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The Tale of Terror A Study of the Gothic Romance
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132 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1921
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February 29, 2024
01/2022
From 1922
I once read in the Cambridge Companion to Gothic Literature that what we now know as the meaning of the word Gothic came from the stories ( "gothic literature") always being about something bad that happened in the past, and in 1700, invading tribes like the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths and the Vandals represented the past. Because they did their marauding in like 500.. The year. This book shows how gothic lit flourished in the 1700s.. Beginning with The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, Gothic and Horror Fiction never came to an end, satirized by Jane Austin in the early 1800s (Northinger Abbey). This book of course covers all of that, tons of books I haven't read (though I have read the Walpole, Austin, and even some Ann Radcliffe).
It is just fascinating to me how, let's just say, Teenage Slasher Movies stemming from the same decade as.me (also with no end in sight) have plots based on something bad that happened in the past. Think about it. In Texas Chainsaw Massacre the slaughterhouse closed down. In Halloween you have a stabby five year old who was institutionalized and escapes as an adult. In Friday the 13th a boy drowned at camp and his mother takes it out on a totally different set of counselors (in the second one the drowned boy comes back as a masked adult, but never mind that). I'm just saying, slasher movies are gothic literature.
From 1922
I once read in the Cambridge Companion to Gothic Literature that what we now know as the meaning of the word Gothic came from the stories ( "gothic literature") always being about something bad that happened in the past, and in 1700, invading tribes like the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths and the Vandals represented the past. Because they did their marauding in like 500.. The year. This book shows how gothic lit flourished in the 1700s.. Beginning with The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, Gothic and Horror Fiction never came to an end, satirized by Jane Austin in the early 1800s (Northinger Abbey). This book of course covers all of that, tons of books I haven't read (though I have read the Walpole, Austin, and even some Ann Radcliffe).
It is just fascinating to me how, let's just say, Teenage Slasher Movies stemming from the same decade as.me (also with no end in sight) have plots based on something bad that happened in the past. Think about it. In Texas Chainsaw Massacre the slaughterhouse closed down. In Halloween you have a stabby five year old who was institutionalized and escapes as an adult. In Friday the 13th a boy drowned at camp and his mother takes it out on a totally different set of counselors (in the second one the drowned boy comes back as a masked adult, but never mind that). I'm just saying, slasher movies are gothic literature.
December 9, 2019
As a hormone-infested teenager my twisted dream was to be husband to the Bride of Frankenstein. Just look at Elsa Lanchester in that cover photo! I used to fancy that I may have had a chance too, her standards obviously weren't very high, and I don't only refer to her choice of mate on screen; in real-life she was married to the Hunchback of Notre Dame. She was!
It's inevitable that any study of the Gothic Romance should mention Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto in the first couple of sentences. Birkhead duly obliged however, she was also keen to establish that the terror and fascination which led to the success of that novel, first published in 1764, go a long way back.
All the way back to the very earliest literature in fact. The Gilgamesh epic is full of the supernatural, as is the Odyssey, and the Old Testament. Norse mythology, medieval romance, the Elizabethan theatre of Marlowe and Shakespeare, the British ballads taken from an oral tradition with centuries of source material. And so,
'The publication of The Castle of Otranto in 1764 was not so wild an adventure as Walpole would have his readers believe. The age was ripe for the reception of the marvellous.'
What of Walpole's seminal work then? The man himself considered it to be 'a fanciful, amusing trifle' before its fame grew. Birkhead acknowledges its influence but not its merit; the 'supernatural machinery' of his story are 'not only unalarming but mildly ridiculous.' I've read some of it and can concur.
Walpole's immediate successors fared no better in Birkhead's estimation. Clara Reeve's The Old English Baron (1777) is slightly better but the ghost 'fails to produce the slightest thrill'; in Sir Bertrand, which only exists in fragments, Mrs. Barbauld 'chose her properties with admirable discretion, but lacked the art to use them cunningly'; the various experiments of Dr. Nathan Drake are 'bungling attempts'; even Blake's gothic poem Fair Elenor is rated 'crude.'
After this artistically unpromising start comes the emergence of Mrs. Radcliffe, and 'it was probably her timely appearance that saved the Gothic tale from an early death.' Not that she was all that good either. She understood suspense, yet her characters were insipid. The supernatural elements were always eventually given an earthly explanation.
I haven't mustered the requisite masochism to plough my way through The Mysteries of Udolpho but I have read Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, which is something of a parody. Birkhead recommends Radcliffe's later novel The Italian above her more famous work.
