The New Monthly Magazine was a British monthly magazine published from 1814 to 1884. It was founded by Henry Colburn and published by him through to 1845.
114-401: Ann Radcliffe (née Ward ; 9 July 1764 – 7 February 1823) was an English novelist, a pioneer of Gothic fiction , and a minor poet. Her technique of explaining apparently supernatural elements in her novels has been credited with gaining respectability for Gothic fiction in the 1790s. Radcliffe was the most popular writer of her day and almost universally admired; contemporary critics called her
228-530: A haberdasher in London before moving the family to Bath in 1772 to take over management of a porcelain shop for his business partners Thomas Bentley and Josiah Wedgwood . Both of her parents were relatively well connected. Her father had a famous uncle, William Cheselden , who was Surgeon to King George II , and her mother descended from the De Witt family of Holland and had a cousin, Sir Richard Jebb , who
342-632: A "virulently Tory " competitor to Sir Richard Phillips ' Monthly Magazine in 1814. "The double-column format and the comprehensive contents combined the Gentleman's Magazine with the Annual Register ". In its April 1819 issue it published John Polidori 's Gothic fiction The Vampyre , the first significant piece of prose vampire literature in English, attributing it to Lord Byron , who partly inspired it. In 1821 Colburn recast
456-598: A counter to the naive and persecuted heroines usually featured in female Gothic of the time, and instead feature more sexually assertive heroines in their works. When the female Gothic coincides with the explained supernatural , the natural cause of terror is not the supernatural, but female disability and societal horrors: rape , incest , and the threatening control of a male antagonist. Female Gothic novels also address women's discontent with patriarchal society, their difficult and unsatisfying maternal position, and their role within that society. Women's fears of entrapment in
570-555: A female named Catherine, conceives herself as a heroine of a Radcliffean romance and imagines murder and villainy on every side. However, the truth turns out to be much more prosaic. This novel is also noted for including a list of early Gothic works known as the Northanger Horrid Novels . The poetry, romantic adventures, and character of Lord Byron —characterized by his spurned lover Lady Caroline Lamb as "mad, bad and dangerous to know"—were another inspiration for
684-540: A female vampire, is notable for its treatment of vampirism as both racial and medicalized. The vampire, Harriet Brandt, is also a psychic vampire , killing unintentionally. In the United States, notable late 19th-century writers in the Gothic tradition were Ambrose Bierce , Robert W. Chambers , and Edith Wharton . Bierce's short stories were in the horrific and pessimistic tradition of Poe. Chambers indulged in
798-490: A ghostly nun, and its view of Roman Catholicism as exotic and heathenistic. Nathaniel Hawthorne 's novel The House of the Seven Gables , about a family's ancestral home, is colored with suggestions of the supernatural and witchcraft ; and in true Gothic fashion, it features the house itself as one of the main characters, The genre also heavily influenced writers such as Charles Dickens , who read Gothic novels as
912-697: A job working for a paper. He wrote for (and soon became the editor of) the Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser , a campaigning newspaper that "celebrated the French Revolution , freedom of the press, and Dissenters' rights ." Ann and William Radcliffe never had children. By many accounts, theirs was a happy marriage. Radcliffe called him her "nearest relative and friend". According to Talfourd's memoir, Ann started writing while her husband remained out late most evenings for work. She published her first novel, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne , in 1789 at
1026-664: A large number of imitators of the "Radcliffe School", such as Harriet Lee and Catherine Cuthbertson . Jane Austen (1775–1817) parodied The Mysteries of Udolpho in Northanger Abbey (1817), and she defined her fiction as a contrast to Radcliffe and writers like her. Scholars have also perceived other apparent allusions to Radcliffe's novels and life in Austen's work. In the early nineteenth century, Radcliffe influenced Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), and Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832). Scott interspersed his work with poems in
1140-489: A literary career. No evidence exists that such a meeting ever occurred. Gothic fiction Gothic fiction , sometimes called Gothic horror (primarily in the 20th century), is a loose literary aesthetic of fear and haunting . The name refers to Gothic architecture of the European Middle Ages , which was characteristic of the settings of early Gothic novels. The first work to call itself Gothic
1254-462: A number of stories that fall within the Gothic genre or contain Gothic elements. They include " Saint John's Eve " and " A Terrible Vengeance " from Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka (1831–1832), " The Portrait " from Arabesques (1835), and " Viy " from Mirgorod (1835). While all are well known, the latter is probably the most famous, having inspired at least eight film adaptations (two now considered lost), one animated film, two documentaries, and
SECTION 10
#17327913174561368-465: A persecuted heroine fleeing from a villainous father and searching for an absent mother. At the same time, male writers tend towards the masculine transgression of social taboos . The emergence of the ghost story gave women writers something to write about besides the common marriage plot, allowing them to present a more radical critique of male power, violence, and predatory sexuality. Authors such as Mary Robinson and Charlotte Dacre however, present
1482-499: A rational age. Initiating a literary genre, Walpole's Gothic tale inspired many contemporary imitators, including Clara Reeve 's The Old English Baron (1778), with Reeve writing in the preface: "This Story is the literary offspring of The Castle of Otranto ". Like Reeve, the 1780s saw more writers attempting his combination of supernatural plots with emotionally realistic characters. Examples include Sophia Lee 's The Recess (1783–5) and William Beckford 's Vathek (1786). At
1596-513: A rational explanation for the supernatural. Usually, Radcliffe would reveal the logical excuse for what first appeared to be supernatural towards the end of her novels, which led to heightened suspense. Some critics and readers found this disappointing. Regarding Radcliffe's penchant for explaining the supernatural, Walter Scott writes in Lives of the Novelists (1821–1824): “A stealthy step behind
