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Weird Fiction in Britain 1880–1939 (Palgrave Gothic)
By James Machin. 2018
This book is the first study of how weird fiction emerged from Victorian supernatural…
literature abandoning the more conventional Gothic horrors of the past for the contemporary weird tale It investigates the careers and fiction of a range of the British writers who inspired H P Lovecraft such as Arthur Machen M P Shiel and John Buchan to shed light on the tensions between literary and genre fiction that continue to this day Weird Fiction in Britain 1880 1939 focuses on the key literary and cultural contexts of weird fiction of the period including Decadence paganism and the occult and discusses how these later impacted on the seminal American pulp magazine Weird Tales This ground-breaking book will appeal to scholars of weird horror and Gothic fiction genre studies Decadence popular fiction the occult and Fin-de-Si cle cultural historyThe Weird World of Eerie Publications
By Stephen R. Bissette, Mike Howlett. 2010
Eerie Publications' horror magazines brought blood and bad taste to America's newsstands from 1965 through 1975. Ultra-gory covers and bottom-of-the-barrel…
production values lent an air of danger to every issue, daring you to look at (and purchase) them.The Weird of World of Eerie Publications introduces the reader to Myron Fass, the gun-toting megalomaniac publisher who, with tyranny and glee, made a career of fishing pocketbook change from young readers with the most insidious sort of exploitation. You'll also meet Carl Burgos, who, as editor of Eerie Publications, ground his axe against the entire comics industry. Slumming comic art greats and unknown hacks were both employed by Eerie to plagiarize the more inspired work of pre-Code comic art of the 1950s.Somehow these lowbrow abominations influenced a generation of artists who proudly blame career choices (and mental problems) on Eerie Publications. One of them, Stephen R. Bissette (Swamp Thing, Taboo, Tyrant), provides the introduction for this volume.Here's the sordid background behind this mysterious comics publisher, featuring astonishingly red reproductions of many covers and the most spectacularly creepy art.Frankenstein: How A Monster Became An Icon: The Science And Enduring Allure Of Mary Shelley's Creation
By Sidney Perkowitz, Eddy Von Mueller. 2018
Few creations have risen from literary origins to reach world-wide importance like Frankenstein. This landmark volume celebrates the bicentenary of…
Mary Shelley's creation and its indelible impact on art and culture. The tale of a tormented creature created in a laboratory began on a rainy night in 1816 in the imagination of a nineteen-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, newly married to the celebrated Romantic poet Percy Shelley. Since its publication two years later, in 1818, Frankenstein: Or, the Modern Prometheus has spread around the globe through every possible medium and variation. Frankenstein has not been out of print once in 200 years. It has appeared in hundreds of editions, perhaps more than any other novel. It has inspired a multitude of stage and screen adaptations, the latest appearing just last year. “Frankenstein” has become an indelible part of popular culture, and is shorthand for anything bizarre and human-made; for instance, genetically modified crops are “Frankenfood.” Conversely, Frankenstein’s monster has also become a benign Halloween favorite. Yet for all its long history, Frankenstein's central premise—that science, not magic or God, can create a living being, and thus these creators must answer for their actions as humans, not Gods—is most relevant today as scientists approach creating synthetic life. In its popular and cultural weight and its expression of the ethical issues raised by the advance of science, physicist Sidney Perkowitz and film expert Eddy von Muller have brought together scholars and scientists, artists and directions—including Mel Brooks—to celebrate and examine Mary Shelley’s marvelous creation and its legacy as the monster moves into his next century.Critical Approaches to Welcome to Night Vale: Podcasting between Weather and the Void
By Jeffrey Weinstock. 2018
With well over one-hundred episodes, the podcast Welcome to Night Vale has spawned several international live tours, two novels set…
in the Night Vale universe, and an extensive volume of fan fiction and commentary. However, despite its immense popularity, Welcome to Night Vale has received almost no academic scrutiny. This edited collection of scholarly essays—the very first of its kind on a podcast—attempts to redress this lack of attention to Night Vale by bringing together an international group of scholars from different disciplines to consider the program’s form, themes, politics, and fanbase. After a thorough introduction by the volume’s editor, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, the eight contributors not only offer close analysis of Night Vale, but use the program as the impetus for broader explorations of new media, gender, the constitution of identity, the construction of place, and the human relationship to meaning and the non-human.Today the names of H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, August Derleth, and Clark Ashton Smith, all regular contributors to…
the pulp magazine Weird Tales during the first half of the twentieth century, are recognizable even to casual readers of the bizarre and fantastic. And yet despite being more popular than them all during the golden era of genre pulp fiction, there is another author whose name and work have fallen into obscurity: Seabury Quinn.Quinn’s short stories were featured in well more than half of Weird Tales’s original publication run. His most famous character, the supernatural French detective Dr. Jules de Grandin, investigated cases involving monsters, devil worshippers, serial killers, and spirits from beyond the grave, often set in the small town of Harrisonville, New Jersey. In de Grandin there are familiar shades of both Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, and alongside his assistant, Dr. Samuel Trowbridge, de Grandin’s knack for solving mysteries-and his outbursts of peculiar French-isms (grand Dieu!)-captivated readers for nearly three decades.Collected for the first time in trade editions, The Complete Tales of Jules de Grandin, edited by George Vanderburgh, presents all ninety-three published works featuring the supernatural detective. Presented in chronological order over five volumes, this is the definitive collection of an iconic pulp hero. The first volume, The Horror on the Links, includes all of the Jules de Grandin stories from "The Horror on the Links” (1925) to "The Chapel of Mystic Horror” (1928), as well as an introduction by George Vanderburgh and Robert Weinberg.Rugby Runner: Ancient Roots, Modern Boots (Rugby Spirit #5)
By Gerard Siggins. 2017
Schools rugby star Eoin Madden has never been busier – he’s captain of the Junior Cup team, he’s training with…
Leinster and hoping to be chosen for the Ireland team for the first-ever Under 16 World Cup. But it’s not all fun and games, as Eoin also has to deal with grumpy friends, teachers piling on the homework – AND a ghost on a mission that goes back to the very origins of the game of rugby. But what does the restless spirit need, and can Eoin help him? Books, crooks and rucks - it’s all to play for this term!Rugby Heroes: Ghostly Ground, Deadly Danger (Rugby Spirit #6)
By Gerard Siggins. 2018
It looks like Eoin Madden's busiest term ever! He's Castlerock College’s star player and he's been called up for Ireland…
in the Under 16 Four Nations - how will he juggle sport and school work? But his biggest challenge of all goes way beyond his own concerns and right to the heart of Irish rugby. When his oldest and best ghostly friend calls for help, can Eoin and his band of heroes their deadliest mystery yet? Take a dive into history –with some help from rugby legends of the past!The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Gothic
By Clive Bloom. 2020
“Simply put, there is absolutely nothing on the market with the range of ambition of this strikingly eclectic collection of…
essays. Not only is it impossible to imagine a more comprehensive view of the subject, most readers – even specialists in the subject – will find that there are elements of the Gothic genre here of which they were previously unaware.” - Barry Forshaw, Author of British Gothic Cinema and Sex and Film The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Gothic is the most comprehensive compendium of analytic essays on the modern Gothic now available, covering the vast and highly significant period from 1918 to 2019. The Gothic sensibility, over 200 years old, embraces its dark past whilst anticipating the future. From demons and monsters to post- apocalyptic fears and ecological fantasies, Gothic is thriving as never before in the arts and in popular culture. This volume is made up of 62 comprehensive chapters with notes and extended bibliographies contributed by scholars from around the world. The chapters are written not only for those engaged in academic research but also to be accessible to students and dedicated followers of the genre. Each chapter is packed with analysis of the Gothic in both theory and practice, as the genre has mutated and spread over the last hundred years. Starting in 1918 with the impact of film on the genre's development, and moving through its many and varied international incarnations, each chapter chronicles the history of the gothic milieu from the movies to gaming platforms and internet memes, television and theatre. The volume also looks at how Gothic intersects with fashion, music and popular culture: a multi-layered, multi-ethnic, even a trans-gendered experience as we move into the twenty first century.The New Urban Gothic: Global Gothic in the Age of the Anthropocene (Palgrave Gothic)