After the novel of suspense came the novel of terror. Matthew Gregory Lewis's The Monk (1795) was the first standout, if you can call it that, in which he threw off the restraints and offered 'a daylight orgy of horrors.' An innumerable litany of bad books about mad monks and naughty nuns followed.
By now, like me, you may be wondering why Birkhead decided to torture herself by writing about such a terrible (and by that I don't mean terrifying) literary genre; so far she hasn't picked out a single representative novel she thought much of.
That is until the Rev. Charles Robert Maturin wrote Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), 'a memory-haunting book' in which stirring emotions became more important than describing events. The next chapter went on to focus on another novel she recommends which was actually published decades before, Beckford's History of the Caliph Vathek (1786) with its distinctly oriental influences.
Then it's back to the rubbish. Even the poet Shelley wasn't exempt. In his Eton days he wrote Zastrozzi and other sophomoric travesties enthused with his love of the genre, which were 'no better and perhaps even worse than that of the other disciples of Mrs. Radcliffe and "Monk" Lewis.'
Sir Walter Scott incorporated elements of the Gothic in his stories, only the 'historical background, faint, misty and unreal in Mrs. Radcliffe's novels, becomes, in those of Scott, arresting and substantial.' I've actually read several of these, such as The Monastery, Old Mortality, Rob Roy and The Bride of Lammermoor.
If nothing else can be said for the Gothic Romance we can agree that it's a genre which readily lends itself to parody. Birkhead dedicated a chapter to some notable examples, including the aforementioned effort by the divine Miss Austen. When I read it was aware of fun she was poking at Mrs Radcliffe but I didn't realise just how pervasively the tropes of Gothic Romance were incorporated into the plot.
On the subject of plots, I am indebted to Birkhead for comprehensively outlining the story of each of the atrocious books she wrote about. I have no excuse to read any of them now.
It's inevitable that any study of the Gothic Romance should mention Horace Walpole's Castle of Otranto in the first couple of sentences. Birkhead duly obliged however, she was also keen to establish that the terror and fascination which led to the success of that novel, first published in 1764, go a long way back.
All the way back to the very earliest literature in fact. The Gilgamesh epic is full of the supernatural, as is the Odyssey, and the Old Testament. Norse mythology, medieval romance, the Elizabethan theatre of Marlowe and Shakespeare, the British ballads taken from an oral tradition with centuries of source material. And so,
'The publication of The Castle of Otranto in 1764 was not so wild an adventure as Walpole would have his readers believe. The age was ripe for the reception of the marvellous.'
What of Walpole's seminal work then? The man himself considered it to be 'a fanciful, amusing trifle' before its fame grew. Birkhead acknowledges its influence but not its merit; the 'supernatural machinery' of his story are 'not only unalarming but mildly ridiculous.' I've read some of it and can concur.
Walpole's immediate successors fared no better in Birkhead's estimation. Clara Reeve's The Old English Baron (1777) is slightly better but the ghost 'fails to produce the slightest thrill'; in Sir Bertrand, which only exists in fragments, Mrs. Barbauld 'chose her properties with admirable discretion, but lacked the art to use them cunningly'; the various experiments of Dr. Nathan Drake are 'bungling attempts'; even Blake's gothic poem Fair Elenor is rated 'crude.'
After this artistically unpromising start comes the emergence of Mrs. Radcliffe, and 'it was probably her timely appearance that saved the Gothic tale from an early death.' Not that she was all that good either. She understood suspense, yet her characters were insipid. The supernatural elements were always eventually given an earthly explanation.
I haven't mustered the requisite masochism to plough my way through The Mysteries of Udolpho but I have read Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, which is something of a parody. Birkhead recommends Radcliffe's later novel The Italian above her more famous work.
After the novel of suspense came the novel of terror. Matthew Gregory Lewis's The Monk (1795) was the first standout, if you can call it that, in which he threw off the restraints and offered 'a daylight orgy of horrors.' An innumerable litany of bad books about mad monks and naughty nuns followed.
By now, like me, you may be wondering why Birkhead decided to torture herself by writing about such a terrible (and by that I don't mean terrifying) literary genre; so far she hasn't picked out a single representative novel she thought much of.
That is until the Rev. Charles Robert Maturin wrote Melmoth the Wanderer (1820), 'a memory-haunting book' in which stirring emotions became more important than describing events. The next chapter went on to focus on another novel she recommends which was actually published decades before, Beckford's History of the Caliph Vathek (1786) with its distinctly oriental influences.
