Includes bibliographical references (pages 301-312) and index.

Introduction : The Gothic in western culture / Jerrold E. Hogle -- The genesis of "Gothic" fiction / E.J. Clery -- The 1790s : the effulgence of Gothic / Robert Miles -- French and German Gothic : the beginnings / Terry Hale -- Gothic fictions and Romantic writing in Britain / Michael Gamer -- Scottish and Irish Gothic / David Punter -- English Gothic theatre / Jeffrey N. Cox -- The Victorian Gothic in English novels and stories, 1830-1880 / Alison Milbank -- The rise of American Gothic / Eric Savoy -- British Gothic fiction, 1885-1930 / Kelly Hurley -- The Gothic on screen / Misha Kavka -- Colonial and postcolonial Gothic : the Caribbean / Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert -- The contemporary Gothic : why we need it / Steven Bruhm -- Aftergothic : consumption, machines, and black holes / Fred Botting.

Gothic as a form of fiction-making has played a major role in Western culture since the late eighteenth century. Here fourteen world-class experts on the Gothic provide thorough and revealing accounts of this haunting-to-horrifying type of fiction from the 1760s (the decade of The Castle of Otranto, the first so-called 'Gothic story') to the end of the twentieth century (an era haunted by filmed and computerized Gothic simulations). Along the way, these essays explore the connections of Gothic fictions to political and industrial revolutions, the realistic novel, the theater, Romantic and post-Romantic poetry, nationalism and racism from Europe to America, colonized and post-colonial populations, the rise of film and other visual technologies, the struggles between 'high' and 'popular' culture, changing psychological attitudes towards human identity, gender and sexuality, and the obscure lines between life and death, sanity and madness. The volume also includes a chronology and guides to further reading.

A thorough and accessible guide to the Gothic genre.