1710-433: A similar manner to Radcliffe, and one assessment of her reads, "Scott himself said that her prose was poetry and her poetry was prose. She was, indeed, a prose poet , in both the best and the worst senses of the phrase. The romantic landscape, the background, is the best thing in all her books; the characters are two dimensional, the plots far fetched and improbable, with 'elaboration of means and futility of result'." Later in
1824-619: A son, the naturalist Charles Darwin . Although mixing in some distinguished circles, Radcliffe seems to have made little impression in this society and was described by Wedgwood as "Bentley's shy niece". In 1787, when Radcliffe was 23 years old, she married William Radcliffe (1763–1830), an Oxford -educated journalist. William had initially been a student of law, but he did not complete his legal studies and instead turned his attention to literature and journalism. The couple were married in Bath, but soon after moved to London, where William Radcliffe got
1938-605: A statement from her physician that spoke about her mental condition in her later years. Radcliffe remained secluded for 26 years, with no explanation available to her many fans. However, this supposed seclusion is contradicted in The New Monthly Magazine , which states that the tenor of Radcliffe's life was characterized by the rare union of the literary gentlewoman and the active housewife. Instead of being in confinement in Derbyshire, as had been asserted, she
2052-421: A story in a Gothic building serves several purposes. It inspires feelings of awe, implies that the story is set in the past, gives an impression of isolation or dissociation from the rest of the world, and conveys religious associations. Setting the novel in a Gothic castle was meant to imply a story set in the past and shrouded in darkness. The architecture often served as a mirror for the characters and events of
2166-431: A story starring Radcliffe as a vampire hunter , titled La Ville Vampire: Adventure Incroyable de Madame Anne Radcliffe ("City of Vampires: The Incredible Adventure of Mrs. Anne Radcliffe"), which blends fiction and history. Helen McCrory plays Ann Radcliffe in the 2007 film Becoming Jane , starring Anne Hathaway as Jane Austen . The film depicts Radcliffe meeting the young Jane Austen and encouraging her to pursue
2280-473: A teenager and incorporated their gloomy atmosphere and melodrama into his works, shifting them to a more modern period and an urban setting; for example, in Oliver Twist (1837–1838), Bleak House (1854) and Great Expectations (1860–1861). These works juxtapose wealthy, ordered, and affluent civilization with the disorder and barbarity of the poor in the same metropolis. Bleak House, in particular,
2394-530: A time when the average amount earned by an author for a manuscript was £10, her publishers, G. G. and J. Robinson, bought the copyright for this novel for £500, and it was a quick success. The money from this novel allowed her and her husband to travel to the Netherlands and Germany, which she described in her travelogue A Journey Made in the Summer of 1794 (1795). In 1797, Radcliffe published The Italian ,
SECTION 20
#17327913174562508-501: A video game. Gogol's work differs from Western European Gothic fiction, as his cultural influences drew on Ukrainian folklore , the Cossack lifestyle, and, as a religious man, Orthodox Christianity . Other relevant authors of this era include Vladimir Fyodorovich Odoevsky ( The Living Corpse , written 1838, published 1844, The Ghost , The Sylphide , as well as short stories), Count Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy ( The Family of
2622-625: A year later. On this trip, the Radcliffes were initially meant to go on to Switzerland, but this plan was "frustrated by a disobliging official, who refused to believe that they were English, and would not honour their passports." In 1795, William returned as editor of the Gazetteer , and a year later, he purchased the English Chronicle or Universal Evening Post , a Whig newspaper. Ann Radcliffe published The Italian in 1797,
2736-537: Is admired in France. I dare say, now, you never read a page of her novels, and yet such critics as Ste.-Beuve , such poets as Victor Hugo, such novelists as Balzac and George Sand, to say nothing of a thousand inferior writers, talk of her in raptures. I will venture to say that she is quoted fifty times where Scott is quoted once. As a child, Fyodor Dostoyevsky was deeply impressed by Radcliffe. In Winter Notes on Summer Impressions (1863) he writes, "I used to spend
2850-475: Is characterized by an environment of fear, the threat of supernatural events, and the intrusion of the past upon the present. The setting typically includes physical reminders of the past, especially through ruined buildings which stand as proof of a previously thriving world which is decaying in the present. Characteristic settings in the 18th and 19th centuries include castles, religious buildings such as monasteries and convents , and crypts . The atmosphere
2964-514: Is credited with introducing urban fog to the novel, which would become a frequent characteristic of urban Gothic literature and film. Miss Havisham from Great Expectations , is one of Dickens' most Gothic characters. The bitter recluse shuts herself away in her gloomy mansion ever since being jilted at the altar on her wedding day. His most explicitly Gothic work is his last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood , which he did not live to complete and
3078-453: Is immediately in front of us." The mysterious imagination necessary for Gothic literature to have gained any traction had been growing for some time before the advent of the Gothic. The need for this came as the known world was becoming more explored, reducing the geographical mysteries of the world. The edges of the map were filling in, and no dragons were to be found. The human mind required a replacement. Clive Bloom theorizes that this void in
3192-603: Is inducing Terror – or else "a great deal of the apprehension vanishes"; Obscurity is necessary to experience the Terror of the unknown. Bloom asserts that Burke's descriptive vocabulary was essential to the Romantic works that eventually informed the Gothic. The birth of Gothic literature was thought to have been influenced by political upheaval. Researchers linked its birth with the English Civil War , culminating in
3306-475: Is often described with words such as "wonder" and "terror." This sense of wonder and terror that provides the suspension of disbelief so important to the Gothic—which, except for when it is parodied, even for all its occasional melodrama , is typically played straight, in a self-serious manner—requires the imagination of the reader to be willing to accept the idea that there might be something "beyond that which
3420-426: Is particularly important, as his 1833 short story The Queen of Spades was so popular that it was adapted into operas and later films by Russian and foreign artists. Some parts of Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time (1840) are also considered to belong to the Gothic genre, but they lack the supernatural elements of other Russian Gothic stories. The following poems are also now considered to belong to
3534-557: Is set in the twenty-second century and speculates on fantastic scientific developments that might have occurred three hundred years in the future, making it and Frankenstein among the earliest examples of the science fiction genre developing from Gothic traditions. During two decades, the most famous author of Gothic literature in Germany was the polymath E. T. A. Hoffmann . Lewis's The Monk influenced and even mentioned it in his novel The Devil's Elixirs (1815). The novel explores
Ann Radcliffe - Misplaced Pages Continue
3648-596: Is strongly associated with the Gothic Revival architecture of the same era. English Gothic writers often associated medieval buildings with what they saw as a dark and terrifying period, marked by harsh laws enforced by torture and with mysterious, fantastic, and superstitious rituals . Similar to the Gothic Revivalists' rejection of the clarity and rationalism of the Neoclassical style of
3762-501: Is typically claustrophobic , and common plot elements include vengeful persecution, imprisonment, and murder. The depiction of horrible events in Gothic fiction often serves as a metaphorical expression of psychological or social conflicts. The form of a Gothic story is usually discontinuous and convoluted, often incorporating tales within tales, changing narrators, and framing devices such as discovered manuscripts or interpolated histories. Other characteristics, regardless of relevance to
3876-645: The London Magazine , appeared in the New Monthly from late 1821, his essay "The Fight" appeared in 1822, and his series "The Spirits of the Age'" was later republished, with essays from other sources, in the book The Spirit of the Age (1825). Charles Knight 's London Magazine merged with the New Monthly in 1829, and in that year Richard Bentley became Colburn's business partner. After Redding resigned in 1830, Campbell found himself unable to edit
3990-481: The Enlightened Establishment, the literary Gothic embodies an appreciation of the joys of extreme emotion, the thrills of fearfulness and awe inherent in the sublime , and a quest for atmosphere. Gothic ruins invoke multiple linked emotions by representing inevitable decay and the collapse of human creations – hence the urge to add fake ruins as eyecatchers in English landscape parks. Placing
4104-572: The Graveyard poets . They were also present in novels such as Daniel Defoe 's A Journal of the Plague Year , which contains comical scenes of plague carts and piles of corpses. Even earlier, poets like Edmund Spenser evoked a dreary and sorrowful mood in such poems as Epithalamion . All aspects of pre-Gothic literature occur to some degree in the Gothic, but even taken together, they still fall short of true Gothic. What needed to be added
4218-522: The Jacobite rising of 1745 which was more recent to the first Gothic novel (1764). The collective political memory and any deep cultural fears associated with it likely contributed to early Gothic villains as literary representatives of defeated Tory barons or Royalists "rising" from their political graves in the pages of early Gothic novels to terrorize the bourgeois reader of late eighteenth-century England. The first work to call itself "Gothic"
4332-550: The New Monthly Magazine was complicated by the frequent use of a deputy position, or "working editor". Hook, Hood, Ainsworth, and Ainsworth alone are named on bound volume title pages. Many earlier editions of this publication are now available online. Later volume numbering is sequential by year. In earlier publications, at least one example is to be found of multiple volume numbering in the same year, such as 1822, per examples listed below. The list also illustrates
4446-502: The sublime motivated the protagonist to create an image that was more idealistic within the plot. Her elaborate descriptions of landscape were influenced by the painters Claude Lorrain , Nicolas Poussin , and Salvator Rosa . She often wrote about places she had never visited. Lorrain's influence can be seen through Radcliffe's picturesque, romantic descriptions, for example in the first volume of The Mysteries of Udolpho . Rosa's influence can be seen through dark landscapes and elements of
4560-581: The trope of vampires having sharpened teeth. Another notable English author of penny dreadfuls is George W. M. Reynolds , known for The Mysteries of London (1844), Faust (1846), Wagner the Wehr-wolf (1847), and The Necromancer (1857). Elizabeth Gaskell 's tales "The Doom of the Griffiths" (1858), "Lois the Witch", and "The Grey Woman" all employ one of the most common themes of Gothic fiction:
4674-627: The "mighty enchantress" and the Shakespeare of romance-writers, and her popularity continued through the 19th century. Interest in Radcliffe and her work has revived in the early 21st century, with the publication of three biographies. Radcliffe was born Ann Ward in Holborn , London on 9 July 1764. She was the only child of William Ward (1737–1798) and Ann Oates (1726–1800), and her mother was 36 years old when she gave birth. Her father worked as
Ann Radcliffe - Misplaced Pages Continue
4788-416: The 1790s." The popularity and influence of The Mysteries of Udolpho and The Monk saw the rise of shorter and cheaper versions of Gothic literature in the forms of Gothic bluebooks and chapbooks , which in many cases were plagiarized and abridgments of well known Gothic novels. The Monk in particular, with its immoral and sensational content, saw many plagiarized copies, and was notably drawn from in
4902-594: The German Schauerroman and the French R oman noir . Eighteenth-century Gothic novels were typically set in a distant past and (for English novels) a distant European country, but without specific dates or historical figures that characterized the later development of historical fiction. The saturation of Gothic-inspired literature during the 1790s was referred to in a letter by Samuel Taylor Coleridge , writing on 16 March 1797, "indeed I am almost weary of
5016-490: The Gothic and influenced Bram Stoker 's vampire novel Dracula (1897). Stoker's book created the most famous Gothic villain ever, Count Dracula , and established Transylvania and Eastern Europe as the locus classicus of the Gothic. Published in the same year as Dracula , Florence Marryat 's The Blood of the Vampire is another piece of vampire fiction. The Blood of the Vampire , which, like Carmilla, features
5130-444: The Gothic genre made it rich territory for satire. Historian Rictor Norton notes that satire of Gothic literature was common from 1796 until the 1820s, including early satirical works such as The New Monk (1798), More Ghosts ! (1798) and Rosella, or Modern Occurrences (1799). Gothic novels themselves, according to Norton, also possess elements of self-satire, "By having profane comic characters as well as sacred serious characters,
5244-426: The Gothic genre: Meshchevskiy's "Lila", Katenin's "Olga", Pushkin 's "The Bridegroom", Pletnev 's "The Gravedigger" and Lermontov 's Demon (1829–1839). The key author of the transition from Romanticism to Realism, Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol , who was also one of the most important authors of Romanticism, produced a number of works that qualify as Gothic fiction. Each of his three short story collections features
5358-583: The Gothic novel, providing the archetype of the Byronic hero . For example, Byron is the title character in Lady Caroline's Gothic novel Glenarvon (1816). Byron was also the host of the celebrated ghost-story competition involving himself, Percy Bysshe Shelley , Mary Shelley , and John William Polidori at the Villa Diodati on the banks of Lake Geneva in the summer of 1816. This occasion
5472-407: The Gothic novelist could puncture the balloon of the supernatural while at the same time affirming the power of the imagination." After 1800 there was a period in which Gothic parodies outnumbered forthcoming Gothic novels. In The Heroine by Eaton Stannard Barrett (1813), Gothic tropes are exaggerated for comic effect. In Jane Austen 's novel Northanger Abbey (1818), the naive protagonist,
5586-462: The Gothic tradition, Mary Shelley's novel is often considered the first science fiction novel, despite the novel's lack of any scientific explanation for the animation of Frankenstein's monster and the focus instead on the moral dilemmas and consequences of such a creation. John Keats ' La Belle Dame sans Merci (1819) and Isabella, or the Pot of Basil (1820) feature mysteriously fey ladies. In
5700-461: The Gothic. Radcliffe once said of Claude: In a shaded corner, near the chimney, a most exquisite Claude, an evening view, perhaps over the Campagna of Rome. The sight of this picture imparted much of the luxurious repose and satisfaction, which we derive from contemplating the finest scenes of nature. Here was the poet, as well as the painter, touching the imagination, and making you see more than
5814-403: The Gothic. Emily Brontë 's Wuthering Heights (1847) transports the Gothic to the forbidding Yorkshire Moors and features ghostly apparitions and a Byronic hero in the person of the demonic Heathcliff. The Brontës' fictions were cited by feminist critic Ellen Moers as prime examples of Female Gothic, exploring woman's entrapment within domestic space and subjection to patriarchal authority and
SECTION 50
#17327913174565928-664: The Screw (1898), and the stories of Arthur Machen . In Ireland, Gothic fiction tended to be purveyed by the Anglo-Irish Protestant Ascendancy . According to literary critic Terry Eagleton , Charles Maturin , Sheridan Le Fanu , and Bram Stoker form the core of the Irish Gothic subgenre with stories featuring castles set in a barren landscape and a cast of remote aristocrats dominating an atavistic peasantry, which represent an allegorical form
6042-513: The Sublime and Beautiful , which "finally codif[ied] the gothic emotional experience." Specifically, Burke's thoughts on the Sublime, Terror, and Obscurity were most applicable. These sections can be summarized thus: the Sublime is that which is or produces the "strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling"; Terror most often evoked the Sublime; and to cause Terror, we need some amount of Obscurity – we can't know everything about that which
6156-641: The Supernatural in Poetry", which outlines her distinction between terror and horror. Christina Rossetti attempted to write a biography of Radcliffe in 1883, but abandoned it for lack of information. For 50 years, biographers stayed away from her as a subject, agreeing with Rossetti's estimation. Rictor Norton, author of Mistress of Udolpho: The Life of Ann Radcliffe (1999), argues that those 50 years were "dominated by interpretation rather than scholarship" where information (specifically on her rumoured madness)
6270-758: The Terrible, having been a hireling in the Critical Review for the last six or eight months – I have been reviewing the Monk , the Italian , Hubert de Sevrac &c &c &c – in all of which dungeons, and old castles, & solitary Houses by the Sea Side & Caverns & Woods & extraordinary characters & all the tribe of Horror & Mystery, have crowded on me – even to surfeiting." The excesses, stereotypes, and frequent absurdities of
6384-668: The Vourdalak , 1839, and The Vampire , 1841), Mikhail Zagoskin ( Unexpected Guests ), Józef Sękowski / Osip Senkovsky ( Antar ), and Yevgeny Baratynsky ( The Ring ). By the Victorian era , Gothic had ceased to be the dominant genre for novels in England, partly replaced by more sedate historical fiction . However, Gothic short stories continued to be popular, published in magazines or as small chapbooks called penny dreadfuls . The most influential Gothic writer from this period
6498-428: The age of 25, and published her next four novels in short succession. The money she earned from her novels later allowed her husband to quit his job, and the two of them travelled together, along with their dog, Chance. In 1794, they went to the Netherlands and Germany. This was Radcliffe's only trip abroad, and it became the inspiration for a travelogue , titled A Journey Made in the Summer of 1794 , that she published
6612-516: The arras may, doubtless, in some situations, and when the nerves are tuned to a certain pitch, have no small influence upon the imagination; but if the conscious listener discovers it to be only the noise made by the cat, the solemnity of the feeling is gone, and the visionary is at once angry with his sense for having been cheated, and with his reason for having acquiesced in the deception." Some modern critics have been frustrated by her work, as she fails to include "real ghosts". This could be motivated by
