Ann Radcliffe

Caroline Webber (Independent Scholar - Australia)
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Ann Radcliffe (née Ward) was born in London on the 9th July 1764, the only child of William and Ann (Oates) Ward, into a family whose “connections”, according to the

Annual Biography and Obituary

(1824), “were of the most respectable description” (Anon 89). William Ward was a haberdasher originally from Leicestershire and Ann’s mother’s family were from Derbyshire. Sir Thomas Noon Talfourd’s “Memoir”, the first biography of Radcliffe, which was prefixed to Radcliffe’s posthumous works published in 1826, also suggests that her parents were “persons of great respectability, who, though engaged in trade, were allied to families of independent fortune and high character” (Talfourd 5). Ann was christened almost five weeks after her birth on the 5th August 1764 in St.…

3167 words

Citation: Webber, Caroline. "Ann Radcliffe". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 August 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3691, accessed 19 March 2024.]

3691 Ann Radcliffe 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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