Review: Gothic Utterance

Jimmy Packham, Gothic Utterance: Voice, Speech and Death in the American Gothic. (University of Wales Press, 2021. 256 pages) ISBN 9781786837547 It is difficult to conceive of the Gothic (either as an aesthetic mode or as an historical genre) without voices, be they the disembodied spectral whispers in a haunted castle or the grand, Miltonic …

Review: New Queer Horror

Darren Elliot-Smith and John Edgar Browning (eds.), New Queer Horror: Film and Television (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2020. 256 Pages). ISBN 9781786836267 The connections between the queer community and Gothic and Horror are self-evident. Queer-coded monsters, defiant subversions, rebellious identifications are all a familiar part of the horror scene. It’s a connection that arguably …

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: Women Make Horror: Filmmaking, Feminism, Genre

Edited by Alison Peirse.  (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2020. 259 pages). ISBN 9781978805118 Much has been written about women in the horror genre, either as monsters or victims, but Alison Peirse and the contributors in this book take us on an unexplored journey - the 18 chapters of Women Make Horror offer a wide …

Review: Devil’s Advocates – The Witch

By Brandon Grafius (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2020. 109 pages) ISBN: 978-1-800-34805-9 Robert Eggers' period folk horror film The Witch, or The VVitch: A New England Folktale (2016), has left its unsettling witches’ mark upon cinema. Brandon Grafius’ addition to the Devil’s Advocates series dissects the film and demonstrates the complexity of its construction. Grafius …

Review: Historical Noir

By Barry Forshaw, (Herts: Pocket Essentials, 2018. 223 pages). ISBN: 9780857301352 As one of the leading experts of crime fiction, Barry Forshaw’s Historical Noir marks the most recent entry in his Noir series, tracing the history of the sub-genre of crime fiction set in the past. Dividing the book up into thirteen chapters, Forshaw documents …

Review: The Forest and the EcoGothic

By Elizabeth Parker, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. 308 pages). Hardcover ISBN 978-3-030-35153-3 eBook ISBN 978-3-030-35154-0 Elizabeth Parker’s exploration of the ecoGothic, channelled through the case study of the Gothic forest, is an enchanting and unnerving foray into the woods. The Forest and the EcoGothic is essential reading for any scholar working with the ‘flavoured mode’ …

Review: Postmodern Vampires

By Sorcha Ní Fhlainn, Postmodern Vampires: Film, Fiction, and Popular Culture (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. 264 pages). Hardcover ISBN 978-1-137-58376-5 eBook ISBN 978-1-137-58377-2. One might be forgiven for thinking that when it comes to the subject of vampires, a topic that at times feels like it dominates research of Gothic literature and film, that there …