by Lisa Kröger
Reading List
Not to be missed: If you’ve already read Frankenstein, try Mary Shelley’s Mathilda. It’s a controversial (yet exceedingly Gothic) novella about a dying young woman who is in love with a devastatingly handsome poet and involved in an incestuous relationship with her widower father. It’s no wonder this steamy story was first published only in 1959 (by the University of North Carolina Press), a full century after Shelley’s death.
Also try: The Last Man (Henry Colburn, 1826) is Shelley’s postapocalyptic novel, set in a future world that has been decimated by a plague-like disease. Don’t worry; the book stays true to Shelley’s Romantic roots. The main character is an orphan who spends much of the novel ruminating on large ideas like love. Of course, the world is ending, so the ruminations on humankind and the world become increasingly dark as the main characters realize their desire to live is no match for the emotionless force of nature.
Related work: Mary Shelley’s hideous progeny still inspires writers to create their own sewn-corpse monsters. Sarah Maria Griffin’s Spare and Found Parts (HarperCollins, 2016) imagines a world ravaged by an epidemic that leaves the survivors with missing body parts. The daughter of the scientist who invented biomechanical replacements is lonely in this new world…and she sets out to create a companion for herself. Ahmed Saadawi took Shelley’s story to modern-day, war-torn Iraq with Frankenstein in Baghdad (English translation: Penguin, 2018).
Among the most faithful film adaptations of Shelley’s Frankenstein are Kenneth Branagh’s 1994 film of that name and, perhaps surprisingly, the iconic 1931 motion picture by Universal Pictures (based on a play based on the book) starring Boris Karloff as the monster who set the tone for all future patchwork corpses to come. Completists will enjoy the very first film adaptation, a 15-minute silent film by Edison Studios, widely available on the internet (though without musical accompaniment). More recently, the Showtime television series Penny Dreadful offered a rather heartbreaking storyline involving the monster and his horrified creator.
Scandalizing Jane Austen
Regina Maria Roche
1764–1845
Regina Maria Roche’s Gothic novels were so popular that Jane Austen name-checked one of them in Northanger Abbey (John Murray, 1817), a satire of the Gothic novel. Austen’s character Isabella Thorpe, a beautiful but conniving woman with a proclivity toward what we today might term trashy novels, describes her reading list: “I will read you their names directly; here they are, in my pocketbook. Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious Warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight Bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Horrid Mysteries. Those will last us some time.” Austen’s satire suggests the opinion that a woman who read novels like Clermont had neither brains nor common sense or gentle womanly manners.
Though Roche is considered a founding mother of the Gothic genre, little is known about her life. She was born in Waterford, an Irish seaport, in 1764 and grew up in Dublin. After marrying, she moved to London, where she lived with her husband, Ambrose Roche. A voracious reader as a child, by 1789 she had turned her love for words into a career as a novelist, beginning with The Maid of the Hamlet: A Tale in 1793 (Newman).
Roche was a minor literary star of her day. Her first two novels were romances, but she found success in darker material. Her third novel, The Children of the Abbey (1796), sold better than Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho and was a best-selling hit for Minerva Press. The novel is a love story, but Roche included some sordid details, including stolen inheritances and forged documents—elements that would feel at home in any modern soap opera.
Roche’s novel Clermont, published by Minerva Press in 1798, was her most Gothic work to date. The heroine, Madeline, is appropriately pale and beautiful and virtuous, but, alas, she faces torment after torment. Her idyllic life in the countryside is interrupted one night when she is attacked in a gloomy castle, prompting her to flee to a criminal-ridden forest. Early in the novel she falls for the hero, de Sevingie, but trouble hits paradise quickly. Madeline is whisked away to live with a family friend, a countess who is fatally stabbed and bleeds out before our innocent heroine’s eyes. Now Madeline is caught in a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse, and she doesn’t know if she can trust anyone—not even her own father or her new love.
