Gothic Histories
The Taste for Terror, 1764 to the Present
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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.
About this Author
CLIVE BLOOM is Emeritus Professor, Middlesex University, UK.
Reviews
Drawn to the hallucinatory, enchanted by the morbid, the gothic sensibility mixes incarceration with necromancy, technology with architecture, vampires with séances. The bizarre and wild, Professor Bloom explains in this spirited survey, emerged with the European fear of modernity. Beginning with Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto in 1764, authors disturbed by the loss of control presented by democracy, rebellion, and technology reacted by reviving antiquarian settings, scientific subversion, and macabre predicaments.... This is a brisk primer, with generous excerpts from primary sources, free of jargon or academic posturing. Selected reading lists guide inquirers, while Professor Bloom covers a lot in a little book. It is recommended to anyone curious about why the gothic craze began, why it has lasted so long, and how it continues to translate its shape-shifting spells." -New York Journal of Books
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