Gothic as a form of fiction-making has played a major role in Western culture since the late eighteenth century. In this volume, fourteen world-class experts on the Gothic provide thorough and revealing accounts of this haunting-to-horrifying type of fiction from the 1760s (the decade of The Castle of Otranto, the first so-called 'Gothic story') to the end of the twentieth century (an era haunted by filmed and computerized Gothic simulations). Along the way, these essays explore the connections of Gothic fictions to political and industrial revolutions, the realistic novel, the theatre, Romantic and post-Romantic poetry, nationalism and racism from Europe to America, colonized and post-colonial populations, the rise of film and other visual technologies, the struggles between 'high' and 'popular' culture, changing psychological attitudes towards human identity, gender and sexuality, and the obscure lines between life and death, sanity and madness. The volume also includes a chronology and guides to further reading.

"Written with an undergraduate audience in mind, this text offers a synthesis of the main topics of Gothic interest and clearly argued summaries of critical debate. It signals its difference from recent psychoanalytic readings of Gothic and argues instead for a more complex, multilayered approach via an historicist reading of gothic fiction. Illustrated with ten black and white plates and including an up-to-date bibliography, this will be an ideal text for all those with an interest in the Gothic."--BOOK JACKET.

This book revives and revitalises the literary Gothic in the hands of contemporary women writers. It makes a scholarly, lively and convincing case that the Gothic makes horror respectable, and establishes contemporary women’s Gothic fictions in and against traditional Gothic. The book provides new, engaging perspectives on established contemporary women Gothic writers, with a particular focus on Angela Carter, Margaret Atwood and Toni Morrison. It explores how the Gothic is malleable in their hands and is used to demythologise oppressions based on difference in gender and ethnicity. The study presents new Gothic work and new nuances, critiques of dangerous complacency and radical questionings of what is safe and conformist in works as diverse as Twilight (Stephenie Meyer) and A Girl Walks Home Alone (Ana Lily Amirpur), as well as by Anne Rice and Poppy Brite. It also introduces and critically explores postcolonial, vampire and neohistorical Gothic and women’s ghost stories.

The La Motta family are on the run. Forced to flee Paris after a scandal, they need a place to hide. They settle for an abandoned abbey, where they’re joined by another person with dark secrets—the mysterious Adeline. But the abbey is far from a safe haven. Its halls seem to echo with ghostly voices, and a lecherous villain has set his sights on Adeline. "The Romance of the Forest" was Ann Radcliffe’s third published novel, and her first literary success. Mixing threats real and supernatural, it builds a thrilling mystery while also exploring the power imbalances of 17th century society. A must for fans of Gothic literature. Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823) was a British writer who helped popularise Gothic fiction. Born in London, her writing career took off after her marriage to the journalist William Radcliffe. His work meant he wasn’t often at home, so Ann began writing in his absence. Unlike other Gothic writers, she favoured psychological horror over the supernatural, and female protagonists over male ones. Her best known novels include "The Mysteries of Udolpho", "The Italian" and "A Sicilian Romance". Radcliffe’s fans include Dostoyevksy and Edgar Allan Poe, and her style was even parodied by Jane Austen in her classic book "Northanger Abbey".

Focus on young adult literature - This focus on young adult literature means that this book expands scholarship specifically in this area. Focus on the Gothic for young people – Gothic texts are very popular in children’s and young adult literature, but there hasn’t been a lot of scholarship on the Gothic for adolescents. This book expands our knowledge of how the Gothic intersects with young adult literature. Includes coverage of YA fiction from the UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, a range of genres that intersect with the Gothic (including historical fiction and fairy tale), as well as forms such as the short story and graphic novel.

Cornwall as Strange Fiction is focused on written and visual culture that is made in, or made about, Cornwall and where there is affinity with Gothic. Cornwall and the Scilly Isles (known as ‘Kernow’ in the Cornish language) have a special relationship with Gothic, one that has been overlooked in the literature on regional Gothic. In 1998, Avril Horner and Sue Zlosnik coined the term ‘Cornish Gothic’ in relation to the work of Daphne du Maurier. Since then, however, there have been few discussions of the distinctive types of Gothic engendered by cultural and imaginative re-creations of Cornwall or where it has played a generative role within creative practice. Cornwall as Strange Fiction argues that a persistent imaginative romance with the peninsular has produced a specific and distinctive set of Gothic fictions and creative outputs that mark an exciting new departure in the discussion of regional and media-aware Gothic studies. Offering new insights into the relationships between place and Gothic, this book aims to engender and encourage greater debate through our argument that Cornwall plays a potent role in the landscape of regional Gothic and argues that it needs to be considered more fully as a major catalyst in the Gothic imagination.