By Ruth Heholt, Holly-Gale Millette. 2020
This collection explores global dystopic, grotesque and retold narratives of degeneration, ecological and economic ruin, dystopia, and inequality in contemporary…
fictions set in the urban space. Divided into three sections—Identities and Histories, Ruin and Residue, and Global Gothic—The New Urban Gothic explores our anxieties and preoccupation with social inequalities, precarity and the peripheral that are found in so many new fictions across various media. Focusing on non-canonical Gothic global cities, this distinctive collection discusses urban centres in England’s Black Country, Moscow, Detroit, Seoul, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore, Dehli, Srinigar, Shanghai and Barcelona as well as cities of the imaginary, the digital and the animated. This book will appeal to anyone interested in the intersections of time, place, space and media in contemporary Gothic Studies. The New Urban Gothic casts reflections and shadows on the age of the Anthropocene.The Palgrave Handbook of Steam Age Gothic
By Clive Bloom. 2021
By the early 1830s the old school of Gothic literature was exhausted. Late Romanticism, emphasising as it did the uncertainties…
of personality and imagination, gave it a new lease of life. Gothic—the literature of disturbance and uncertainty—now produced works that reflected domestic fears, sexual crimes, drug filled hallucinations, the terrible secrets of middle class marriage, imperial horror at alien invasion, occult demonism and the insanity of psychopaths. It was from the 1830s onwards that the old gothic castle gave way to the country house drawing room, the dungeon was displaced by the sewers of the city and the villains of early novels became the familiar figures of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Dracula, Dorian Grey and Jack the Ripper. After the death of Prince Albert (1861), the Gothic became darker, more morbid, obsessed with demonic lovers, blood sucking ghouls, blood stained murderers and deranged doctors. Whilst the gothic architecture of the Houses of Parliament and the new Puginesque churches upheld a Victorian ideal of sobriety, Christianity and imperial destiny, Gothic literature filed these new spaces with a dread that spread like a plague to America, France, Germany and even Russia. From 1830 to 1914, the period covered by this volume, we saw the emergence of the greats of Gothic literature and the supernatural from Edgar Allan Poe to Emily Bronte, from Sheridan Le Fanu to Bram Stoker and Robert Louis Stevenson. Contributors also examine the fin-de-siècle dreamers of decadence such as Arthur Machen, M P Shiel and Vernon Lee and their obsession with the occult, folklore, spiritualism, revenants, ghostly apparitions and cosmic annihilation. This volume explores the period through the prism of architectural history, urban studies, feminism, 'hauntology' and much more. 'Horror', as Poe teaches us, 'is the soul of the plot'.SHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA NEW BLOOD DAGGER ***Don't miss the utterly gripping new thriller from Egan Hughes - LEAVE THE…
LIGHTS ON is out now*** 'This one really pulled me in' JANE CORRY 'Tense, thrilling and full of twists and turns' ANGELA MARSONS 'A summer must-read' WOMAN'S WEEKLY 'A masterclass in storytelling' THE COURIER 'Addictive, I was gripped from the opening chapter' JO SPAIN 'Plunges the reader in and leaves them gasping for air' RACHEL EDWARDS 'Utterly addictive' CRIME MONTHLY 'Gripping' HELLO __________________You love him. You trust him.YOU CAN'T ESCAPE HIM. Mia thinks she has escaped her controlling ex-husband, Rob. She's found herself a new home, a new boyfriend and a new life.But when the police arrive to tell her that Rob has been found dead on his boat, things quickly fall apart. Mia is terrified she'll be suspected, however the police are keeping all options open. They know Mia had reason to hate her ex-husband, but she's not the only one. Plenty of people wanted Rob Creavy dead, not least his new wife, Rachel. What they don't know is that Mia has a secret, one she's desperate to protect.But someone else knows. Someone with very dark secrets of their own . . . A claustrophobic, twisty psychological thriller about love, trauma and revenge - perfect for fans of, THE HOLIDAY, SOMETHING IN THE WATER and THE WOMAN IN CABIN TEN.___________________WHAT READERS ARE SAYING ABOUT THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY 'One of my favourite thrillers of the year' ***** 'Clear your schedule. Once you start reading, you won't be able to stop' ***** 'All the twists and turns kept me guessing until the very last page' ***** 'The ending is incredibly hard to predict' ***** 'Wow, is all I can say for this book' ***** 'An incredible novel that drew me in and didn't let me go' 'What a thrilling read' ***** 'Dark, twisted and utterly unpredictable. A must-read!' *****Bay of Rainbows
By Dana James. 2014