6726-602: The attention of the public." In 1791, she published her third novel, The Romance of the Forest . Like her first two novels, this book was initially published anonymously. On the original title page, it stated that the novel was “By the Authoress of A Sicilian Romance”. The Romance of the Forest was popular with readers, and in the second edition, Radcliffe began adding her own name to the title page. In 1794, three years later, Radcliffe published The Mysteries of Udolpho . At
6840-513: The cheaper pamphlets. Other notable Gothic novels of the 1790s include William Godwin 's Caleb Williams (1794), Regina Maria Roche 's Clermont (1798), and Charles Brockden Brown 's Wieland (1798), as well as large numbers of anonymous works published by the Minerva Press established by William Lane at Leadenhall Street , London in 1790. In continental Europe, Romantic literary movements led to related Gothic genres such as
6954-429: The collective imagination was critical in developing the cultural possibility for the rise of the Gothic tradition. The setting of most early Gothic works was medieval, but this was a common theme long before Walpole. In Britain especially, there was a desire to reclaim a shared past. This obsession frequently led to extravagant architectural displays, such as Fonthill Abbey , and sometimes mock tournaments were held. It
SECTION 60
#17327913174567068-512: The day Would quake to look on. — Lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet The components that would eventually combine into Gothic literature had a rich history by the time Walpole presented a fictitious medieval manuscript in The Castle of Otranto in 1764. The plays of William Shakespeare , in particular, were a crucial reference point for early Gothic writers, in both an effort to bring credibility to their works, and to legitimize
7182-609: The decadent style of Wilde and Machen, even including a character named Wilde in his The King in Yellow (1895). Wharton published some notable Gothic ghost stories. Some works of the Canadian writer Gilbert Parker also fall into the genre, including the stories in The Lane that had No Turning (1900). The New Monthly Magazine Colburn and Frederic Shoberl established The New Monthly Magazine and Universal Register as
7296-490: The description given by her physician, Dr. Scudamore, of how "a new inflammation seized the membranes of the brain", which led to "violent symptoms" and argues that they suggest a "bronchial infection, leading to pneumonia , high fever, delirium and death." Shortly after her death, Gaston de Blondeville was published by Henry Colburn , featuring A Memoir for the Authoress , the first known biographical piece on Radcliffe. It also contained some of her poetry and her essay "On
7410-534: The domestic, their bodies, marriage, childbirth, or domestic abuse commonly appear in the genre. After the characteristic Gothic Bildungsroman -like plot sequence, female Gothic allowed readers to grow from "adolescence to maturity" in the face of the realized impossibilities of the supernatural. As protagonists such as Adeline in The Romance of the Forest learn that their superstitious fantasies and terrors are replaced by natural cause and reasonable doubt,
7524-563: The editorship once more. Contributors now included Catherine Gore , Anna Maria Hall , Letitia Elizabeth Landon , Felicia Hemans , Caroline Norton , Thomas Haynes Bayly , and Theodore Edward Hook . In 1837 the magazine was retitled The New Monthly Magazine and Humorist , to meet the challenge of Bentley's Miscellany . Now edited by Theodore Hook , it published contributions from Leigh Hunt , Douglas Jerrold , Frederick Marryat , Frances Trollope , Charles Robert Forrester , and W. M. Thackeray . Upon Hook's death in 1841, Thomas Hood
7638-470: The emerging genre as serious literature to the public. Tragedies such as Hamlet , Macbeth , King Lear , Romeo and Juliet , and Richard III , with plots revolving around the supernatural, revenge, murder, ghosts, witchcraft , and omens , written in dramatic pathos, and set in medieval castles, were a huge influence upon early Gothic authors, who frequently quote, and make allusions to Shakespeare's works. John Milton 's Paradise Lost (1667)
7752-482: The female Gothic allowed women's societal and sexual desires to be introduced. In many respects, the novel's intended reader of the time was the woman who, even as she enjoyed such novels, felt she had to "[lay] down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame," according to Jane Austen . The Gothic novel shaped its form for woman readers to "turn to Gothic romances to find support for their own mixed feelings." Female Gothic narratives focus on such topics as
7866-460: The first expands the soul and awakens the faculties to a high degree of life; the other contracts, freezes and nearly annihilates them." Radcliffe portrayed her female characters as equal to male characters, allowing them to dominate and overtake the typically powerful male villains and heroes, creating new roles for women in literature previously not available. Radcliffe was also known for including supernatural elements but eventually giving readers
7980-401: The height of the Gothic novel's popularity in the 1790s, the genre was almost synonymous with Ann Radcliffe , whose works were highly anticipated and widely imitated. The Romance of the Forest (1791) and The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) were particularly popular. In an essay on Radcliffe, Walter Scott writes of the popularity of Udolpho at the time, "The very name was fascinating, and
8094-491: The idea that works in the Romantic period , from the late 18th century to the mid-19th century, sought to undermine Enlightenment values such as rationalism and realism . Radcliffe's work have been considered by some scholars to be part of a larger tradition of anti-Catholicism within Gothic literature; her works contain hostile portrayals of both Catholicism and Catholics. The Italian frequently presents Catholicism,
8208-651: The largest religion in Italy, in a negative light. In the novel, Radcliffe portrays Catholic elements such as the Inquisition unfavourably, pointing to its discriminatory practises against non-Catholics. Radcliffe also portrays the confessional as a "danger zone" controlled by the power of the priest and the church. The Mysteries of Udolpho also contained negative portrayals of Catholicism; both novels are set in Catholic-majority Italy, and Catholicism
8322-518: The last novel published in her lifetime. Cadell and Davies paid £800, making Radcliffe the highest-paid professional writer of the 1790s. This novel was written in response to Matthew Gregory Lewis 's The Monk because Radcliffe did not like the direction in which Gothic literature was heading. Nick Groom , writes that in The Italian , Radcliffe "takes the violence and eroticism that so titillated readers of The Monk and subsumes them beneath
