Gothic Fiction
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07.09 Michelle Paver
Paver is brilliant at creating a sense of place – and then making you slightly afraid of it.
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First 100 Words: The Bloody Chamber
in 100 WordsI hear sirens, in both senses of the word … I think he’s expecting a girl. What he’s going to meet? A woman.
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Elizabethan Stages. Jacobean Shadows.
in MarginaliaThe grisly and the gothic, and a gap in my reading. Then, a tour of Shakespearean criticism, hopefully to be followed by the realities of staging the plays during his lifetime.
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28.08 J Sheridan Le Fanu
I’ve been in thrall to the vampire for long as I can recall … but not all of them are created equally. Carmilla is a favourite, and should be one of yours, too.
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24.08 John Polidori
Aristocratic, urbane, seductive, and at home in respectable society. Oh, and monstrous. Polidori’s contribution to THAT literary house party is too often overlooked.
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First 100 Words: ‘Frankenstein’
in 100 WordsA patronising man on ‘mysterious and important’ work. What could possibly go wrong? Perhaps he shouldn’t ignore a woman’s intuition, for starters.
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First 100 Words: ‘Rebecca’
in 100 WordsThe temperature’s dropped, storm clouds have suddenly covered the sun, and … oh my god, are those wolves I can hear in the background? Let’s look closely at how du Maurier does this in just 100 words.
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03.07 Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Sometimes, control arrives wearing the face of kindness, certainty, and good intentions.
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Carrion Crow, by Heather Parry (2025)
in MarginaliaMarguerite’s story makes for grim reading, not least when you realise that the novel is loosely inspired by a real-life case.
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12.06 MR James
MR James understood that the whole point of ghost stories is to haunt you as much as the protagonist is haunted …