Synopses & Reviews
Horror fiction is as popular now as it was when Edgar Allen Poe reinvented the gothic genre in the 1840s, and in the late twentieth century Stephen King is the most read American author ever. This anthology presents classic and contemporary accounts of modern gothic horror writing from Edgar Allen Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, Robert Bloch, Stephen King, Barker and many other authors, as well as essays from current literary scholars, providing an essential guide to the genre and the variety of approaches possible when discussing the literature of terror.
Synopsis
This highly accessible anthology of Gothic writings and criticism provides an essential guide to the genre. The second edition of this critically acclaimed book has been thoroughly revised to include material from the early gothic and a fresh set of contemporary essays, with a supporting timeline and thought provoking introductory material.
Synopsis
Gothic Horror is the essential guide to the literature of terror. This completely revised new edition provides a comprehensive historical primer of essential gothic criticism from its origins in the eighteenth century through
Frankenstein and
Dracula to the worlds of Hannibal Lecter and Alien Invasion. The volume also includes a new set of contemporary essays with a supporting timeline, and an introduction by Clive Bloom providing an outline of the genre and situating it in its social and cultural context.
Synopsis
This completely revised new edition provides a comprehensive historical primer of essential gothic criticism from its origins in the eighteenth century through
Frankenstein and
Dracula to the worlds of Hannibal Lecter and Alien Invasion.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements * Chronology of Significant Landmarks in Horror and Gothic Fiction * Preface to the Second Edition * PART 1: GOTHIC WHISPERS * Extract from
Of the Sublime--E.Burke *
The Castle of Otranto, Preface to 1764 edition
--H.Walpole
* The Castle of Otranto, Preface to second edition--H.Walpole * Advertisement to
The Monk--M.Lewis * Extract from
On 'The Monk'--S.T.Coleridge * Extract from
The Italian--A.Radcliffe * Extract from
Discourse 1: 'Gothick'--J.Reynolds *
Frankenstein, Preface to 1817 edition--M.Shelley *
Frankenstein, Preface to 1831 edition--M.Shelley * Remarks on
Frankenstein: or the Modern Prometheus--W.Scott * Extracts from
Northanger Abbey--J.Austen *
Melmoth, the Wanderer, Preface to 1820 edition--C.Maturin * On the Supernatural in Poetry--A.Radcliffe * PART 2: HORROR THE SOUL OF THE PLOT * Extract from
The Man of the Crowd--E.A.Poe * Extract from
The Imp of the Perverse--E.A.Poe *
The Philosophy of Composition--E.A.Poe * Extract from
Eureka--E.A.Poe * Extract from
Marginalia--E.A.Poe * Preface to
The House of the Seven Gables--N.Hawthorne * Extract from
The Renaissance--W.Pater * Extract from
Nightmare - Touch--L.Hearn * An Autobiographical Postscript--E.Wharton * PART 3: IN THE DARK * Extract from
The Uncanny--S.Freud * On Algernon Blackwood--H.Belloc * Preface to
The Collected Ghost Stories--M.R.James * Extract from
The Supernatural in Literature--H.P.Lovecraft * Extract from
The Vampire in Literature--M.Summers * I Like Playing Dracula--B.Lugosi * Author's Note from
The Devil Rides Out--D.Wheatley * Gothic Hangover--E.S.Turner * PART 4: FEARMAKERS * On Horror Writers--R.Bloch * Dracula, Frankenstein, Sons and Co.--K.Amis * Symposium on H.P. Lovecraft--Los Angeles Science Fiction Society * Extract from Interview for
Playboy--S.King * Extract from
An Evening at Billericay Public Library--S.King * On Stephen King--W.Strieber * On Horror and Subversion--C.Barker * PART 5: CONTEMPORARY SHIVERS * Terrorism and the Gothic--D.Punter * Extract from
The Fantastic--T.Todorov * Monster Culture (Seven Theses)--J.J.Cohen * Extract from
Freakery--R.G.Thomson * The Body of Frankenstein's Monster--C.Helman * Narrative Structure, Liminality, Self Similarity: The Case of Gothic Fiction--M.Aguire * Good Taste? Liminality and the Gothic in Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lecter Novels--P.Messent * Horror Narratives--L.Talairach-Vielmas * African American and Afro Caribbean Women's Horror as Contemporary Cultural Critique--G.Wisker *
All Dark Inside: Zombies and Detectives--C.Bloom * Further Reading * Index