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Famous gothic literature authors8/16/2023 ![]() Published during a particularly turbulent, post-French Revolutionary time, The Romance of the Forest also set the stage for what would come to be a wave of stylistically unique historical Gothic romance novels: stories that would dispense with the spectral and focus instead on what would come to be the ‘Gothic villain’. In 1791, The Romance of the Forest would bear her name, and would receive almost universal acclaim. Radcliffe’s first two novels, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne (1789) and A Sicilian Romance (1790), were published anonymously. Her ability to provide rational explanations for seemingly supernatural elements in her stories granted the genre a sense of newfound respectability that appealed to a wide audience. ![]() Widely hailed as one of the pioneers of Gothic fiction and the originator of ‘the novel of suspense’, Ann Radcliffe was one of the most universally admired writers of her time. Here are six incredible writers who paved the way for women in Gothic/horror fiction today! ANN RADCLIFFE (née Ann Ward 9 July 1764 – 7 February 1823) And that is precisely what each of the women in this list did. If fiction could be heard, Gothic fiction would be a blood-curdling scream - one that demanded to be seen, heard, and granted center stage. In a time when women were seen as mere adornments upon the wall, silent and invisible, ghost stories became a means for women writers to make sense of their reality: of their own fears, anxieties, and inherent oppression. While the aforementioned works are stylistically diverse and cover a wide range of subjects, a common thread that links them is that they were all penned by female authors: women who used the supernatural to wrangle the realities of the domestic sphere and translate latent horrors through fiction. In particular, authors such Clara Reeve (who reworked Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto plot to include elements of 18th-century realism in her novel, The Old English Baron), Ann Radcliffe (who is credited with having developed the technique of ‘explained supernatural’ in Gothic fiction), a rise in Gothic-inspired works during the Romantic period (chiefly owed to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein), and a marked resurgence in the Victorian era (propelled by novels such as Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott), would help cement Gothic fiction as a mainstay in 18th and 19th-century literature. Its origins are often attributed to English author Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (1764), and since then, several writers have added to the dark fabric of what would come to be the Gothic genre. The term ‘Gothic’ in literature refers to a style of writing that involves an air of suspense and foreboding of supernatural elements, psychological and physical terror, a melancholic atmosphere that is further compounded by gloomy castles and mysterious inhabitants, and - occasionally - some good old-fashioned romance. Sue Halpern: Summer Hours at the Robbers Library ![]() ![]() "The one where the wife was invisible to the husband and the truth of the marriage was invisible to her.” again.“I already told you a ghost story," she said at last. The henchman takes it, listens to more emotional goading, and then takes the knife. Unfortunately it's edited so poorly people go up the same set of stairs more than once, put out torches that they just put out a few paragraphs ago, and in one sequence a conspirator gives a knife to one of his henchmen, goading him to commit a nefarious deed. It's got all the gothic trappings, however, such as big spooky flights of stairs, people lurking about by torchlight, shady assassins with knives hidden in their shirts. Not that The Monk is some great piece of literature but it was at least pretty fun in an over-the-top hysterical way, whereas The Italian was just incompetent. It's funny how her novel The Italian is so famous in this genre while The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis is all but forgotten. It wasn't so much the overblown aspects of the story but that they were so badly. Nona wrote: "I appreciate The Castle of Otranto's place in literary history but I found reading it to be a tortuous experience.
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