8436-481: The last novel she would publish in her lifetime. She was paid £800 for it, which was three times her husband's yearly income. In her final years, Radcliffe retreated from public life and was rumoured to have gone insane as a result of her writing. These rumours arose because Radcliffe seemingly abandoned writing after publishing her fifth novel and vanished from the public eye. While these rumours were later proven false, they were so popular that Talfourd's memoir included
8550-446: The latter poem, the names of the characters, the dream visions, and the macabre physical details are influenced by the novels of premiere Gothicist Ann Radcliffe. Although ushering in the historical novel, and turning popularity away from Gothic fiction, Walter Scott frequently employed Gothic elements in his novels and poetry. Scott drew upon oral folklore , fireside tales, and ancient superstitions, often juxtaposing rationality and
8664-464: The long winter hours before bed listening (for I could not yet read), agape with ecstasy and terror, as my parents read aloud to me from the novels of Ann Radcliffe. Then I would rave deliriously about them in my sleep." A number of scholars have noted elements of Gothic literature in Dostoyevsky's novels, and some have tried to show direct influence of Radcliffe's work. In 1875, Paul Féval wrote
8778-410: The magazine on his own and Samuel Carter Hall became editor for a year. In 1831 the novelist Edward Bulwer became editor, turning "the essentially apolitical, slightly Whiggish, literary journal into a vigorous radical organ shouting 'Reform' at the top of its lungs." Hall, a political Conservative, had remained as sub-editor, and resisted Bulwer's efforts: Bulwer resigned in 1833, with Hall taking up
8892-639: The magazine with a more literary and less political focus, retitling it The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal . Nominally edited by the poet Thomas Campbell , most editing fell to the sub-editor Cyrus Redding . Colburn paid contributors well, and they included Sydney Morgan , Thomas Charles Morgan , Peter George Patmore , Mary Shelley , Charles Lamb , Leigh Hunt , Stendhal , Thomas Noon Talfourd , Letitia Elizabeth Landon , Felicia Hemans , Ugo Foscolo , Richard Lalor Sheil , Mary Russell Mitford , Edward Bulwer , James and Horace Smith , and William Hazlitt . Hazlitt's " Table-Talk " essays, begun in
9006-493: The main plot, can include sleeplike and deathlike states, live burials , doubles , unnatural echoes or silences, the discovery of obscured family ties, unintelligible writings, nocturnal landscapes, remote locations, and dreams. Especially in the late 19th century, Gothic fiction often involved demons and demonic possession , ghosts , and other kinds of evil spirits . Gothic fiction often moves between " high culture " and " low " or " popular culture ". Gothic literature
9120-509: The meridian of life, a series of events, which seem not to have their foundation in nature, will ever be insipid, if not disgustful”. It was also largely criticized for its anachronisms and inauthentic renderings of the Scottish Highlands . One year later, Radcliffe published her second novel, A Sicilian Romance , which proved a success, and, as Walter Scott recalled: "we ourselves well recollect, attracted in no ordinary degree
9234-637: The most celebrated Realists, wrote Faust (1856), Phantoms (1864), Song of the Triumphant Love (1881), and Clara Milich (1883). Another classic Russian Realist, Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky , incorporated Gothic elements into many of his works, although none can be seen as purely Gothic. Grigory Petrovich Danilevsky , who wrote historical and early science fiction novels and stories, wrote Mertvec-ubiytsa ( Dead Murderer ) in 1879. Also, Grigori Alexandrovich Machtet wrote "Zaklyatiy kazak", which may now also be considered Gothic. The 1880s saw
9348-704: The motive of Doppelgänger , a term coined by another German author and supporter of Hoffmann, Jean-Paul , in his humorous novel Siebenkäs (1796–1797). He also wrote an opera based on Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué 's Gothic story Undine (1816), for which de la Motte Fouqué wrote the libretto. Aside from Hoffmann and de la Motte Fouqué, three other important authors from the era were Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff ( The Marble Statue , 1818), Ludwig Achim von Arnim ( Die Majoratsherren , 1819), and Adelbert von Chamisso ( Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte , 1814). After them, Wilhelm Meinhold wrote The Amber Witch (1838) and Sidonia von Bork (1847). In Spain,
9462-407: The nineteenth century, Charlotte and Emily Brontë continued Radcliffe's Gothic tradition with their novels Jane Eyre , Villette , and Wuthering Heights . Radcliffe was also admired by French authors including Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), Victor Hugo (1802–1885), Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870), George Sand (1804-1876), and Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867). Honoré de Balzac 's novel of
9576-493: The picture contained. You saw the real light of the sun, you breathed the air of the country, you felt all the circumstances of a luxurious climate on the most serene and beautiful landscape; and the mind thus softened, you almost fancied you hear Italian music in the air. I have read all Mrs. Radcliffe’s works, and most of them with great pleasure. The Mysteries of Udolpho, when I had once begun it, I could not lay down again;—I remember finishing it in two days—my hair standing on end
9690-566: The political plight of Catholic Ireland subjected to the Protestant Ascendancy. Le Fanu's use of the gloomy villain, forbidding mansion, and persecuted heroine in Uncle Silas (1864) shows direct influence from Walpole's Otranto and Radcliffe's Udolpho . Le Fanu's short story collection In a Glass Darkly (1872) includes the superlative vampire tale Carmilla , which provided fresh blood for that particular strand of
9804-495: The power of ancestral sins to curse future generations, or the fear that they will. M. R. James , an English medievalist whose stories are still popular today, is known as the originator of the "antiquarian ghost story." In Spain, Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer stood out with his romantic poems and short tales, some depicting supernatural events. Today some consider him the most-read Spanish writer after Miguel de Cervantes . In addition to these short Gothic fictions, some novels drew on
