American Gothic: An Anthology from Salem Witchcraft to H. P. Lovecraft (Blackwell Anthologies)

Overview: American Gothic remains an enduringly fascinating genre, retaining its chilling hold on the imagination. This revised and expanded anthology brings together texts from the colonial era to the twentieth century including recently discovered material, canonical literary contributions from Poe and Wharton among many others, and literature from sub genres such as feminist and ‘wilderness’ Gothic. The trial of G.B. ; The trial of Martha Carrier ; A notable exploit, wherein, dux faemina facti (The narrative of Hannah Dustan) / Cotton Mather (1663-1728) A surprising account of the discovery of a lady ... / Abraham Panther Letter IX (from letters from an American farmer) / J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur (1735-1813) Somnambulism / Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810) The legend of Sleepy Hollow / Washington Irving (1783-1859) Idiosyncrasies / John Neal (1793-1876) From The Quaker city, or, the monks of Monk Hall / George Lippard (1822-1854) The skeleton in armor / Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) A struggle for life / Henry Clay Lewis (1825-1850) Alice Doane's appeal ; Young Goodman Brown / Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) Hop-frog ; The cask of Amontillado ; The facts in the case of M. Valdemar ; The fall of the house of Usher ; The raven ; The city in the sea ; Ulalume ; Annabel Lee ; Dream-land / Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) The bell tower / Herman Melville (1819-1891) My visitation / Rose Terry Cooke (1827-1892) Through lane it lay, through bramble ; I felt a funeral, in my brain ; 'Tis so appalling, it exhilarates ; The soul has bandaged moments ; One need not be a chamber to be haunted ; 'Twas like a maelstrom, with a notch ; If I may have it, when it's dead ; What mystery pervades a well! / Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) A whisper in the dark / Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) Her story ; Circumstance / Harriet Prescott Spofford (1835-1921) The death of Halpin Frayser ; An inhabitant of Carcosa / Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?) The turn of the screw / Henry James (1843-1916) Jean-ah Poquelin / George Washington Cable (1844-1925) The little room / Madeline Yale Wynne (1847-1918) The foreigner / Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909) Desiree's baby / Kate Chopin (1851-1904) Old woman Magoun ; Luella Miller / Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1852-1930) The bell in the fog / Gertrude Atherton (1857-1948) Talking bones / Anonymous (folk tale) The sheriff's children ; The dumb witness / Charles W. Chesnutt (1858-1932) The giant wisteria ; The yellow wallpaper / Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) The house that was not / Elia Wilkinson Peattie (1862-1935) The eyes / Edith Wharton (1862-1937) In the court of the dragon / Robert W. Chambers (1865-1943) Nancy Knapp ; Barry Holden / Edgar Lee Masters (1868-1950) Luke Havergal ; Lisette and Eileen ; The dark house ; The mill ; Souvenir ; Why he was there / Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935) Lauth / Frank Norris (1870-1902) The monster / Stephen Crane (1871-1900) The lynching of Rube Benson / Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) Chinnubbie and the owl / Alexander Posey (1873 -1908) Samuel / Jack London (1876-1916) The outsider / H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937). "This collection brings together, and sets into dialogue, Gothic works by a number of authors, men and women, black and white, which illuminate many of the deepest concerns and fears of nineteenth-century America."--BOOK JACKET. "Among the themes in this conversation are the horror at illness and bodily decay, in an age with many incurable infectious diseases: the mutual mistrust of men and women, as gender roles shifted radically; the relationship of humans and machines: the horror that may lurk within outwardly normal families: and inescapably, the tragedy of race relations in America."--BOOK JACKET. "The collection contains short stories, novellas, and poems by some of America's best-known authors (Cooper, Hawthorne, Melville, Dickinson, Mark Twain), and others who are obscure or recently rediscovered, e.g. John Neal, Henry Clay Lewis, Alice Cary, Lafcadio Hearn. Writers long associated with the uncanny or supernatural appear, such as Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Allan Poe, and Ambrose Bierce, as well as authors not usually placed within this tradition (Stephen Crane, Sarah Orne Jewett, and Frank Norris, for example). There is a strong representation of female Gothic, and African-American writers such as Charles Chesnutt brilliantly anticipate the Gothic fiction of race in our own time."--BOOK JACKET. The chilling creativity of the American Gothic has retained its power to attract readers since it burst onto the literary scene in the eighteenth century, yet it has been the object of serious scholarship for only a few decades. Edited by a founding member of the International Gothic Association, the new edition of this anthology incorporates the whole range of factual and imaginative writing, from Cotton Mather's account of the witchcraft trials in the colonial era, through the poetry of Poe, Dickinson, and Longfellow and unsettling tales both long (Henry James's "The Turn of the Screw") and short (the anonymous "Talking Bones"), to the beginning of the modernism in the twentieth century. The collection demonstrates the startling abundance of themes explored by these writers and reflects contemporary academic perspectives, with generous selections from genres such as feminist and "wilderness" Gothic. It includes recently unearthed as well as canonical material and provides an unflinching view of America's secrets and fears: the thoughts that have been repressed, silenced, or forbidden. -- From publisher's description

American Gothic remains an enduringly fascinating genre, retaining its chilling hold on the imagination. This revised and expanded anthology brings together texts from the colonial era to the twentieth century including recently discovered material, canonical literary contributions from Poe and Wharton among many others, and literature from sub-genres such as feminist and 'wilderness' Gothic.

• Revised and expanded to incorporate suggestions from twelve years of use in many countries
• An important text for students of the expanding field of Gothic studies
• Strong representation of female Gothic, wilderness Gothic, the Gothic of race, and the legacy of Salem witchcraft
• Edited by a founding member of the International Gothic Association

American Gothic remains an enduringly fascinating genre, retaining its chilling hold on the imagination. This revised and expanded anthology brings together texts from the colonial era to the twentieth century including recently discovered material, canonical literary contributions from Poe and Wharton among many others, and literature from sub-genres such as feminist and ‘wilderness’ Gothic.

• Revised and expanded to incorporate suggestions from twelve years of use in many countries
• An important text for students of the expanding field of Gothic studies
• Strong representation of female Gothic, wilderness Gothic, the Gothic of race, and the legacy of Salem witchcraft
• Edited by a founding member of the International Gothic Association