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b'We hope you enjoy this preview of an episode from our back catalog available to our premium subscribers.\\xa0Tonight, by listener request, we\\u2019ll read the opening to 1794\\u2019s "The Mysteries of Udolpho" by English author Ann Radcliffe. Radcliffe was a pioneer of Gothic fiction and the most popular author of her day.\\xa0To unlock full episodes, ad-free listening, and more, please go to\\xa0snoozecast.com/plus.\\n\\nLater the author Dostoevsky would write that he had been influenced by Radcliffe as a child. "I used to spend the long winter hours before bed listening... agape with ecstasy and terror, as my parents read aloud to me from the novels of Ann Radcliffe. Then I would rave deliriously about them in my sleep.\\u201d\\xa0\\n\\nThe Mysteries of Udolpho tells of Emily St. Aubert, who suffers, among other misadventures, the death of her mother and father, supernatural terrors in a gloomy castle and machinations of an Italian brigand.\\xa0\\n\\n\\u2014 read by \'V\' \\u2014\\xa0\\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices'