Of the Night: 20 Gothic Stories

By Ambrose Bierce, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Robert Louis Stevenson, et al.

Book Overview

Selected and Edited with an Introduction and Notes by David Blair, University of Kent at Canterbury.

Late in the eighteenth century authors began to write 'Gothic' stories as a way of putting literature back in touch with the irrational, the supernatural and the bizarre, which had been neglected in the 'Age of Reason'.

This superb new collection brings together stories from the earliest decades of Gothic writing with later 19th and early 20th century tales from the period in which Gothic diversified into the familiar forms of the ghost- and-horror-story. Work by writers such as Poe, Dickens, Hawthorne, Gaskell and M. R. James appears alongside that of anonymous writers from the start of the period and many lesser-known authors from Britain and America. Some of these stories, like the haunting 'The Lame Priest' are 'lost masterpieces' and several have never been anthologised before. Together they cover the spectrum of Gothic story-telling - tales of madness and violence, of shape-shifters and spectres, that express some of the deepest fears of the human mind - insanity, sexuality, death and the often terrible power of the past to catch up with the present.

In a lively, authoritative introduction David Blair provides fresh insights and a detailed commentary on the stories' place in the complex traditions of Gothic writing in British and American literature.

Stories include:

Sir Bertrand: A Fragment Captive of the Banditti Extracts from Gosschen's Diary: No. 1 The Parricide's Tale The Spectre Bride The Tapestried Chamber Berenice A Madman's Manuscript Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter Ethan Brand The Old Nurse's Story The Body-Snatcher The Yellow Wallpaper The Death of Halpin Frayser Canon Alberic's Scrapbook No. 252 Rue M. le Prince The Lame Priest Luella Miller The Bird in the Garden The Room in the Tower

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1840224258
• ISBN13: 9781840224252
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: Wordsworth Editions
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.54 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 4.9" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

Good Historical Compilation of Gothic Stories

Gothic Short Stories, published as a Wordsworth Classics in 2002, is a literary compilation that ranges from early anonymous tales to stories by noted authors like Sir Walter Scott, Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Dickens, J. S. Le Fanu, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ambrose Bierce, and M. R. James. The twenty stories are arranged chronologically from 1773 to 1912. Nearly all stories were new to me; I had only previously encountered Berenice (Poe, 1835), The Body Snatcher (Stevenson, 1885), and Canon Alberic's Scrapbook (M. R. James, 1894). Many early Gothic stories were published as though they were fragments of lost works. The first five tales in this collection are more interesting from a historical perspective than for their literary value. However, innovative writers continue to explore language, plots, and settings appropriate to this new genre. For example, while The Spectre Bride (1822, anonymous) is not entirely convincing, it does chill the reader as a young woman is seduced by a demon lover. Within a few decades this new genre began attracting established authors. Sir Walter Scott was near the end of his remarkable career when he wrote The Tapestried Chamber in 1829. The three stories in this collection by Poe, Dickens, and Le Fanu were published in the next decade. Le Fanu's intriguing story, Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter (1839), illustrates the rapid maturing of the Gothic tale. I was most surprised by The Yellow Wallpaper (1892), a disturbing tale of obsession by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, an author unfamiliar to me. I also liked The Lame Priest (1901) by S. Carleton, Luella Miller (1902) by Mary Wilkins Freeman, and The Room in the Tower (1912) by E. F. Benson. The introduction by David Blair provides a lengthy examination of the historical development of Gothic short stories. I initially scanned the introduction. Later, after I was better acquainted with these stories, I read the Blair's introduction more carefully as well as his brief comments on the various authors in a short appendix.