomas Bentley and Josiah Wedgwood. Both of her parents were relatively well connected. Her father had a famous uncle, William Cheselden, who was Surgeon to King George II, and her mother descended from the De Witt family of Holland and had a cousin, Sir Richard Jebb, who was a fashionable London physician. Growing up, Radcliffe often visited her maternal uncle, Thomas Bentley, in Chelsea, London and later Turnham Green. Bentley was business partners with a fellow Unitarian, Josiah Wedgwood, maker of the Wedgwood China. Sukey, Wedgwood's daughter, also stayed in Chelsea and is Radcliffe's only known childhood companion. Sukey later married Dr. Robert Darwin and had a son, the naturalist Charles Darwin. Although mixing in some distinguished circles, Radcliffe seems to have made little impression in this society and was described by Wedgwood as "Bentley's shy niece".