9918-672: The priest Pascual Pérez Rodríguez was the most diligent novelist in the Gothic way, closely aligned to the supernatural explained by Ann Radcliffe. At the same time, the poet José de Espronceda published The Student of Salamanca (1837–1840), a narrative poem that presents a horrid variation on the Don Juan legend. In Russia, authors of the Romantic era include Antony Pogorelsky (penname of Alexey Alexeyevich Perovsky), Orest Somov , Oleksa Storozhenko , Alexandr Pushkin , Nikolai Alekseevich Polevoy , Mikhail Lermontov (for his work Stuss ), and Alexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky . Pushkin
10032-518: The public, who rushed upon it with all the eagerness of curiosity, rose from it with unsated appetite. When a family was numerous, the volumes flew, and were sometimes torn from hand to hand." Radcliffe's novels were often seen as the feminine and rational opposite of a more violently horrifying male Gothic associated with Matthew Lewis . Radcliffe's final novel, The Italian (1797), responded to Lewis's The Monk (1796). Radcliffe and Lewis have been called "the two most significant Gothic novelists of
10146-461: The reader may grasp the heroine's true position: "The heroine possesses the romantic temperament that perceives strangeness where others see none. Her sensibility, therefore, prevents her from knowing that her true plight is her condition, the disability of being female." 'Tis now the very witching time of night, When churchyards yawn, and hell itself breathes out Contagion to this world. Now could I drink hot blood, And do such bitter business as
10260-485: The revival of the Gothic as a powerful literary form allied to fin de siecle , which fictionalized contemporary fears like ethical degeneration and questioned the social structures of the time. Classic works of this Urban Gothic include Robert Louis Stevenson 's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), Oscar Wilde 's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), George du Maurier 's Trilby (1894), Richard Marsh 's The Beetle (1897), Henry James ' The Turn of
10374-468: The story. The buildings in The Castle of Otranto , for example, are riddled with tunnels that characters use to move back and forth in secret. This movement mirrors the secrets surrounding Manfred's possession of the castle and how it came into his family. From the castles, dungeons , forests, and hidden passages of the Gothic novel genre emerged female Gothic. Guided by the works of authors such as Ann Radcliffe , Mary Shelley , and Charlotte Brontë ,
10488-401: The supernatural L'Héritière de Birague (1822) follows and parodies Radcliffe's style. Mary Russell Mitford notes in a letter from 1849 the French admiration for Radcliffe: The only one whom they appear really to appreciate is Mrs. Radcliffe — Anne Radcliffe, as they call her, for they do not even mis-spell her name. It is quite amusing to see how much a writer, wellnigh forgotten in England,
10602-649: The supernatural. Novels such as The Bride of Lammermoor (1819), in which the characters' fates are decided by superstition and prophecy , or the poem Marmion (1808), in which a nun is walled alive inside a convent, illustrate Scott's influence and use of Gothic themes. A late example of a traditional Gothic novel is Melmoth the Wanderer (1820) by Charles Maturin , which combines themes of anti-Catholicism with an outcast Byronic hero. Jane C. Loudon 's The Mummy! (1827) features standard Gothic motifs, characters, and plot, but with one significant twist; it
10716-459: The transgressive and dangerous attempts to subvert and escape such restriction. Emily Brontë's Cathy and Charlotte Brontë 's Jane Eyre are examples of female protagonists in such roles. Louisa May Alcott 's Gothic potboiler, A Long Fatal Love Chase (written in 1866 but published in 1995), is also an interesting specimen of this subgenre. Charlotte Brontë's Villette also shows the Gothic influence, with its supernatural subplot featuring
10830-583: The use of gothic aesthetic in novels by Charles Dickens and the Brontë sisters , as well as works by the American writers Edgar Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne . Later well-known works were Dracula by Bram Stoker , Richard Marsh's The Beetle and Robert Louis Stevenson 's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde . 20th-century contributors include Daphne du Maurier , Stephen King , Shirley Jackson , Anne Rice , and Toni Morrison . Gothic fiction
10944-575: The veil and the cowl of oppressive Catholicism ." A final novel, Gaston de Blondeville was published posthumously in 1826. This novel was published with Talfourd's memoir and Radcliffe's unfinished essay "On the Supernatural in Poetry", which details the difference between the sensation of terror her works aimed to achieve and the horror Lewis sought to evoke. Radcliffe stated that terror aims to stimulate readers through imagination and perceived evils, while horror closes them off through fear and physical dangers: "Terror and Horror are so far opposite, that
11058-460: The whole time. — Jane Austen , Northanger Abbey (1817) Radcliffe influenced many later authors, both by inspiring more Gothic fiction and by inspiring parodies . In the eighteenth century, she inspired writers like Matthew Lewis (1775–1818) and the Marquis de Sade (1740–1814), who praised her work but produced more intensely violent fiction. Radcliffe is known for having spawned
11172-412: Was Horace Walpole 's The Castle of Otranto (1764). The first edition presented the story as a translation of a sixteenth-century manuscript and was widely popular. Walpole, in the second edition, revealed himself as the author which adding the subtitle "A Gothic Story." The revelation prompted a backlash from readers, who considered it inappropriate for a modern author to write a supernatural story in
11286-548: Was Horace Walpole 's 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto , later subtitled "A Gothic Story". Subsequent 18th-century contributors included Clara Reeve , Ann Radcliffe , William Thomas Beckford , and Matthew Lewis . The Gothic influence continued into the early 19th century; works by the Romantic poets , like Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Lord Byron , and novelists such as Mary Shelley , Charles Maturin , Walter Scott and E. T. A. Hoffmann frequently drew upon gothic motifs in their works. The early Victorian period continued
11400-521: Was a fashionable London physician. Growing up, Radcliffe often visited her maternal uncle, Thomas Bentley, in Chelsea , London and later Turnham Green . Bentley was business partners with a fellow Unitarian , Josiah Wedgwood , maker of Wedgwood china . Sukey , Wedgwood's daughter, also stayed in Chelsea and is Radcliffe's only known childhood companion. Sukey later married Dr. Robert Darwin and had
