The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales by Chris Baldick

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The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales by Chris Baldick

Summary

An anthology of shorter Gothic fiction illlustrating for the first time the strength of this tradition from the late 18th century to the present day. Established classics by Poe, Le Fanu and others are included together with rare curiosities and surprising modern experiments.

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The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales by Chris Baldick

The Gothic tale has been with us for over 200 years, and this collection illustrates the continuing strength of this fictional tradition from the late 18th century to the present day. Gothic fiction is generally identified with 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 a 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. While the Gothic tale shares some characteristics with the ghost story and tales of horror and fantasy, the present volume celebrates the distinctive features that define this powerful and unsettling literary form.

Chris Baldick is a Professor of English at Goldsmiths, University of London. He edited The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales (1992), and is the author of The Oxford English Literary History, Volume 10 (1910-1940): The Modern Movement (2004), In Frankenstein's Shadow (1987), Criticism and Literary Theory
1890 to the Present (1996), and other works of literary history. He has edited, with Rob Morrison, Tales of Terror from Blackwood's Magazine, and The Vampyre and Other Tales of the Macabre, and has written an introduction to Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer (all available in the Oxford World's
Classics series).
SKU Unavailable
ISBN 13 9780192141941
ISBN 10 0192141945
Title The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales
Author Chris Baldick
Condition Unavailable
Binding type Hardback
Publisher Oxford University Press
Year published 1992-03-01
Number of pages 556
Cover note Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note Unavailable