The Gothic tale has been with us for over two hundred years, but this collection is the first to illustrate the continuing strength of this special fictional tradition from its origins in the late eighteenth century. Gothic fiction is generally identified from Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto and the works of Ann Radcliffe, and with heroes and heroines menaced by feudal villains amid crumbling ruins. While the repertoire of claustrophobic settings, gloomy themes, and threatening atmosphere established the Gothic genre, later writers from Poe onwards achieved an ever greater sophistication, and a shift in emphasis from cruelty to decadence. Modern Gothic is distinguished by its imaginative variety of voice, from the chilling depiction of a disordered mind to the sinister suggestion of vampirism. This anthology brings together the work of writers such as Le Fanu, Hawthorne, Hardy, Faulkner, and Borges with their earliest literary forebears, and emphasizes the central role of women writers from Anna Laetitia Aikin to Isabel Allende and Angela Carter.While the Gothic tale shares some characteristics with the ghost story and tales of horror and fantasy, the present volume triumphantly celebrates the distinctive features that define this powerful and unsettling literary form.

Table of Contents

I. BEGINNINGS; II. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY; III. THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Reviews

The fog-enshrouded castle, the crumbling family manor; old secrets unveiled, curses cast, chains clanking, fear and trembling; dread, decay, disintegration, death--each of these trademarks of the well-made Gothic tale is vividly represented in this comprehensive anthology. Informatively introduced and chronologically arranged, the 37 stories showcase the Gothic tradition from its late-18th-century inception up to the present. Included are genre classics from such illustrious practitioners as Poe, Hawthorne, Lovecraft and McGrath, as well as gems from literary masters like Faulkner, Welty, Oates and Borges, all of whom dabble(d) to fine effect in the form. Among the highlights are ``The Parricide Punished,'' an anonymous entry from 1799 set in an enormous castle and narrated by a guest whose visit becomes a waking nightmare; Eden Glasgow's ``Jordan's End,'' in which a long history of family madness gives rise to a most untimely death; F. M. Mayor's ``Miss DeMannering of Asham,'' the story of two women on holiday who get more local color than they bargained for when they learn the shocking truth about DeMannering's dead infant; and especially Ray Russell's bizarre ``Sardonicus,'' whose title character gives the kind of villainous performance that evokes Vincent Price in his horror-movie heyday. (May)