Roche likely wrote as a means to support her family. She penned Gothic novels when Gothic novels were the fashion. When her readers demanded a change, Roche made a sharp left turn and changed her subject matter, focusing on Ireland and its social problems. In doing so, she managed to create and, more important, sustain a long and successful career.
Reading List
Not to be missed: Clermont may be the most Gothic of Gothic novels.
Also try: Regina Maria Roche did not deviate from the Gothic script in any of her fiction, to the point of being formulaic. Her novels are full of banditti-riddled forests, haunted and crumbling ruins in the midst of idyllic pastures, perfectly pale heroines of unparalleled virtue, and fainting women. So many fainting women. Her novel The Children of the Abbey (also a Minerva Press title, published in 1796) tells the story of siblings Amanda and Oscar who are cheated out of their rightful inheritance. As in most good Gothic novels, Amanda falls in love with a noble gentleman but is relentlessly pursued by a lecherous villain and corrupt relatives. Valancourt Books revived the text in 2016.
Related works: In addition to Roche’s works, Minerva Press published other Gothic novels by women authors. Standouts include The Castle of Wolfenbach by Eliza Parsons (1793) and The Orphan of the Rhine by Eleanor Sleath (1798). Though these writers received little critical attention at the time (perhaps due to Jane Austen’s disdain for them), they are beginning to enjoy popularity today. Valancourt Books in particular has been tracking down out-of-print Gothic novels and restoring them for contemporary readers.
Purveyor of Guts and Gore
Mary Anne Radcliffe
circa 1746–1810
Twenty-first-century filmmakers often portray nineteenth-century British life as a Jane Austen novel, prim and proper etiquette with lace and tea everywhere. But the fiction of the time, especially popular novels, paints a starkly different picture. Readers of the day had a healthy appetite for violence and gore.
Take, for example, Manfroné; or, The One-Handed Monk, published in 1809 (J. F. Hughes). The story starts violently: A young woman named Rosalina, alone in her bedroom at night, is assaulted. Her screams attract attention and her would-be rapist is scared off, losing a hand in the process of escaping. Then Rosalina’s father is murdered, and things only get bloodier. Rosalina is pursued relentlessly by a man who wants to hold her prisoner so he can control her wealth; at the same time, she meets a hero who wants to save her…proving his good intentions by kissing her cheek while she’s knocked unconscious. The story is so violent that several publishers refused to print it.
The author of this bloody book is credited as Mary Anne Radcliffe, though scholars can’t agree on who she was. The name is likely a pseudonym, especially given its resemblance to Ann Radcliffe, the most recognizable name in Gothic fiction. It could have been created by a publisher in order to gain favor with readers seeking a female author, though evidence suggests that a real woman was behind the fake moniker. A Louisa Bellenden Ker claimed authorship decades after the novel’s publication, though her writing style doesn’t corroborate her claim. Most modern critics accept one of two other possibilities: Either the woman was an obscure writer who never rose to fame (or died before she could assert ownership of the text), or the author was the feminist Mary Ann Radcliffe, who wrote The Female Advocate (Vernor and Hood, 1799).
That Mary Ann Radcliffe was born Mary Clayton around 1746 to a wealthy family in Scotland. The death of her father left her with a sizable inheritance. She visited London in 1761, and there she eloped with Joseph Radcliffe, who was by all accounts a useless alcoholic. Radcliffe and her husband had eight children,
but gradually the marriage disintegrated. By the age of thirty-three, Radcliffe was essentially living on her own and acting as the sole provider for her family. Unfortunately, her inheritance had disappeared as well. Radcliffe found work as either a housekeeper or a governess before she turned to writing.
Radcliffe wrote several sensational novels, including Radzivil and The Fate of Velina de Guidova, both published by Minerva Press in 1790. Radcliffe’s later writings were feminist manifestos, highly influenced by the work and philosophy of Mary Wollstonecraft (mother of Mary Shelley; see this page). In The Female Advocate; or An Attempt to Recover the Rights of Women from Male Usurpation Radcliffe, like Wollstonecraft, argued that women should be educated and given more opportunities for employment, both of which would provide them with greater freedom.