When Polly meets racing yacht designer Nathan Bryce for the first time, she realises immediately that what the papers say…
about him is all too true. He's handsome, fascinating and utterly ruthless. Falsely accused of drug smuggling, then released into Nathan’s custody, Polly cannot follow her first instinct to run. Her only chance of proving her innocence is to work as crew and cook on their voyage to Greece. But will she be able to resist the magnetic force of his attraction once they are alone in the Mediterranean? Can Nathan bring himself to trust her?Bay of Rainbows
By Dana James. 2014
When Polly meets racing yacht designer Nathan Bryce for the first time, she realises immediately that what the papers say…
about him is all too true. He's handsome, fascinating and utterly ruthless. Falsely accused of drug smuggling, then released into Nathan’s custody, Polly cannot follow her first instinct to run. Her only chance of proving her innocence is to work as crew and cook on their voyage to Greece. But will she be able to resist the magnetic force of his attraction once they are alone in the Mediterranean? Can Nathan bring himself to trust her?Ruin: A dramatically powerful, unputdownable love story
By Samantha Towle. 2018
From Samantha Towle, the New York Times bestselling author of Wardrobe Malfunction and Breaking Hollywood, comes a dramatically powerful and…
passionate new contemporary romance.And the new heavyweight champion of the world is... Those are the words that Zeus Kincaid has been waiting to hear since he first put on a pair of boxing gloves. He just didn't think they would come with a tragedy that would change how he viewed the sport forever. Cameron Reed was in her second year at Juilliard when her childhood sweetheart, Zeus Kincaid, walked away from her. A few months later, Cam realized that she would never fulfill her dream of dancing for the New York City Ballet. Now working as a dancer in an upscale club in Manhattan, Cam is brought face-to-face with the man she once loved. And it's her turn to walk away from him. After five years of missing Cam, Zeus isn't prepared to let her go again. But when he finds himself standing on her doorstep the next morning, things don't go quite as he expected... 'You'll be smitten with everything about this entertaining, steamy and feel-good romance' USA Today's Happy Ever After on Breaking HollywoodSHORTLISTED FOR THE CWA NEW BLOOD DAGGER ***Don't miss the utterly gripping new thriller from Egan Hughes - LEAVE THE…
LIGHTS ON is out now*** 'This one really pulled me in' JANE CORRY 'Tense, thrilling and full of twists and turns' ANGELA MARSONS 'A summer must-read' WOMAN'S WEEKLY 'A masterclass in storytelling' THE COURIER 'Addictive, I was gripped from the opening chapter' JO SPAIN 'Plunges the reader in and leaves them gasping for air' RACHEL EDWARDS 'Utterly addictive' CRIME MONTHLY 'Gripping' HELLO __________________You love him. You trust him.YOU CAN'T ESCAPE HIM. Mia thinks she has escaped her controlling ex-husband, Rob. She's found herself a new home, a new boyfriend and a new life.But when the police arrive to tell her that Rob has been found dead on his boat, things quickly fall apart. Mia is terrified she'll be suspected, however the police are keeping all options open. They know Mia had reason to hate her ex-husband, but she's not the only one. Plenty of people wanted Rob Creavy dead, not least his new wife, Rachel. What they don't know is that Mia has a secret, one she's desperate to protect.But someone else knows. Someone with very dark secrets of their own . . . A claustrophobic, twisty psychological thriller about love, trauma and revenge - perfect for fans of, THE HOLIDAY, SOMETHING IN THE WATER and THE WOMAN IN CABIN TEN.___________________WHAT READERS ARE SAYING ABOUT THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY 'One of my favourite thrillers of the year' ***** 'Clear your schedule. Once you start reading, you won't be able to stop' ***** 'All the twists and turns kept me guessing until the very last page' ***** 'The ending is incredibly hard to predict' ***** 'Wow, is all I can say for this book' ***** 'An incredible novel that drew me in and didn't let me go' 'What a thrilling read' ***** 'Dark, twisted and utterly unpredictable. A must-read!' *****Performativity of Villainy and Evil in Anglophone Literature and Media
By Nizar Zouidi. 2021
Performativity of Villainy and Evil in Anglophone Literature and Media studies the performative nature of evil characters, acts and emotions…
across intersecting genres, disciplines and historical eras. This collection brings together scholars and artists with different institutional standings, cultural backgrounds and (inter)disciplinary interests with the aim of energizing the ongoing discussion of the generic and thematic issues related to the representation of villainy and evil in literature and media. The volume covers medieval literature to contemporary literature and also examines important aspects of evil in literature such as social and political identity, the gothic and systemic evil practices. In addition to literature, the book considers examples of villainy in film, TV and media, revealing that performance, performative control and maneuverability are the common characteristics of villains across the different literary and filmic genres and eras studied in the volume.A Vindication of the Redhead: The Typology of Red Hair Throughout the Literary and Visual Arts
By Brenda Ayres, Sarah E. Maier. 2021
A Vindication of the Redhead investigates red hair in literature, art, television, and film throughout Eastern and Western cultures. This…
study examines red hair as a signifier, perpetuated through stereotypes, myths, legends, and literary and visual representations. Brenda Ayres and Sarah E. Maier provide a history of attitudes held by hegemonic populations toward red-haired individuals, groups, and genders from antiquity to the present. Ayres and Maier explore such diverse topics as Judeo-Christian narratives of red hair, redheads in Pre-Raphaelite paintings, red hair and gender identity, famous literary redheads such as Anne of Green Gables and Pippi Longstocking, contemporary and Neo-Victorian representations of redheads from the Black Widow to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and more. This book illuminates the symbolic significance and related ideologies of red hair constructed in mythic, religious, literary, and visual cultural discourse.Jeff Noon's "Vurt": A Critical Companion (Palgrave Science Fiction and Fantasy: A New Canon)
By Andrew C. Wenaus. 2022
This book offers an examination of Jeff Noon’s iconoclastic debut novel, Vurt (1993). In this first book-length study of the…
novel, which includes an extended interview with Noon, Wenaus considers how Vurt complicates the process of literary canonization, its constructivist relationship to genre, its violent and oneiric setting of Manchester, its use of the Orphic myth as an archetype for the practice of literary collage and musical remix, and how the structural paradoxes of chaos and fractal geometry inform the novel’s content, form, and theme. Finally, Wenaus makes the case for Vurt’s ongoing relevance in the 21st century, an era increasingly characterized by neuro-totalitarianism, psychopolitics, and digital surveillance. With Vurt, Noon begins his project of rupturing feedback loops of control by breaking narrative habits and embracing the contingent and unpredictable. An inventive, energetic, and heartbreaking novel, Vurt is also an optimistic and heartfelt call for artists to actively create open futures.The Politics of Horror
By Damien K. Picariello. 2020
The Politics of Horror features contributions from scholars in a variety of fields—political science, English, communication studies, and others—that explore…
the connections between horror and politics. How might resources drawn from the study of politics inform our readings of, and conversations about, horror? In what ways might horror provide a useful lens through which to consider enduring questions in politics and political thought? And what insights might be drawn from horror as we consider contemporary political issues? In turning to horror, the contributors to this volume offer fresh provocations to inform a broad range of discussions of politics.The Texas Chain Saw Massacre: The Film That Terrified a Rattled Nation
By Joseph Lanza. 2019
When Tobe Hooper’s low-budget slasher film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, opened in theaters in 1974, it was met in equal…
measure with disgust and reverence. The film—in which a group of teenagers meet a gruesome end when they stumble upon a ramshackle farmhouse of psychotic killers—was outright banned in several countries and was pulled from many American theaters after complaints of its violence. Despite the mixed reception from critics, it was enormously profitable at the domestic box office and has since secured its place as one of the most influential horror movies ever made. In The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Its Terrifying Times, cultural critic Joseph Lanza turns his attentions to the production, reception, social climate, and impact of this controversial movie that rattled the American psyche. Joseph Lanza transports the reader back to the tumultuous era of the 1970s defined by political upheaval, cultural disillusionment, and the perceived decay of the nuclear family in the wake of Watergate, the onslaught of serial killers in the US, as well as mounting racial and sexual tensions. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Its Terrifying Times sets the themes of the film against the backdrop of the political and social American climate to understand why the brutal slasher flick connected with so many viewers. As much a book about the movie as the moment, Joseph Lanza has created an engaging and nuanced work that grapples with the complications of the American experience.