Output details

Historical Dictionary of Gothic Literature

At over 110,000 words, the Historical Dictionary of Gothic Literature. is the most extensive single-author reference work on the Gothic currently available. Its only competitors are multiple author works such as Marie Mulvey-Roberts, ed., The Handbook to Gothic Literature (Second Edition, 2009) or William Hughes, David Punter and Andrew Smith, eds, The Encyclopedia of the Gothic (two volumes, 2013). The alphabetically arranged entries within The Historical Dictionary of Gothic Literature number more than two hundred, and comprehensively cover the historical and canonical content of the genre from the eighteenth-century Graveyard Poets and later Romantics through to contemporary authors such as Anne Rice, Poppy Z. Brite and Ramsey Campbell. The work of minor and recently emergent writers is also acknowledged by way of discrete entries dedicated to such figures as Marie Corelli, Robert W. Chambers, A. N. L. Munby, Bithia Mary Croker, Paul Magrs and Stephenie Meyer. The volume is likewise aware of the history of, and recent developments in, the theory and criticism of the Gothic. It includes specific entries upon the Abject, cyberpunk, Ecocriticism, hauntology, Nazi Gothic, queer studies and steampunk as well as broader definitions or histories of Female Gothic, Gothic criticism, melodrama and Orientalism. The volume is necessarily international in scope: originating national Gothic traditions from American Gothic to Welsh Gothic appear in discrete entries, and are supported by considerations of how the genre has depicted territories as diverse as Egypt, India and New England. The Historical Dictionary of Gothic Literature is conscious also of developments in theatre, film, television, heritage and technology, embracing in consequence psychic entertainment, tourist Gothic, urban Gothic and zombies. An introductory essay that succinctly chronicles the history and development of Gothic supports the whole project, as do extensive bibliographies on the authors, issues and national traditions detailed within its pages.