Female Gothic Histories

Female Gothic Histories traces the development of women's Gothic historical fiction from Sophia Lee's The Recess in the late eighteenth century through the work of Elizabeth Gaskell, Vernon Lee, Daphne du Maurier and Victoria Holt to the bestselling novels of Sarah Waters in the twenty-first century. Often left out of traditional historical narratives, women writers have turned to Gothic historical fiction as a mode of writing which can both reinsert them into history and symbolise their exclusion. This study breaks new ground in bringing together thinking about the Gothic and the historical novel, and in combining psychoanalytic theory with historical contextualisation.

Female Gothic Histories: Gender, History and the Gothic is an innovative new study of the ways in which women writers have used Gothic historical fiction to symbolise and counter their exclusion from traditional historical narratives.

This title offers a detailed yet accessible introduction to classic British Gothic literature and the popular sub-category of the Female Gothic designed for the student reader. Works by such classic Gothic authors as Horace Walpole, Matthew Lewis, Ann Radcliffe, William Godwin, and Mary Shelley are examined against the backdrop of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British social and political history and significant intellectual/cultural developments. Identification and interpretation of the Gothic’s variously reconfigured major motifs and conventions is provided alongside suggestions for further critical reading, a timeline of notable Gothic-related publications, and consideration of various theoretical approaches.

This rich and varied collection of essays makes a timely contribution to critical debates about the Female Gothic, a popular but contested area of literary studies. The contributors revisit key Gothic themes - gender, race, the body, monstrosity, metaphor, motherhood and nationality - to open up new critical directions.

In the middle of the eighteenth century the Gothic became the universal language of architecture, painting and literature, expressing a love not only of ruins, decay and medieval pageantry, but also the drug-induced monsters of the mind. By explaining the international dimension of Gothicism and dealing in detail with German, French and American authors, Gothic Histories demonstrates the development of the genre in every area of art and includes original research on Gothic theatre, spiritualism, 'ghost seeing' and spirit photography and the central impact of penny-dreadful writers on the genre, while also including a host of forgotten or ignored authors and their biographies. Gothic Histories is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the Gothic and its literary double, the horror genre, leading the reader from their origins in the haunted landscapes of the Romantics through Frankenstein and Dracula to the very different worlds of Hannibal Lecter and Goth culture. Comprehensive and up-to-date, it is a fascinating guide to the Gothic and horror in film, fiction and popular culture.

A re-assessment of the Gothic in relation to the female, the 'feminine', feminism and post-feminismThis collection of newly commissioned essays brings together major scholars in the field of Gothic studies in order to re-think the topic of 'Women and the Gothic'. The 14 chapters in this volume engage with debates about 'Female Gothic' from the 1970s and '80s, through second wave feminism, theorisations of gender and a long interrogation of the 'women' category as well as with the problematics of post-feminism, now itself being interrogated by a younger generation of women. The contributors explore Gothic works from established classics to recent films and novels from feminist and post-feminist perspectives. The result is a lively book that combines rigorous close readings with elegant use of theory in order to question some ingrained assumptions about women, the Gothic and identity.Key FeaturesRevitalises the long-running debate about women, the Gothic and identityEngages with the political agendas of feminism and post-feminismPrioritises the concerns of woman as reader, author and criticOffers fresh readings of both classic and recent Gothic works