ABSTRACT
In 1794 James Boaden adapted Ann Radcliffe's The Romance of the Forest for the Covent Garden stage, receiving both great public acclaim and critical abuse. The dialogic import of this page–stage traffic has been neatly summarized by Diego Saglia, who has discussed the stage adaptations of Radcliffe's novels as 'something other than mediocre, adventitious texts'. The contemporary reviewers of the novel, for instance, noted that it firmly consolidated Radcliffe's reputation for the poetical description of landscapes. In keeping with the drive of most Gothic dramas, Boaden amplifies the political sub-plot inherent in Radcliffe's novel, while the romantic one becomes all but accessory. In Radcliffe's novels the character's consciousness offered a filter between the narrated events and the reader, who shared in the protagonist's uncertainties. On the critical level we might contend that Boaden appropriated for the stage the expectations of future horrors and the dreadful anticipations experienced by Radcliffe's heroines and, vicariously, by her readers.
