Ann Radcliffe (née
Ward, 9 July 1764 – 7 February 1823) was an English author and pioneer of the
Gothic novel. Her style is
Romantic in its vivid descriptions of landscapes and long travel scenes, yet the Gothic element is obvious through her use of the supernatural. It was her technique "the explained supernatural", the final revelation of inexplicable phenomena, that helped the Gothic novel achieve respectability in the 1790s.