In her fourth novel, Ann Radcliffe explores the machinery of the Gothic novel but reveals the mysteries referenced in her most popular work’s title. Its popularity validated her publisher’s interest in the work, which had gained unprecedented support by the… Read More ›
Like all Charlotte Smith’s novels, her first, Emmeline, contained strong autobiographical elements. Through fiction, Smith found a way to protest her situation as mother to a large brood of children with a profligate husband who had abandoned the family. According… Read More ›
Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto proved crucial to the development of Gothic fiction. As indicated by the book’s subtitle, Walpole (1717–97) designed it to provide readers with a romance incorporating a dark, moody villain, an endangered heroine, a hero… Read More ›
The term Gothicism in its literary meaning derives not from the Goths, an ancient Germanic tribe, but from the sense of Gothic as medieval. This literary movement may be seen as a reaction against the rationalism of the Enlightenment and… Read More ›
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