This fascinating study explores the multifarious erotic themes associated with the magic lantern shows, which proved the dominant visual medium of the West for 350 years, and analyses how the shows influenced the portrayals of sexuality in major works of Gothic fiction.

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David J. Jones, author of the best-selling Gothic Machine and editor of Dracula's Precursors, lectures on the M.A. Literature programme at the Open University, UK. He is also a prize-winning poet and magic lanternist and has exhibited his Phantasmagoria show at the Bram Stoker International Film Festival.

Inhalt
List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgements Preface Introduction 1. Sex and the Ghost-Show: the Early Ghost Lanternists, Friedrich Schiller's Die Geisterseher /Ghost-seer , Matthew Lewis's The Monk and E-G Robertson's Convent Fantasmagori e 2. Byron: Incest, Voyeurism and the Phantasmagoria 3. Charlotte Brönte's Villette , Forbidden Desire and Lanternicity in the Domestic Gothic 4. Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla (1872), 'Ambiguous Alternations': Lesbian Desire in the Lanternist Novella 5. Lanternist codes and Sexuality in Dracula and The Lady of the Shroud Conclusion