American Gothic

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

Charles L. Crow is Professor Emeritus of English at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, USA, and has been a visiting scholar or lecturer at universities in Austria, the Czech Republic, China, and Croatia. He edited the first edition of this volume for Blackwell in 1999 and has written monographs and articles on several nineteenth- and twentieth-century American writers. A founding member of the International Gothic Association, he is also editor of A Companion to the Regional Literatures of America (Wiley-Blackwell, 2003).

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

Autorentext

Charles L. Crow is Professor Emeritus of English at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, USA, and has been a visiting scholar or lecturer at universities in Austria, the Czech Republic, China, and Croatia. He edited the first edition of this volume for Blackwell in 1999 and has written monographs and articles on several nineteenth- and twentieth-century American writers. A founding member of the International Gothic Association, he is also editor of A Companion to the Regional Literatures of America (Wiley-Blackwell, 2003).

Klappentext

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 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. This new edition benefits from more than ten years of suggestions from readers and teachers while still offering prose and poetry from luminaries such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Henry James, Stephen Crane, Jack London, and Edith Wharton. 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. All editorial materials have been revised for this new edition, which includes brand-new selections such as the captivity narrative of Hannah Dustan, Madeline Yale Wynne's The Little Room, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper, and H. P. Lovecraft's The Outsider.

Leseprobe
Chronology

Date

Literary Event

Historical Event

1663

Cotton Mather b.

1689

Mather, Memorable Provinces, Relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions

1692

Salem Witch trials begin

1693

Mather, The Wonders of the Invisible World

Witch trials end

1702

Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana

1728

Cotton Mather d.

1735

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur b.

1771

Charles Brockden Brown b.

1776

United States Declaration of Independence

1787

Anon., "An Account of a Beautiful Young Lady"

1794

William Godwin, Caleb Williams

1798

Brown, Wieland

1799

Brown, Arthur Mervyn , Ormond , Edgar Huntly

1782

Crèvecoeur, Letters from an American Farmer

1783

Washington Irving b.

1787

U.S. Constitution signed

1793

John Neal b.

1803

Louisiana Purchase

1804

Nathaniel Hawthorne b.

1807

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow b.

1809

Edgar Allan Poe b.

1810

Charles Brockden Brown d.

1812

War with Britain

1813

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur d.

1818

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein

1819

Irving, The Sketch Book begins serial publication

Herman Melville b.

1820

Missouri Compromise

1822

George Lippard b.

1825

Inhalt

List of Authors x

Chronology xi

Thematic Table of Contents xv

Preface to the Second Edition xxviii

Editorial Principles xxix

Acknowledgments xxx

Introduction 1

Cotton Mather (16631728) 3

The Tryal of G. B. 4

The Trial of Martha Carrier 8

A Notable Exploit; wherein, Dux Faemina Facti [The Narrative of Hannah Dustan] 10

Abraham Panther 12

A surprising account of the Discovery of a Lady 12

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur (17351813) 16

from Letters from an American Farmer: Letter IX 16

Charles Brockden Brown (17711810) 24

Somnambulism: A Fragment 24

Washington Irving (17831859) 36

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow 36

John Neal (17931876) 55

Idiosyncrasies 55

Nathaniel Hawthorne (18041864) 73

Alice Doane's Appeal 74

Young Goodman Brown 80

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (18071882) 89

The Skeleton in Armor 89

Edgar Allan Poe (18091849) 94

Hop-Frog 94

The Cask of Amontillado 100

The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar 104

The Fall of the House of Usher 110

Five Poems 121

The Raven 121

The City in the Sea 124

Ulalume 125

Annabel Lee 127

Dream-Land 128

Herman Melville (18191891) 131

The Bell-Tower 131

George Lippard (18221854) 141

from The Quaker City; or, The Monks of Monk Hall 141

Henry Clay Lewis (18251850) 146

A Struggle for Life 146

Rose Terry Cooke (18271892) 152

My Visitation 152

Emily Dickinson (18301886) 164

Eight Poems 164

F 43 Through lane it lay thro' bramble 164

F 340 I felt a Funeral, in my Brain 165

F 341 'Tis so appalling it exhilarates 165

F 360 The Soul has Bandaged moments 166

F 407 One need not be a Chamber to be Haunted 166

F 425 'Twas like a Maelstrom, with a notch 167

F 431 If I may have it, when it's dead, 167

F 1433 What mystery pervades a well! 168

Louisa May Alcott (18321888) 170

A Whisper in the Dark 170

Harriet Prescott Spofford (18351921) 194

Her Story 194

Circumstance 206

Ambrose Bierce (18421914?) 215

An Inhabitant of Carcosa 215

The Death of Halpin Frayser 217

Henry James (18431916) 227

The Turn of the Screw 227

**George Washington Cable (18441925…