Description

An exploration of Gothic literature from its origins in Horace Walpole’s 1764 classic The Castle of Otranto, through Romantic and Victorian Gothic to modernist and postmodernist takes on the form. The volume surveys key debates such as Female Gothic, the Gothic narrator and nation and empire, and focuses on a wide range of texts including The Mysteries of Udolpho, Frankenstein,Jane Eyre, Dracula,The Magic Toyshop and The Shining.

Table of Contents

Part One: Introduction

Part Two: A Cultural Overview

Part Three: Texts, Writers and Contexts

Eighteenth-century Gothic: Walpole, Radcliffe and Lewis

Romantic-era Gothic: Coleridge, Byron and Mary Shelley

Nineteenth-century Gothic: Emily Bronte, Poe, Collins and Stevenson

From the Fin de Siecle to Modern Gothic: Stoker, Wells, M.R. James and Lovecraft

Twentieth-century American Gothic: Faulkner, King, Rice and Brite

British Gothic in the Late Twentieth Century: Carter, Ballard, Mantel and Waters

Part Four: Critical Theories and Debates

Narrative Instability and the Gothic Narrator

Female Gothic

Gothic Bodies

Nation and Empire

Part Five: References and Resources

Timeline

Further Reading

Index

Back Cover

The York Notes Companion to Gothic Literature explores the genre from its origins in Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, through Romantic and Victorian Gothic to modernist and postmodernist re-imaginings of the form, analysing key debates such as Female Gothic and the Gothic narrator. Examining classic works, including The Mysteries of Udolpho and Frankenstein, alongside literature much newer to the canon, the Companion offers close analysis of texts, and guides students through key literary theories and debates. Connecting texts with their historical and scholarly contexts, this is essential reading for any student of Gothic literature.

Each York Notes Companion provides:

Ø      Analysis of key texts and debates

Ø      Extended commentaries for further in-depth analysis of individual texts

Ø      Exploration of historical, social and cultural contexts

Ø      Annotations clarifying literary terms and events in history

Ø      Modern theoretical perspectives in practice

Ø      Timelines and annotated further reading

Sue Chaplin is a Senior Lecturer in English, and Course Leader for the BA in English and History at Leeds Metropolitan University.

Author

Sue Chaplin is a Senior Lecturer in English, and Course Leader for the BA English and History at Leeds Metropolitan University. She is also Executive Officer to the International Gothic Association, Commissioning Editor of the Romanticism Division of the online journal Literature Compass and member of the editorial board for Gothic Studies. She is the author of two monographs – The Gothic and the Rule of Law, 1764-1820 (Palgrave, 2007) and Law, Sensibility and the Sublime in Eighteenth-century Women’s Fiction (Ashgate, 2004) – and editor of the forthcoming Romanticism Handbook (Continuum).