Radcliffe also wrote personal nonfiction. In her memoirs, she expressed a desire to publish her fiction anonymously, which was common at the time. But her publisher pressed her to use her real name, due to its resemblance to Ann Radcliffe. (Although this Mary Ann Radcliffe most certainly wrote Gothic novels, it is sometimes difficult to tell which were hers and which were published under her name for this reason.)
So little is known about the other contender, Louisa Bellenden Ker, that it’s difficult to speculate on the truthfulness of her claim and scholars remain skeptical. Her name appears in court documents (sometimes as Kerr, only adding to the confusion) for fraud charges, and although in her testimony she makes no mention of being a novelist, there is evidence that she attempted a writing career early in her life. She seems to have turned to petty crime when writing didn’t pan out.
In any case, we thank Mary Anne Radcliffe—whoever she was—for giving readers such a gloriously over-the-top tale of gore.
Reading List
Not to be missed: A new edition of Manfroné was published in 2007 by Valancourt Books, which includes an illuminating essay by Gothic scholar Dale Townshend exploring the possible authorship of the novel. Assuming Mary Anne Radcliffe is the author of Manfroné, we recommend Radzivil, A Romance (1790) and The Secret Oath; or, Blood-Stained Dagger (1802). Both novels were published anonymously (though are widely attributed to the feminist writer); they are difficult to find in modern editions but worth looking for.
Also try: Monks (and nuns and abbeys, too) have long been staples of the Gothic novel. Drawing upon the popularity of Matthew Lewis’s violently horrific novel The Monk (discussed later in this chapter; see this page), authors began to write all manner of villainous clerical types into their fiction. One fun read is Terrific Tales by Isabella Lewis (first published 1804; reprint 2006, Valancourt Books), which is said to be a collection of stories collected from ancient monastic texts. Lewis may be a false name (perhaps meant to evoke Matthew Lewis), but these short tales are presented as true. They include horrific stories of hobgoblins, angels, and ghosts of all kinds.
Related work: Rosalina is a popular name for Gothic heroines. It sounds just romantic enough (and by romantic, we mean vaguely Italian) to be perfect for a main character about to be pursued by evil men who never learned to keep their hands to themselves. In the case of Catherine Smith’s novel Barozzi; or, The Venetian Sorceress (A. K. Newman, 1815), the heroine Rosalina witnesses her father being brutally murdered. Luckily, she is rescued by a handsome man, who whisks her away to his Venetian palace. All is well until Rosalina meets a sorceress (Surprise! The villain is a woman!) at a masked ball, and this evil woman just might want to sacrifice Rosalina to the devil. Valancourt Books made this Gothic classic available to modern readers with a new edition published in 2006.
“She shrieked at seeing the dismembered arm, and, with a dreadful groan, fell senseless on the earth.”
—Manfroné; or, The One-Handed Monk
Exhibitor of Murder and Harlotry
Charlotte Dacre
circa 1771–1825
Novels of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are novels of sensibility, right? They have a refined air. A sense of decorum. Characters displaying the delicate touch of fine manners. Women who faint, or sit around looking pale and sad. There’s poetry.
The Gothic novels of the time, though, were more Stephen King than delicate romances. Demons were everywhere. Monks were just as likely to murder as they were to pray. The devil lurked around every corner. As did, in at least one case, a worm-ridden dead baby.
And in this environment Charlotte Dacre thrived.
“Charlotte Dacre” was one of the many pen names for Charlotte Byrne, née King, who was born in London (most likely; even her birthplace is shrouded in mystery, like the plot of one of her stories) sometime in the latter half of the eighteenth century (the exact year is still debated). Her father, John King, was a Jewish money broker who scandalized the family when he divorced Charlotte’s mother and began an affair with a widowed countess. A bit of a rogue, he ended up in legal trouble numerous times, facing charges of extorting money from the prime minister and the British royal family; his troubles caused him to flee England twice, in 1784 and 1802. Nonetheless, Charlotte dedicated poems to her father and often cited him as the reason that she was educated. (Later in life, he returned to his Jewish roots, publishing a defense of his religion that earned him the nickname “the Jew King.”) Some literary scholars argue that the abandonment Charlotte and her mother experienced led her to imagine men who did the same. It’s true that her plots often involve women who have been abandoned, in one way or another.
