Nineteenth-Century Southern Gothic Short Fiction

Haunted by the Dark

Charles L Crow editor Susan Castillo Street editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Anthem Press

Published:17th Aug '20

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Nineteenth-Century Southern Gothic Short Fiction cover

Twelve uncanny tales of the race-haunted nineteenth-century South by authors both celebrated and obscure

Twelve uncanny tales of the race-haunted nineteenth-century South, by authors both celebrated and obscure, are presented along with background readings, themselves often chilling, placing the tales in a historical context.

The twelve Gothic tales of this collection span the nineteenth-century South and are from some of the most famous writers of the age, such as Edgar Allan Poe, to more recently rediscovered and now celebrated writers such as Kate Chopin and Charles Chesnutt, to the completely and unfairly obscure E. Levi Brown.  Companion readings—some themselves quite chilling—are by celebrated writers and well-known historical figures, such as Thomas Jefferson, Charles Brockden Brown, Jacques Dessalines, and W. E. B DuBois.  These readings place the fiction in the context of the South and the Caribbean: the revolution in Haiti, Nat Turner’s rebellion, the realities of slavery and the myths spun by its apologists, the aftermath of the Civil War, and the brutalities of Jim Crow laws.

“This is a critically important collection of Southern Gothic tales, which are incisively contextualized to the issues of race and slavery. The inclusion of contemporaneous nonfiction situates these stories within the culture that produced them. This is an essential collection for anyone interested in the origins of the Southern Gothic.” —Andrew Smith, Professor of Nineteenth-Century English Literature, School of English, University of Sheffield, UK


“This stunning collection juxtaposes twelve riveting Southern Gothic tales, most of them rarely anthologized, and eleven revealing pieces of nonfi ctional prose from the same time span, some by the same authors. Together they powerfully expose the darkest undercurrents that haunted America across the nineteenth century—and still haunt it today.” —Jerrold E. Hogle, Professor Emeritus of English, University Distinguished Professor, University of Arizona, USA


“This concise anthology is a must-have for students, scholars and admirers of the Southern Gothic. Crow and Castillo Street provide a unique overview of the genre and its tensions. By juxtaposing primary sources against canonical fi ction, this book subtly but brilliantly invites interrogation of the genre’s sociohistorical politics.” —Maisha Wester, Associate Professor, American Studies; African American and African Diaspora Studies, Indiana University, USA

ISBN: 9781785273872

Dimensions: 229mm x 153mm x 26mm

Weight: 454g

236 pages