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Female Gothic Histories

Gender, Histories and the Gothic

Diana Wallace author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:University of Wales Press

Published:30th Mar '13

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

Female Gothic Histories cover

Female Gothic Histories traces the development of women's Gothic historical fiction from Sophia Lee's The Recess in the late eighteenth century through the work of Elizabeth Gaskell, Vernon Lee, Daphne du Maurier and Victoria Holt to the bestselling novels of Sarah Waters in the twenty-first century. Often left out of traditional historical narratives, women writers have turned to Gothic historical fiction as a mode of writing which can both reinsert them into history and symbolise their exclusion. This study breaks new ground in bringing together thinking about the Gothic and the historical novel, and in combining psychoanalytic theory with historical contextualisation.

In 'Female Gothic Histories' Diana Wallace provides a powerful account of the centrality of historical fiction to the evolution of the Gothic and, in the process, re-writes the story of the origins of the historical novel. Her finely-argued and nuanced case-studies -- ranging from Sophia Lee in the C18thth to Sarah Waters in the C21st -- will cause readers to reflect anew upon both genres and the intriguing ways in which their genealogies intertwine. Elegantly written, carefully researched and imaginative in its use of literary and feminist theory, this book will quickly establish itself as priority reading for students and scholars alike. Professor Lynne Pearce, Lancaster University.

ISBN: 9780708325742

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 454g

272 pages