Lusignan; Or, the Abbaye of La Trappe : Valancourt Books : 9781941147740 : 1941147747 : 31 Mar 2015 : Ann Radcliffe (1764-1823) was the most popular and best-selling novelist of her time, earning a widespread readership and previously unheard-of sums of money for her Gothic novels The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) and The Italian (1797). But after publishing The Italian, at the height of her powers, she disappeared from the literary scene and never published another novel. Or did she? Lusignan; or, The Abbaye of La Trappe, issued anonymously in 1801 by the great purveyor of Gothic fiction, the Minerva Press, is the story of the ill-fated love between the virtuous Emily de Montalte and the handsome Lusignan, and it bears remarkable similarities in theme and style to Radcliffe's works. With a quintessentially Gothic plot that features all the trappings of the genre, including a haughty aristocrat, a scheming monk, lovers immured in dungeons and convents, and a su