Review: Ecogothic Gardens in the Long Nineteenth Century

EcoGothic Gardens in the Long Nineteenth Century: Phantoms, Fantasy and Uncanny Flowers, ed. Sue Edney (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020). 240 pages. ISBN 978-1-5261-4568-0 Over the course of the last year, it is probably safe to assume that those who are lucky enough to have access to gardens have been applying green fingers and tending …

Review: Magical House Protection

By Brian Hoggard. Magical House Protection: the Archaeology of Counter-Witchcraft (New York & Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2021. 340 pages) ISBN  9781800730212 Magical House Protection represents nearly 20 years of Brian Hoggard’s dedicated work meticulously recording the physical evidence of counter-magical practices in the British Isles and the US. These are commonly unearthed during renovations and …

Review: Gothic Chapbooks

By Franz J. Potter. Gothic Chapbooks, Bluebooks and Shilling Shockers, 1797-1830 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2021. 240 pages) ISBN: 978-1-78683-670-0. Franz J. Potter’s Gothic Chapbooks, Bluebooks and Shilling Shockers, 1797-1830 offers a much-needed, and much-desired, examination of late eighteenth- to early nineteenth-century chapbooks. Focusing on the origins of these publications, Potter explores their gothic …

Review: Dangerous Dimensions

Dangerous Dimensions: Mind-bending tales of the Mathematical Weird, ed. Henry Bartholomew. (London: The British Library, 2021. 336 pages) ISBN 978-0712353687 In the introduction to his edited collection in the Tales of the Weird series, Henry Bartholomew outlines the connections between the ‘fictions of the morbid and macabre’ (p.9) and science, pointing out that everything from …