"A Hideous Bit of Morbidity"


Book Description

Horror fiction stormed the bestseller lists with classics like Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist, setting the stage for Stephen King's worldwide popularity, but the genre has literary roots going back centuries. This collection provides insight into the way classic horror texts were received, interpreted and discussed by the first generations to experience them, ideas that continue to define the way modern society views horror. Each reprinted article, review or critical essay is prefaced with an introduction and explanatory notes to put the work in context. The book also includes an overview of horror criticism, a publication timeline, and period photographs and illustrations.




A Gothic Bibliography (Unabridged)


Book Description

An important and unique work about Gothic fiction, by"the major anthologist of supernatural and Gothic fiction", Montague Summers.




The Dime Novel in Children's Literature


Book Description

With their rakish characters, sensationalist plots, improbable adventures and objectionable language (like swell and golly), dime novels in their heyday were widely considered a threat to the morals of impressionable youth. Roundly criticized by church leaders and educators of the time, these short, quick-moving, pocket-sized publications were also, inevitably, wildly popular with readers of all ages. This work looks at the evolution of the dime novel and at the authors, publishers, illustrators, and subject matter of the genre. Also discussed are related types of children's literature, such as story papers, chapbooks, broadsides, serial books, pulp magazines, comic books and today's paperback books. The author shows how these works reveal much about early American life and thought and how they reflect cultural nationalism through their ideological teachings in personal morality and ethics, humanitarian reform and political thought. Overall, this book is a thoughtful consideration of the dime novel's contribution to the genre of children's literature. Eight appendices provide a wealth of information, offering an annotated bibliography of dime novels and listing series books, story paper periodicals, characters, authors and their pseudonyms, and more. A reference section, index and illustrations are all included.




Violent Victorians


Book Description

By drawing attention to the wide range of gruesome, bloody and confronting amusements patronised by ordinary Londoners this book challenges our understanding of Victorian society and culture. From the turn of the nineteenth century, graphic, yet orderly, ‘re-enactments’ of high level violence flourished in travelling entertainments, penny broadsides, popular theatres, cheap instalment fiction and Sunday newspapers. This book explores the ways in which these entertainments siphoned off much of the actual violence that had hitherto been expressed in all manner of social and political dealings, thus providing a crucial accompaniment to schemes for the reformation of manners and the taming of the streets, while also serving as a social safety valve and a check on the growing cultural hegemony of the middle class.







The Life and Times of James Catnach, (Late of Seven Dials), Ballad Monger


Book Description

An entertaining biography of infamous broadsheet publisher James Catnach, first published in 1878, illustrated with examples of his printed work.










Gothic Horror


Book Description

This highly accessible anthology of Gothic writings and criticism provides an essential guide to the genre. The second edition of this critically acclaimed book has been thoroughly revised to include material from the early gothic and a fresh set of contemporary essays, with a supporting timeline and thought provoking introductory material.




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