] ] I can even remember several times that I couldn't wait to get back to the book so that I could find out what was going to happen.

] So... were you late to the meeting with your dressmaker because you were too enthralled with Udolpho? ;-)

Dressmaker? No. ;-) But I almost missed a dentist appointment. Looking back on it all, it would have been much nicer to have continued reading and forgotten about the dentist. :-)

] ] I completely agree with Helen E. that the book is about 3 or 4 hundred pages longer than it needs to be.

] Goodness, how many pages was it??

I read it online so all I knew at the time was that it was long. (It took me 5 or 6 days to get through it.) Helen E. said that it was 650 pages. If you took out the extraneous stuff you would probably have a pretty good novel at about 250 to 350 pages.

] Thanks for the summary, Bob. All in all, I think I'm glad I never read it!

I can appreciate that. After reading Udolpho and "The Monk" in the last couple of months I have no burning desire to read any more Gothic novels.