Before You Begin

Before you begin.

Volume IV begins at Château-le-Blanc after a long-awaited meeting has produced doubt rather than reunion. Emily St. Aubert must judge whether reputation, confession and observed conduct can be reconciled, while the old apartments of the château preserve another history of fear. Far away, authority closes around Udolpho; nearer at hand, locked rooms, missing testimony and contested estates ask what evidence can actually establish.

Ann Radcliffe brings the novel's central disciplines—sympathy, self-command and reasoned inquiry—into their final trial. La Vallée, Toulouse, St. Claire and the Pyrenees are not merely destinations: each becomes a different field in which memory, property and moral judgment are tested.

The illustrations retain eight approved identities from Volume III and introduce Count de Villefort, Chevalier St. Foix, Theresa and Signora Laurentini/Sister Agnes. Nineteen progression plates unlock only after each corresponding literary chapter has been read.