The only collection to concentrate on the European Gothic - writing in English, French, German, Russian and Spanish. Charts the rich process of cross-fertilisation, especially regarding Anglo-French exchanges in the development of the Gothic novel. Emphasises the importance of the impact of translation on the development of the Gothic novel. Uses a variety of critical perspectives to reassess the work of authors such as Clara Reeve, Sophia Lee, Charlotte Smith, Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis, Charles Maturin, Coleridge, Mary Shelley, Jan Potocki, Balzac, Dostoevesky, Gaston Leroux and Djuna Barnes. Offers a fresh way of thinking about Gothic lineages and histories.

In a wide-ranging series of introductory essays written by some of the leading figures in the field, this book is one of the most comprehensive and up-to-date guides on the diverse and murky world of the gothic in literature, film and culture.

Crosses, candles, choir vestments, sanctuary flowers, and stained glass are common church features found in nearly all mainline denominations of American Christianity today. Most Protestant churchgoers would be surprised to learn, however, that at one time these elements were viewed with suspicion as foreign implements associated strictly with the Roman Catholic Church. Blending history with the study of material culture, Ryan K. Smith sheds light on the ironic convergence of anti-Catholicism and the Gothic Revival movement in nineteenth-century America. Smith finds the source for both movements in the sudden rise of Roman Catholicism after 1820, when it began to grow from a tiny minority into the country's largest single religious body. Its growth triggered a corresponding rise in anti-Catholic activities, as activists representing every major Protestant denomination attacked "popery" through the pulpit, the press, and politics. At the same time, Catholic worship increasingly attracted young, genteel observers around the country. Its art and its tangible access to the sacred meshed well with the era's romanticism and market-based materialism. Smith argues that these tensions led Protestant churches to break with tradition and adopt recognizably Latin art. He shows how architectural and artistic features became tools through which Protestants adapted to America's new commercialization while simultaneously defusing the potent Catholic "threat." The results presented a colorful new religious landscape, but they also illustrated the durability of traditional religious boundaries.

Romantic Border Crossings participates in the movement towards 'otherness' in Romanticism, by uncovering the intellectual and disciplinary anxieties surrounding comparative studies of British, American, and European literature and culture. Spanning a wide range of authors and topics that includes Elizabeth Inchbald, Gérard de Nerval, Jacobinism, Goethe, the Gothic, Orientalism, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Anglo-American conflicts, the collection constitutes a rethinking of the divisions that continue to haunt Romantic studies.

The Gothic World offers an overview of this popular field whilst also extending critical debate in exciting new directions such as film, politics, fashion, architecture, fine art and cyberculture. Structured around the principles of time, space and practice, and including a detailed general introduction, the five sections look at: Gothic Histories Gothic Spaces Gothic Readers and Writers Gothic Spectacle Contemporary Impulses. The Gothic World seeks to account for the Gothic as a multi-faceted, multi-dimensional force, as a style, an aesthetic experience and a mode of cultural expression that traverses genres, forms, media, disciplines and national boundaries and creates, indeed, its own ‘World’.