Gothic Documents A sourcebook 1700-18

In the 1790s, while across the Channel a political revolution raged, Britain was struck by a reading revolution, a taste for terror fiction that seemed to know no bounds. Ann Radcliffe and "Monk" Lewis were only the most celebrated of a host of writers purveying a new brand of "Gothic" literature. How is it that the age of Enlightenment gave rise to the genre of the literary ghost story? This is a landmark in the study of Gothic writing: nowhere else is the historical location of Gothic more richly or vividly illustrated.

Emma Clery is British Academy Research Fellow at Sheffield Hallam University.

Robert Miles is Reader in English at Sheffield Hallam University.

Acknowledgements

xi

Note on the text

xii

Introduction

1

(4)

Supernaturalism: religion, folklore, Shakespeare

5

(43)

A True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal (1706)

5

(8)

Daniel Defoe

The Spectator, Nos. 12 and 110 (1711)

13

(6)

Joseph Addison

`A Night Piece on Death' (1721)

19

(2)

Thomas Parnell

`William and Margaret' (1724)

21

(3)

William Mallet

`Political Vampyres' (1732)

24

(2)

Anon.

on the Cock Lane ghost (1762)

26

(1)

Horace Walpole

`Narrative drawn up by Mr John Wesley' (1784)

27

(3)

John Wesley

The Example of Shakespeare

30

(11)

The Entertainer (1754)

30

(2)

Arthur Murphy

`On the Praeternatural Beings' (1769)

32

(9)

Elizabeth Montagu

`An Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands of Scotland' (1749--50)

41

(7)

William Collins

Gothic origins

48

(51)

Germania (trans. 1777)

48

(6)

Cornelius Tacitus

Liberty (1734--6)

54

(6)

James Thomson

Common Sense (1739)

60

(1)

Anon.

`Spirit of the Laws' (trans. 1750)

61

(4)

Charles-Louis de Secondat Montesquieu

The Fool of Quality (1765)

65

(2)

Henry Brooke

Letters on Chivalry and Romance (1762)

67

(11)

Richard Hurd

`The History of English Poetry' (1778)

78

(1)

Thomas Warton

A Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian, The Son of Fingal (1763)

79

(5)

Hugh Blair

The Minstrel; or, The Progress of Genius (1770--4)

84

(4)

James Beattie

On Fable and Romance (1783)

88

(5)

James Beattie

A Dissertation on the Origin and Progress of the Scythians or Goths (1787)

93

(1)

John Pinkerton

`The Gothic Mind' and `Gothic Literature and Art' (1818)

94

(5)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Gothic aesthetic: imagination, originality, terror

99

(74)

`Of Heroique Playes' (1670)

99

(1)

John Dryden

The Grounds of Criticism in Poetry (1704)

100

(4)

John Dennis

The Spectator, No. 419 (1712)

104

(3)

Joseph Addison

Garrick's performance of the ghost scenes in Hamlet (1776)

107

(2)

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

`Ode to Fear' (1746)

109

(3)

William Collins

Edmund Burke A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757)

112

(9)

Originality

121

(6)

Conjectures on Original Composition (1759)

121

(1)

Edward Young

Preface to The Castle of Otranto (1765)

122

(2)

Horace Walpole

An Essay on Original Genius (1767)

124

(3)

William Duff

`On the Pleasure Derived from Objects of Terror; with Sir Bertrand, A Fragment' (1773)

127

(5)

John Aikin

Anna Laetitia Aikin (later Barbauld)

Preface to The Old English Baron (1778)

132

(3)

Clara Reeve

`Account of the German theatre' (1790)

135

(1)

Henry Mackenzie

Odes and the Taste for Terror

136

(10)

`To Horror' (1791)

137

(2)

Robert Southey

`Ode to Terror' (1792)

139

(3)

Stephen Hole

`To Horror' (1804)

142

(1)

Nathaniel Howard

`Ode to H. Fuseli, Esq., R.A., On Seeing Engravings from his Designs' (1807)

143

(3)

Henry Kirke White

Lenore (1796)

146

(8)

Gottfried August Burger

`On Gothic Superstition' and `On Objects of Terror' (1798)

154

(9)

Nathan Drake

`On the Supernatural in Poetry' (1826)

163

(10)

Ann Radcliffe

Anti-Gothic

173

(50)

Ars Poetica (trans. 1709)

173

(2)

Horace

Novel Versus Romance

175

(5)

The Rambler, No. 4 (1750)

175

(4)

Samuel Johnson

The Progress of Romance, Through Times, Countries, and Manners (1785)

179

(1)

Clara Reeve

Tampering with History: The Response to Sophia Lee's The Recess (1785)

180

(1)

`Advertisement' to The Recess (1785)

180

(2)

Sophia Lee

Review of The Recess (1786)

181

(1)

Plexippus (1790)

181

(1)

Richard Graves

`Terrorist Novel Writing' (1798)

182

(3)

Anon.

The Monk Affair

185

(11)

review of The Monk (1797)

185

(4)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Pursuits of Literature (1798)

189

(2)

Thomas Mathias

`A Friend to Genius', `An Apology for The Monk' (1797)

191

(5)

Gothic Drama

196

(5)

Reviews of Harriet Lee, The Mysterious Marriage (1798)

197

(1)

Postscript to The Castle Spectre (1798)

198

(1)

Matthew Gregory Lewis

`Academicus', `On the Absurdities of the Modern Stage' (1800)

199

(2)

Parodies

201

(6)

Azemia (1797)

202

(2)

William Beckford

Eaton Stannard Barrett, The Heroine (1813)

204

(3)

`On the Good Effects of Bad Novels' (1798)

207

(3)

E.A.

`On Novels and Romances' (1802)

210

(8)

W.W.

`Rimelli', `Novels and Romances' (1802)

218

(1)

The History of Fiction (1814)

219

(4)

John Dunlop

Gothic and revolution

223

(36)

`Demophilius', The Genuine Principles of the Ancient Saxons, or English Constitution (1776)

223

(3)

Report of the Committee of the Revolution Society (1789)

226

(2)

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

228

(7)

Edmund Burke

A Sicilian Romance (1790)

235

(1)

Ann Radcliffe

A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790)

236

(5)

Mary Wollstonecraft

The Rights of Man (1790--2)

241

(3)

Thomas Paine

Letters on the Revolution in France (1791)

244

(2)

Thomas Christie

`Of the Nature of Government, and the Rights of Men and of Kings' (1791)

246

(1)

Joseph Priestley

Argument on the French Revolution (1794)

247

(2)

David Hartley

Translator's Preface to Karl Grosse, Horrid Mysteries (1796)

249

(5)

Peter Will

The Rovers; or, the Double Arrangement (1798)

254

(3)

Review of W. H. Ireland, Rimualdo (1801)

257

(2)

Gothic renovations

259

(39)

William Godwin On Romance and Novel

259

(7)

`On History and Romance' (1797)

260

(5)

William Godwin

Preface to Fleetwood (1805)

265

(1)

William Godwin

Morality of Fiction (1805)

266

(1)

Hugh Murray

Review of Walter Scott's The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805)

267

(2)

`On the Origin and Progress of Novel Writing' (1810)

269

(2)

Anna Laetitia Barbauld

Preface to The Milesian Chief (1812)

271

(2)

Charles R. Maturin

`Chapter 1: Introductory,' Waverley (1814)

273

(3)

Walter Scott

Biographia Literaria (1817)

276

(1)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The Supernaturalism of Everyday Life

277

(8)

`Witches and Other Night Fears' (1821)

277

(3)

Charles Lamb

`On Ghosts' (1824)

280

(5)

Mary Shelley

`On the Supernatural in Fictitious Composition' (1827)

285

(2)

Sir Walter Scott

`The Age of Romance' (1837)

287

(5)

Thomas Carlyle

`The Historical Romance' (1845)

292

(6)

Anon.

Bibliography

298

(5)

Index

303

What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

FREE SHIPPING

Amazon no longer offers textbook rentals. We do!

Gothic Documents A sourcebook 1700-18

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials