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A Study of the Gothic Romance
by
Assistant Lecturer in English Literature in the University of Bristol
Formerly Noble Fellow in the University of Liverpool
London
Constable & Company Ltd.
1921
The aim of this book is to give some account of the growth ofsupernatural fiction in English literature, beginning with thevogue of the Gothic Romance and Tale of Terror towards the closeof the eighteenth century. The origin and development of theGothic Romance are set forth in detail from the appearance ofWalpole's Castle of Otranto in 1764 to the publication ofMaturin's Melmoth the Wanderer in 1820; and the survey of thisphase of the novel is continued, in the later chapters, to moderntimes. One of these is devoted to the Tale of Terror in America,where in the hands of Hawthorne and Poe its treatment became afine art. In the chapters dealing with the more recent forms ofthe tale of terror and wonder, the scope of the subject becomesso wide that it is impossible to attempt an exhaustive survey.
The present work is the outcome of studies begun during my tenureof the William Noble Fellowship in the University of Liverpool,1916-18. It is a pleasure to express here my thanks to ProfessorR.H. Case and to Dr. John Sampson for valuable help and criticismat various stages of the work. Parts of the MS. have also beenread by Professor C.H. Herford of the University of Manchesterand by Professor Oliver Elton of the University of Liverpool. ToMessrs. Constable's reader I am also indebted for several helpfulsuggestions.—E.B.
December, 1920.
The antiquity of the tale of terror; the element of fear inmyths, heroic legends, ballads and folk-tales; terror in theromances of the middle ages, in Elizabethan times and in theseventeenth century; the credulity of the age of reason; therenascence of terror and wonder in poetry; the "attempt to blendthe marvellous of old story with the natural of modern novels."Pp. 1-15.
Walpole's admiration for Gothic art and his interest in themiddle ages; the mediaeval revival at the close of the eighteenthcentury; The Castle of Otranto; Walpole's bequest to laterromance-writers; Smollett's incidental anticipation of themethods of Gothic Romance; Clara Reeve's Old English Baron andher effort to bring her story "within the utmost verge ofprobability"; Mrs. Barbauld's Gothic fragment; Blake's FairElenor; the critical theories and Gothic experiments of Dr.Nathan Drake. Pp. 16-37.
The vogue of Mrs. Radcliffe; her tentative beginning in TheCastles of Athlin and Dunbayne, and her gradual advance in skilland power; The Sicilian Romance and her early experiments inthe "explained" supernatural; The Romance of the Forest, andher use of suspense; heroines: The Mysteries of Udolpho;illustrations of Mrs. Radc