Then it's back to the rubbish. Even the poet Shelley wasn't exempt. In his Eton days he wrote Zastrozzi and other sophomoric travesties enthused with his love of the genre, which were 'no better and perhaps even worse than that of the other disciples of Mrs. Radcliffe and "Monk" Lewis.'
Sir Walter Scott incorporated elements of the Gothic in his stories, only the 'historical background, faint, misty and unreal in Mrs. Radcliffe's novels, becomes, in those of Scott, arresting and substantial.' I've actually read several of these, such as The Monastery, Old Mortality, Rob Roy and The Bride of Lammermoor.
If nothing else can be said for the Gothic Romance we can agree that it's a genre which readily lends itself to parody. Birkhead dedicated a chapter to some notable examples, including the aforementioned effort by the divine Miss Austen. When I read it was aware of fun she was poking at Mrs Radcliffe but I didn't realise just how pervasively the tropes of Gothic Romance were incorporated into the plot.
On the subject of plots, I am indebted to Birkhead for comprehensively outlining the story of each of the atrocious books she wrote about. I have no excuse to read any of them now.
July 25, 2012
This is a brilliant guide book for the study of Gothic novels.
If your library doesn't have it, it is on Project Guttenberg as a ebook.
This book spans from Spenser to the Brontes. As well as a quick blurb about Conrad and H. G. Wells.
The volume was printed in 1921, so writers like Lovecraft aren't mentioned.
The tittle of this book may mention "Gothic Romance" it is more of a primer for the beginnings of Weird Fiction.
Pick this book up. It is well worth the time.
If your library doesn't have it, it is on Project Guttenberg as a ebook.
This book spans from Spenser to the Brontes. As well as a quick blurb about Conrad and H. G. Wells.
The volume was printed in 1921, so writers like Lovecraft aren't mentioned.
The tittle of this book may mention "Gothic Romance" it is more of a primer for the beginnings of Weird Fiction.
Pick this book up. It is well worth the time.
March 22, 2019
As a student and teacher of what we now call Gothic literature I'd seen this book endlessly in the bibliographies of more contemporary studies and only just now found it on LibraVox so I listened to it to see what it had to offer. It certainly has its flaws, but it was quite interesting as an early attempt to isolate and define the canon of the genre or theme in primarily English and American literature. Most interesting to me was Birkhead's chapter on the short story and her ignoring of the trappings of Gothic, its motifs and our modern obsession with the various meanings of the word Gothic itself, and her concentration on any narrative aimed at making us fearful. On the downside--as others here have noted--she provides a synopsis of the romances and tales alike ad nauseum so I was either bored to rehearse plots I knew or dismayed to have texts I've not yet read spoiled (as we say these days). Also she feels obliged to pronounce the aesthetic worth of most of these texts without a clear measure for doing so other than her own taste and that can be annoying, especially when dealing with a popular genre such as Gothic, for it comes off as elitist and unbecoming in a scholarly work.
Most interesting to me was how Birkhead did not divide the Gothic tradition into the two major periods that more modern scholars usually find self-evident today: the seventeen and eighteen nineties. Rather she charts the flow of Gothic from Walpole's creation of the genre with The Castle of Otranto to Radcliffe et alias' romances and then into the short story format beginning with the invention of the magazine and the chapbooks that then collected the tales written for periodicals, which avowed and propagated the genre by selling themselves as collections of Gothic stories. Doing so allows her to follow the genre's continuity seamlessly from a reaction to the realistic novel to its heyday in romances and the into the mid-century shorter tales of Le Fanu and Americans Brockton-Brown, Poe, and Hawthorn. The later Victorian Gothic gets rather left out though--there's only a passing reference to Dracula in the study's conclusion for example, the novel around which the whole concept of Victorian Gothic centers itself. I found this, along with the effects rather than the means of scaring readers, as interesting ways of thinking about Gothic different than those more commonly repeated nowadays.
A note on the reading if you're going to listen to the LibriVox recording: The Australian who reads the text has a lovely accent, smooth delivery and a beautiful reading voice. However, his misponounciations of many words--most noticeable to me the Italian names, French words, but also a few less common English words as well--will also have you snickering occasionally. Still, his voice and smoothness are admirable!