11514-612: Was a notable Gothic writer, and converted from Catholicism to Anglicanism. In Switzerland, Jeremias Gotthelf wrote The Black Spider (1842), an allegorical work that uses Gothic themes. The last work from the German writer Theodor Storm , The Rider on the White Horse (1888), also uses Gothic motives and themes. After Gogol, Russian literature saw the rise of Realism, but many authors continued to write stories within Gothic fiction territory. Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev , one of
11628-422: Was also very influential among Gothic writers, who were especially drawn to the tragic anti-hero character Satan , who became a model for many charismatic Gothic villains and Byronic heroes . Milton's "version of the myth of the fall and redemption, creation and decreation, is, as Frankenstein again reveals, an important model for Gothic plots." Alexander Pope , who had a considerable influence on Walpole,
11742-461: Was an aesthetic to tie the elements together. Bloom notes that this aesthetic must take the form of a theoretical or philosophical core, which is necessary to "sav[e] the best tales from becoming mere anecdote or incoherent sensationalism." In this case, the aesthetic needed to be emotional, and was finally provided by Edmund Burke 's 1757 work, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of
11856-552: Was editor until 1843. In 1845 Colburn sold the magazine for £2500 to William Harrison Ainsworth , who had earlier edited Bentley's Miscellany and who now edited his own Ainsworth's Magazine . Ainsworth edited the New Monthly with his cousin William Francis Ainsworth as sub-editor. From 1871–79 William Francis Ainsworth was editor. Over the years, the magazine had several titles. These are listed at Periodicals Online , and comprise: The editorship of
11970-555: Was not merely in literature that a medieval revival made itself felt, and this, too, contributed to a culture ready to accept a perceived medieval work in 1764. The Gothic often uses scenery of decay, death, and morbidity to achieve its effects (especially in the Italian Horror school of Gothic). However, Gothic literature was not the origin of this tradition; it was far older. The corpses, skeletons, and churchyards so commonly associated with early Gothic works were popularized by
12084-508: Was not published until after her death. She was said to have suffered from asthma , for which she received regular treatment. In 1823, Radcliffe went to Ramsgate , where she caught a fatal chest infection. She died 7 February 1823 at the age of 58 and was buried in a vault in the Chapel of Ease at St George's, Hanover Square , London. Although she had suffered from asthma for twelve years previously, her modern biographer, Rictor Norton , cites
12198-539: Was partly a response to the 1791 Roman Catholic Relief Act passed by the British parliament , which was a major component of Catholic emancipation in Great Britain. Other scholars have suggested that Radcliffe was ultimately ambivalent towards Catholicism, claiming that she was a Latitudinarian . Radcliffe used the framing narrative of personifying nature in many of her novels. For example, she believed that
12312-426: Was presented as being part of "ancient Italianess". Italy, along with its Catholicism, had been featured in earlier Gothic literature; Horace Walpole 's novel The Castle of Otranto claimed in-universe that it was "found in the library of an ancient catholic family in the north of England" and "printed at Naples , in the black letter, in the year 1529". Some scholars have suggested that Radcliffe's anti-Catholicism
12426-527: Was productive of both Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), and Polidori's short story " The Vampyre " (1819), featuring the Byronic Lord Ruthven . "The Vampyre" has been accounted by cultural critic Christopher Frayling as one of the most influential works of fiction ever written and spawned a craze for vampire fiction and theatre (and, latterly, film) that has not ceased to this day. Although clearly influenced by
12540-578: Was published unfinished upon his death in 1870. The mood and themes of the Gothic novel held a particular fascination for the Victorians, with their obsession with mourning rituals, mementos , and mortality in general. Irish Catholics also wrote Gothic fiction in the 19th century. Although some Anglo-Irish dominated and defined the subgenre decades later, they did not own it. Irish Catholic Gothic writers included Gerald Griffin , James Clarence Mangan , and John and Michael Banim . William Carleton
12654-455: Was repeated rather than traced to a reliable source. Radcliffe published five novels during her lifetime, which she always referred to as " romances ". Her first novel, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne , was published anonymously in 1789. Early reviews were mostly unenthusiastic. The Monthly Review said that, while the novel was commendable for its morality, it appealed only to women and children: "To men who have passed, or even attained,
12768-672: Was seen, every Sunday, at St James's Church; almost every fine day in Hyde Park; sometimes at the theatres, and very frequently at the Opera. Radcliffe spent the rest of her adult life travelling and living a comfortable life with her husband and their dog, Chance. They travelled domestically almost once a year from 1797 to 1811, and in later years, the Radcliffes hired a carriage during the summer months so that they could make trips to places near London. Radcliffe continued to write. She wrote poetry and another novel, Gaston de Blondeville , which
12882-624: Was the American Edgar Allan Poe , who wrote numerous short stories and poems reinterpreting Gothic tropes. His story " The Fall of the House of Usher " (1839) revisits classic Gothic tropes of aristocratic decay, death, and insanity . Poe is now considered the master of the American Gothic. In England, one of the most influential penny dreadfuls is the anonymously authored Varney the Vampire (1847), which introduced
12996-463: Was the first significant poet of the 18th century to write a poem in an authentic Gothic manner. Eloisa to Abelard (1717), a tale of star-crossed lovers, one doomed to a life of seclusion in a convent, and the other in a monastery, abounds in gloomy imagery, religious terror, and suppressed passion. The influence of Pope's poem is found throughout 18th-century Gothic literature, including the novels of Walpole, Radcliffe, and Lewis. Gothic literature
#455544