The Oxford Book of Gothic TalesThe Oxford Book of Gothic Tales
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Book, 1992
Current format, Book, 1992, , No Longer Available.Book, 1992
Current format, Book, 1992, , No Longer Available. Offered in 0 more formats"But sometimes when I wake in the grey morning, and between waking and sleeping, think of all those things that I must shut out from my sleeping and waking thoughts, I wonder was I right or was he? Was he mad, or was I idiotically incredulous? For--and it is this thing that haunts me--when I
found them dead together in the vault, she had been buried five weeks. But the body that lay in John Hurst's arms, among the mouldering coffins of the Hursts of Hurstcote, was perfect and beautiful as when he first clasped her to his arms, a bride."
E. Nesbit's "The Hursts of Hurstcote" is only one of the many stories found in The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales, the first anthology of this spinetingling genre. Though Gothic fiction has generally been identified with Walpole's"Castle of Otranto" and the works of Ann Radcliffe, these
thirty-seven selections compiled by Chris Baldick provide a unique look at the genre's development into its present-day forms. We see standard gothic elements of incest, murder, and greed in "The Poisoner of Montremos," a late eighteenth-century story by Richard Cumberland. We find in Poe's "The
Fall of the House of Usher" the tale that set a new standard of decadence for Gothic stories. In Hawthorne's "Rappacini's Daughter," a young girl is raised on the very essence of poison. In Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," a woman's death satisfies a neighborhood's curiosity with a bizarre discovery.
In other tales, a ghost reveals his sin of parricide, madness drives a man to murder,and a young girl spends her lifetime locked in a single room. All these stories and more contain the common elements of the gothic tale: a warped sense of time, a claustrophobic setting, a link to archaic modes of
thought, dynastic corruption, and the impression of a descent into disintegration. Yet they also reveal the progression of the genre from stories of feudal villains amid crumbling ruins to a greater level of sophistication in which writers brought the gothic tale out of its medieval setting, and
placed it in the contemporary world.
Bringing together the work of such writers as Robert Louis Stevenson, Eudora Welty, Thomas Hardy, Edgar Allan Poe, William Faulkner, Isak Dinesen, Arthur Conan Doyle, Joyce Carol Oates, Jorge Luis Borges, Eudora Welty, Patrick McGrath, and Isabel Allende, The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales
presents a wide array of the sinister and unsettling for all lovers of ghost stories, fantasy, and horror.
"But sometimes when I wake in the grey morning, and between waking and sleeping, think of all those things that I must shut out from my sleeping and waking thoughts, I wonder was I right or was he? Was he mad, or was I idiotically incredulous? For--and it is this thing that haunts me--when I found them dead together in the vault, she had been buried five weeks. But the body that lay in John Hurst's arms, among the mouldering coffins of the Hursts of Hurstcote, was perfect and beautiful as when he first clasped her to his arms, a bride."
E. Nesbit's "The Hursts of Hurstcote" is only one of the many stories found in The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales, the first anthology of this spinetingling genre. Though Gothic fiction has generally been identified with Walpole's"Castle of Otranto" and the works of Ann Radcliffe, these thirty-seven selections compiled by Chris Baldick provide a unique look at the genre's development into its present-day forms. We see standard gothic elements of incest, murder, and greed in "The Poisoner of Montremos," a late eighteenth-century story by Richard Cumberland. We find in Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" the tale that set a new standard of decadence for Gothic stories. In Hawthorne's "Rappacini's Daughter," a young girl is raised on the very essence of poison. In Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," a woman's death satisfies a neighborhood's curiosity with a bizarre discovery. In other tales, a ghost reveals his sin of parricide, madness drives a man to murder,and a young girl spends her lifetime locked in a single room. All these stories and more contain the common elements of the gothic tale: a warped sense of time, a claustrophobic setting, a link to archaic modes of thought, dynastic corruption, and the impression of a descent into disintegration. Yet they also reveal the progression of the genre from stories of feudal villains amid crumbling ruins to a greater level of sophistication in which writers brought the gothic tale out of its medieval setting, and placed it in the contemporary world.
Bringing together the work of such writers as Robert Louis Stevenson, Eudora Welty, Thomas Hardy, Edgar Allan Poe, William Faulkner, Isak Dinesen, Arthur Conan Doyle, Joyce Carol Oates, Jorge Luis Borges, Eudora Welty, Patrick McGrath, and Isabel Allende, The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales presents a wide array of the sinister and unsettling for all lovers of ghost stories, fantasy, and horror.
The Gothic tale has been with us for over two hundred years, but this collection is the first to illustrate the continuing strength of this special fictional tradition from the late eighteenth century to the present day. Gothic fiction is generally identified with Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto and the works of Ann Radcliffe, and with heroes and heroines menaced by feudal villains amid crumbling ruins. While the repertoire of claustrophobic settings, gloomy themes, and threatening atmosphere established the Gothic genre, later writers from Poe onwards achieved an ever greater sophistication, and a shift in emphasis from cruelty to decadence. Modern Gothic is distinguished by its imaginative variety of voice, from the chilling depiction of a disordered mind to the sinister suggestion of vampirism.
This anthology brings together the work of writers such as Le Fanu, Hawthorne, Hardy, Faulkner, and Borges with their earliest literary forebears, and emphasizes the central role of women writers from Anna Laetitia Aikin to Isabel Allende. While the Gothic tale shares some characteristics with the ghost story and tales of horror and fantasy, the present volume triumphantly celebrates the distinctive features that define this powerful and unsettling literary form.
A ghastly collection of thirty-seven gothic horror tales includes stories from Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Arthur Conan Doyle, Eudora Welty, Thomas Hardy, William Faulkner, Isak Dinesen, and Isabel Allende. 12,500 first printing.
A collection of thirty-seven gothic horror tales includes stories by Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Arthur Conan Doyle, Eudora Welty, and Isak Dinesen
found them dead together in the vault, she had been buried five weeks. But the body that lay in John Hurst's arms, among the mouldering coffins of the Hursts of Hurstcote, was perfect and beautiful as when he first clasped her to his arms, a bride."
E. Nesbit's "The Hursts of Hurstcote" is only one of the many stories found in The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales, the first anthology of this spinetingling genre. Though Gothic fiction has generally been identified with Walpole's"Castle of Otranto" and the works of Ann Radcliffe, these
thirty-seven selections compiled by Chris Baldick provide a unique look at the genre's development into its present-day forms. We see standard gothic elements of incest, murder, and greed in "The Poisoner of Montremos," a late eighteenth-century story by Richard Cumberland. We find in Poe's "The
Fall of the House of Usher" the tale that set a new standard of decadence for Gothic stories. In Hawthorne's "Rappacini's Daughter," a young girl is raised on the very essence of poison. In Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," a woman's death satisfies a neighborhood's curiosity with a bizarre discovery.
In other tales, a ghost reveals his sin of parricide, madness drives a man to murder,and a young girl spends her lifetime locked in a single room. All these stories and more contain the common elements of the gothic tale: a warped sense of time, a claustrophobic setting, a link to archaic modes of
thought, dynastic corruption, and the impression of a descent into disintegration. Yet they also reveal the progression of the genre from stories of feudal villains amid crumbling ruins to a greater level of sophistication in which writers brought the gothic tale out of its medieval setting, and
placed it in the contemporary world.
Bringing together the work of such writers as Robert Louis Stevenson, Eudora Welty, Thomas Hardy, Edgar Allan Poe, William Faulkner, Isak Dinesen, Arthur Conan Doyle, Joyce Carol Oates, Jorge Luis Borges, Eudora Welty, Patrick McGrath, and Isabel Allende, The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales
presents a wide array of the sinister and unsettling for all lovers of ghost stories, fantasy, and horror.
"But sometimes when I wake in the grey morning, and between waking and sleeping, think of all those things that I must shut out from my sleeping and waking thoughts, I wonder was I right or was he? Was he mad, or was I idiotically incredulous? For--and it is this thing that haunts me--when I found them dead together in the vault, she had been buried five weeks. But the body that lay in John Hurst's arms, among the mouldering coffins of the Hursts of Hurstcote, was perfect and beautiful as when he first clasped her to his arms, a bride."
E. Nesbit's "The Hursts of Hurstcote" is only one of the many stories found in The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales, the first anthology of this spinetingling genre. Though Gothic fiction has generally been identified with Walpole's"Castle of Otranto" and the works of Ann Radcliffe, these thirty-seven selections compiled by Chris Baldick provide a unique look at the genre's development into its present-day forms. We see standard gothic elements of incest, murder, and greed in "The Poisoner of Montremos," a late eighteenth-century story by Richard Cumberland. We find in Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" the tale that set a new standard of decadence for Gothic stories. In Hawthorne's "Rappacini's Daughter," a young girl is raised on the very essence of poison. In Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily," a woman's death satisfies a neighborhood's curiosity with a bizarre discovery. In other tales, a ghost reveals his sin of parricide, madness drives a man to murder,and a young girl spends her lifetime locked in a single room. All these stories and more contain the common elements of the gothic tale: a warped sense of time, a claustrophobic setting, a link to archaic modes of thought, dynastic corruption, and the impression of a descent into disintegration. Yet they also reveal the progression of the genre from stories of feudal villains amid crumbling ruins to a greater level of sophistication in which writers brought the gothic tale out of its medieval setting, and placed it in the contemporary world.
Bringing together the work of such writers as Robert Louis Stevenson, Eudora Welty, Thomas Hardy, Edgar Allan Poe, William Faulkner, Isak Dinesen, Arthur Conan Doyle, Joyce Carol Oates, Jorge Luis Borges, Eudora Welty, Patrick McGrath, and Isabel Allende, The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales presents a wide array of the sinister and unsettling for all lovers of ghost stories, fantasy, and horror.
The Gothic tale has been with us for over two hundred years, but this collection is the first to illustrate the continuing strength of this special fictional tradition from the late eighteenth century to the present day. Gothic fiction is generally identified with Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto and the works of Ann Radcliffe, and with heroes and heroines menaced by feudal villains amid crumbling ruins. While the repertoire of claustrophobic settings, gloomy themes, and threatening atmosphere established the Gothic genre, later writers from Poe onwards achieved an ever greater sophistication, and a shift in emphasis from cruelty to decadence. Modern Gothic is distinguished by its imaginative variety of voice, from the chilling depiction of a disordered mind to the sinister suggestion of vampirism.
This anthology brings together the work of writers such as Le Fanu, Hawthorne, Hardy, Faulkner, and Borges with their earliest literary forebears, and emphasizes the central role of women writers from Anna Laetitia Aikin to Isabel Allende. While the Gothic tale shares some characteristics with the ghost story and tales of horror and fantasy, the present volume triumphantly celebrates the distinctive features that define this powerful and unsettling literary form.
A ghastly collection of thirty-seven gothic horror tales includes stories from Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Arthur Conan Doyle, Eudora Welty, Thomas Hardy, William Faulkner, Isak Dinesen, and Isabel Allende. 12,500 first printing.
A collection of thirty-seven gothic horror tales includes stories by Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Arthur Conan Doyle, Eudora Welty, and Isak Dinesen
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- New York : Oxford University Press, c1992.
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