Most interesting to me was how Birkhead did not divide the Gothic tradition into the two major periods that more modern scholars usually find self-evident today: the seventeen and eighteen nineties. Rather she charts the flow of Gothic from Walpole's creation of the genre with The Castle of Otranto to Radcliffe et alias' romances and then into the short story format beginning with the invention of the magazine and the chapbooks that then collected the tales written for periodicals, which avowed and propagated the genre by selling themselves as collections of Gothic stories. Doing so allows her to follow the genre's continuity seamlessly from a reaction to the realistic novel to its heyday in romances and the into the mid-century shorter tales of Le Fanu and Americans Brockton-Brown, Poe, and Hawthorn. The later Victorian Gothic gets rather left out though--there's only a passing reference to Dracula in the study's conclusion for example, the novel around which the whole concept of Victorian Gothic centers itself. I found this, along with the effects rather than the means of scaring readers, as interesting ways of thinking about Gothic different than those more commonly repeated nowadays.
A note on the reading if you're going to listen to the LibriVox recording: The Australian who reads the text has a lovely accent, smooth delivery and a beautiful reading voice. However, his misponounciations of many words--most noticeable to me the Italian names, French words, but also a few less common English words as well--will also have you snickering occasionally. Still, his voice and smoothness are admirable!
February 22, 2021
Covering a literary genre I have been very fond of since I started reading properly - I credit the work of Stephen King as converting me to a constant reader, so to speak, but not too long after that phase I discovered the wealth of great and terrifying stories from before the twentieth century - I expected I would like this one quite a bit. But while it is certainly an adequate treatise on horror fiction, it does feel a little too small in scope. One need not hold it's time of publication against it of course - especially since that was after the "Gothic era" anyway - but within that time period covered, Birkhead spent a bit too much time covering the influential but not entirely captivating work of figures like Horace Walpole and Matthew Gregory Lewis (whose primary works were The Castle of Otranto and The Monk respectively. I feel like she could have looked more into a number of other writers of both England, Europe and the United States rather than focus so much of those whose work would provoke only a mild sort of interest.
All in all though, as with most literary criticism, I enjoyed this book.
All in all though, as with most literary criticism, I enjoyed this book.
November 17, 2015
If you are an avid horror reader, and want to mine the early authors in the genre, I highly recommend this book. It was a thesis, so it’s not as lengthy as a modern reference book. Read aloud it is only seven hours long. Much of its content was taken (with attribution) by H.P. Lovecraft for his influential essay Supernatural Horror in Literature, so if you have already rummaged through that for recommendations, you may find this covers similar territory. That being noted, Birkhead has a different approach and philosophy to Lovecraft.
The Tale of Terror traces the history of a particular style of horror writing, starting with the Gothic Revival and The Castle of Otranto. It then works its way through the works of Mrs Radcliffe, claiming a feminine progenitor for the genre in a way I’ve not seen in other scholarship. The next chapter discusses The Monk and Melmoth the Wanderer. It then winds its way through oriental romances, short stories, and American writers.
I found its treatment of Mary Shelley, in particular, refreshing.So much writing about her seems to want her to be a child-genius who redeems the sci-fi genre from perpetual blokishness. Her father’s work is given an entire chapter, and the links between it and Frankenstein are described. The flaws in Frankenstein are addressed candidly. Her dystopian novel, The Last Man, is given more space than usual which makes Birkhead’s work surprisingly topical, given how common dystopian fiction has become. Birkhead weaves all of the authors into a continuing tapestry, showing how the genre develops as they borrow from their contemporaries and predecessors.
Part of our reading challenge for this year is to read a book aloud. Reading aloud is a wonderfully different experience, and I’d like to advocate it strongly for those of you who have not tried it. I’m not suggesting you read every book aloud, but there are some which are excellent for this. That’s better as the subject for another post, so I’ll leave my usual paean to reading aloud there.
I recorded this book for Librivox, so it is available in audio. The audio’s webpage also has links to free .e Tale of terror epub and HTML versions of the text, available through Project Gutenberg.
This review first appeared on book coasters
The Tale of Terror traces the history of a particular style of horror writing, starting with the Gothic Revival and The Castle of Otranto. It then works its way through the works of Mrs Radcliffe, claiming a feminine progenitor for the genre in a way I’ve not seen in other scholarship. The next chapter discusses The Monk and Melmoth the Wanderer. It then winds its way through oriental romances, short stories, and American writers.
I found its treatment of Mary Shelley, in particular, refreshing.So much writing about her seems to want her to be a child-genius who redeems the sci-fi genre from perpetual blokishness. Her father’s work is given an entire chapter, and the links between it and Frankenstein are described. The flaws in Frankenstein are addressed candidly. Her dystopian novel, The Last Man, is given more space than usual which makes Birkhead’s work surprisingly topical, given how common dystopian fiction has become. Birkhead weaves all of the authors into a continuing tapestry, showing how the genre develops as they borrow from their contemporaries and predecessors.
