Britain, France and the Gothic, 1764–1820: The Import of Terror (Cambridge Studies in Romanticism, Series Number 99)

"In describing his proto-Gothic fiction, The Castle of Otranto (1764), as a translation, Horace Walpole was deliberately playing on national anxieties concerning the importation of war, fashion and literature from France in the aftermath of the Seven Years' War. In the last decade of the eighteenth century, as Britain went to war again with France, this time in the wake of revolution, the continuing connections between Gothic literature and France through the realms of translation, adaptation and unacknowledged borrowing led to strong suspicions of Gothic literature taking on a subversive role in diminishing British patriotism. Angela Wright explores the development of Gothic literature in Britain in the context of the fraught relationship between Britain and France, offering fresh perspectives on the works of Walpole, Radcliffe, 'Monk' Lewis and their contemporaries."--Publisher's website. Cover 1 Britain, France and the Gothic, 1764–1820 3 Series 4 Title 7 Copyright 8 Dedication 9 Contents 11 Figures 12 Acknowledgements 13 Introduction 15 Chapter 1 The mysterious author Horace Walpole 30 Chapter 2 The translator cloak’d: Sophia Lee, Clara Reeve and Charlotte Smith 47 Chapter 3 Versions of Gothic and terror 78 Chapter 4 The castle under threat: Ann Radcliffe’s system and the romance of Europe 102 Chapter 5 ‘The order disorder’d’: French convents and British liberty 134 Afterlives 161 Notes 167 Introduction 167 1 The mysterious author Horace Walpole 173 2 The translator cloak’d 179 3 Versions of gothic and terror 187 4 The castle under threat 195 5 ‘The order disorder’d’ 202 Afterlives 207 Works cited 211 Manuscripts 211 Periodicals and newspapers 211 Primary sources 211 Secondary sources 217 Index 226 Series 229 Angela Wright sheds new light upon the genesis of the Gothic, examining the roles translation and military conflict played in its development in Britain. The author combines contextual and literary perspectives to situate the Gothic in relation to the Seven Years' War, the French Revolution and the Treaty of Amiens. Explores the development of the Gothic through the history of martial, political and literary conflict between Britain and France