Palgrave Handbook of Steam Age Gothic

Clive Bloom is Emeritus Professor at Middlesex University, UK. He has written numerous books on popular literature, gothic fiction, history and politics. He is a broadcaster and occasional journalist who has been quoted in both the Washington Post and Pravda and has an entry in the Columbia Book of World Quotations.

• PART ONE: VICTORIAN TRANSFORMATIONS.- Gothic architecture for the steam age: Charles Barrie.- Augustus Pugin and family.- George Gilbert Scott and family.- the rebuilt Houses of Parliament, the restoration of medieval France.- Thomas Lovell Beddoes.- John Ruskin.- the gothic cemetery (Highgate etc) Victor Hugo.- the Brontes; Charles Dickens and the ghost story.- Edith Wharton.- Sheriden le Fanu.- Sabine Baring Gould.- domestic gothic.- melodrama  and the gothic.- Egyptian gothic taste.- freaks and raree shows.- Egyptian gothic.- stage magic and the gothic.- real life ghosts and hauntings.- PART TWO: FIN DE SIECLE.- Guy de Maupassant.- gothic music- Wagner and Berlioz.- Robert Louise Stevenson, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.- Ambrose Bierce.- magic lantern gothic.- Conan Doyle gothic.- Jack the Ripper.- the cult of Pan; Arthur Machen.- J K Huysman.- Bram Stoker and Dracula.- end of the century decadence-erotic gothic and occult gothic.- Oscar Wilde and the Picture ofDorian Gray.- Richard Marsh and the Beetle.- H G Wells.- the ghost tales of Edith Wharton.- Isaak Dineson.- Robert W Chambers: the King in Yellow.- Lord Dunsany.- Count Steinbock.- John Buchan.- end of the century ghost tales -minor writers.- bibliography.

“To be honest this book is just so good that it can’t be rushed. What I’ve read is outstanding. And what’s yet to come appears as compelling in a book full of many surprises and insights. … The Palgrave Handbook of Steam Age Gothic is for me one of the books of the year. It should be required reading for every student of the gothic.” (Alan Price, Magonia review of books, pelicanist.blogspot.com, July 22, 2021)