In 1805 Charlotte began an affair with Nicholas Byrne, the owner and editor of the British newspaper The Morning Post; the couple had three children together. Like her father—who’d changed his name from Jacob Rey—she chose a pseudonym that she believed lent her an air of aristocracy. Dacre’s first book, The Confessions of the Nun of St. Omer (Hughes, 1805), was reportedly written when she was only eighteen years old. It was received well by critics, but the same cannot be said about her next one. Zofloya; or, The Moor (Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, 1806) scandalized the literary world, and some critics considered it downright pornographic. One reviewer wrote that the book was filled to the brim with “courtesans of the lewdest class, and murderers of the deepest dye…an exhibition of wantonness of harlotry, which we would have hoped, that the delicacy of the female mind, would have been shocked to imagine.” What a blurb! In fact, Dacre’s book that caused so much pearl-clutching was a feminist revision of another popular book at the time: The Monk, a highly horrific Gothic novel by Matthew Lewis (J. Saunders, 1796).
The Monk tells the story of the titular monastic, who, driven wild by desire for a young woman in his town, plots to kidnap her with the help of a young woman named Matilda—who is dressed as a young man named Rosario. Confused yet? Lewis can do that. There’s enough trickery and debauchery in the book that that it reads like a soap opera written by Clive Barker. Lewis’s novel introduced to the Gothic world such tropes as the lecherous monk, the cross-dressing woman with a dangerous obsession, and the aforementioned dead infant. The book also gave Dacre one of her other pseudonyms: Rosa Matilda. In Lewis’s novel, Rosa Matilda is both a victim of the monk’s lust and a seducer of the pious. Some have even called Rosa Matilda the “demon lover” of Lewis’s monk. Dacre adopted the pen name intentionally, most likely to bolster sales with the connection to Lewis’s best seller, but also to slyly suggest women writers could also deal with the themes of violence and sexuality that their male counterparts so freely wrote about.
Reading List
Not to be missed: Like many female authors of her day, Dacre wrote romances, but she is best known for Zofloya. This novel follows Victoria, an adulterous woman who is not at all the typical virginal heroine. Of course, her (ahem) extracurriculars are rewarded with a date with the literal Devil. The novel’s plot hinges on Victoria’s obsession with her rival Lilla, whose chastity infuriates Victoria so greatly that she practices poisoning elderly women in preparation for when she has a chance to off Lil
la. When Lilla’s time finally comes, she is drugged, kidnapped, and chained inside a mountain cavern.
Also try: After Zofloya sold well enough to cement Dacre’s reputation as a best-selling author and fan favorite, she continued to push boundaries. The Libertine (T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1807), written as Rosa Matilda, tells the story of an innocent girl seduced by an Italian libertine who can’t settle down. Her last novel was The Passions (T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1811).
Related work: Readers interested in Matthew Lewis’s Rosa Matilda character can easily find a copy of The Monk thanks to the 2013 edition by Valancourt Books, featuring an introduction written by the master of horror, Stephen King.
Pale women fainting at the sight of a specter. Dark-haired men brooding on a foggy English moor. Psychics conducting séances. Photographs of the dead and of ectoplasm, the ghostly substance of the spirit world. All standard stock in horror stories of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries…but not always fictional.
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, scientists and seekers of spiritual knowledge alike were exploring the mystery of what happened to a person after death. The Swedish philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg, for example, described in his 1758 book Heaven and Its Wonders and Hell from Things Heard and Seen different levels of the afterlife, including a kind of spiritual pit stop for disembodied souls. Academics pooled knowledge and resources to form interest groups, like the Society for Psychical Research in England, with the aim of studying psychic phenomena, including telepathy, astral projection, and clairvoyance.