Part of our reading challenge for this year is to read a book aloud. Reading aloud is a wonderfully different experience, and I’d like to advocate it strongly for those of you who have not tried it. I’m not suggesting you read every book aloud, but there are some which are excellent for this. That’s better as the subject for another post, so I’ll leave my usual paean to reading aloud there.
I recorded this book for Librivox, so it is available in audio. The audio’s webpage also has links to free .e Tale of terror epub and HTML versions of the text, available through Project Gutenberg.
This review first appeared on book coasters
January 14, 2016
Reading this books was an experience I would like to compare to slow, calculated mental torture.
There is plenty of information - this is undeniable, but.
While the author touches on a few interesting topics - the evolution of the "Gothic" concept, the fascination with the Italian setting, the mechanisms of fear and horror and the self-destruction of the Gothic genre by the authors' tendency to overachieve - this study is no more than a clumsy introduction and, lacking insight and depth, not an involved critical essay on the Gothic phenomenon.
I don't even want to go into how tiresome it is to constantly skip passages because tens of novels and stories are being summarized with unnecessary detail. I don't understand the hermeneutical role of this attempt. Besides, it is truly annoying to the reader who is just starting to get acquainted with the 18th century Gothic novel and would actually like to read these books, instead of having someone give it all away.
Other than that, yes, this book abounds in all sorts of words and phrases, but reveals almost nothing of interest about this fascinating genre.
There is plenty of information - this is undeniable, but.
While the author touches on a few interesting topics - the evolution of the "Gothic" concept, the fascination with the Italian setting, the mechanisms of fear and horror and the self-destruction of the Gothic genre by the authors' tendency to overachieve - this study is no more than a clumsy introduction and, lacking insight and depth, not an involved critical essay on the Gothic phenomenon.
I don't even want to go into how tiresome it is to constantly skip passages because tens of novels and stories are being summarized with unnecessary detail. I don't understand the hermeneutical role of this attempt. Besides, it is truly annoying to the reader who is just starting to get acquainted with the 18th century Gothic novel and would actually like to read these books, instead of having someone give it all away.
Other than that, yes, this book abounds in all sorts of words and phrases, but reveals almost nothing of interest about this fascinating genre.
November 7, 2015
Great introduction to the Gothic romance. However, if you are looking to read any of the books mentioned she does give the endings away on some of them. But she writes to a prospective audience as being familiar with most of the major works listed and so probably wasn't over-worried about giving away the endings on some.
I like the summaries. They are fairly brief and to the point. The author also writes in a clear style which makes it easy to read.
One thing I did find puzzling, however, was the fairly long chapter on Scott since she even states in the book that most of his works do not fall under the Gothic or horror heading but that they are classified as ' historical ' romances. It just seemed an odd inclusion in a book mainly about Gothic romances and tales of terror.
I like the summaries. They are fairly brief and to the point. The author also writes in a clear style which makes it easy to read.
One thing I did find puzzling, however, was the fairly long chapter on Scott since she even states in the book that most of his works do not fall under the Gothic or horror heading but that they are classified as ' historical ' romances. It just seemed an odd inclusion in a book mainly about Gothic romances and tales of terror.
July 12, 2011
Read as a public domain etext on my nook. A thorough survey of gothic and horror literature through the early 1900s, without much of the 20th century intruding. Great information about some obscure and forgotten works. The section on Mary Shelley was surprisingly over-critical considering that few critical words were said about most of the other authors but that's just an observation. I had wanted to read this book for years so I was amazed to realize it was available as a free download because it was published around 1920. I'm excited to go read more of my favorite genres now, with fresh insight into them.
March 28, 2015
Published in 1921, this remains an excellent overview of Gothic fiction.
addenda: It is available FREE at Project Gutenberg here as well as other sites like manybooks.net
Please avoid bullshit presses that scoop up texts that have been prepared and put online by for free by Gutenberg's volunteers and charge consumers money for their "edition."
addenda: It is available FREE at Project Gutenberg here as well as other sites like manybooks.net
Please avoid bullshit presses that scoop up texts that have been prepared and put online by for free by Gutenberg's volunteers and charge consumers money for their "edition."
April 21, 2015
A really good overview of the Gothic Romance, and Tales of Terror from the beginning until 1800s. If you want a good rundown of many of the main authors and books that are in this genre you can't go wrong with this book.
June 3, 2016
Great for scholars, or as resource material for anyone looking to dive into the strange and surreal world of Gothic horror origins.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews