The Cambridge History of the Gothic: Volume 1, Gothic in the Long Eighteenth Century

Description

This first volume of The Cambridge History of the Gothic provides a rigorous account of the Gothic in Western civilisation, from the Goths' sacking of Rome in 410 AD through to its manifestations in British and European culture of the long eighteenth century. Written by international cast of leading scholars, the chapters explore the interdisciplinary nature of the Gothic in the fields of history, literature, architecture and fine art. As much a cultural history of Gothic as an account of the ways in which the Gothic has participated within a number of formative historical events across time, the volume offers fresh perspectives on familiar themes while also drawing new critical attention to a range of hitherto overlooked concerns. From writers such as Horace Walpole and Ann Radcliffe to eighteenth-century politics and theatre, the volume provides a thorough and engaging overview of early Gothic culture in Britain and beyond.

Angela Wright is Professor of Romantic Literature at the University of Sheffield, and a former co-President of the International Gothic Association (IGA). Her books include Britain, France and the Gothic: The Import of Terror, 1764-1820 (Cambridge University Press, 2013), Mary Shelley (University of Wales Press, 2018), and the co-edited volumes Ann Radcliffe, Romanticism and the Gothic (2014, with Dale Townshend) and Romantic Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion (2015, with Dale Townshend). Dale Townshend is Professor of Gothic Literature in the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University. He has published widely on Gothic writing of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. His most recent monograph is Gothic Antiquity: History, Romance, and the Architectural Imagination, 1760-1840 (2019).