Sexuality and the Gothic Magic Lantern Desire, Eroticism and Literary Visibilities from Byron to Bram Stoker

This fascinating study explores the multifarious erotic themes associated with the magic lantern shows, which proved the dominant visual medium of the West for 350 years, and analyses how the shows influenced the portrayals of sexuality in major works of Gothic fiction. It offers vivid, new readings of works as varied as Charlotte Brönte's Villette and Bram Stoker's Dracula, and even uses clues suggested by magic lantern references to discover the meaning of the amorous entanglement described in the last extant stanzas of Byron's Don Juan. The first book-length consideration of the erotic associations connected with lantern shows, Jones reinstates the lanterns' importance for past generations in their visualization and expression of diverse sexualities and argues that an understanding of these influences serves fundamentally to change our reading of Gothic literature.

David J. Jones, author of the best-selling Gothic Machine and editor of Dracula's Precursors, lectures on the M.A. Literature programme at the Open University, UK. He is also a prize-winning poet and magic lanternist and has exhibited his Phantasmagoria show at the Bram Stoker International Film Festival.

List of Figures
List of Tables
Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction
1. Sex and the Ghost-Show: the Early Ghost Lanternists, Friedrich Schiller's Die Geisterseher/Ghost-seer, Matthew Lewis's The Monk and E-G Robertson's Convent Fantasmagorie
2. Byron: Incest, Voyeurism and the Phantasmagoria
3. Charlotte Brönte's Villette, Forbidden Desire and Lanternicity in the Domestic Gothic
4. Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla (1872), 'Ambiguous Alternations': Lesbian Desire in the Lanternist Novella
5. Lanternist codes and Sexuality in Dracula and The Lady of the Shroud
Conclusion