The gothic genre encompasses a wide and varying range of books which hold in common several key elements-suspense, a touch of horror, and often romance.

A gothic is set apart from other books by its dark, brooding atmosphere. The setting is often that of an old, decaying house or castle, the cast of characters a family with mysterious, hidden secrets. Often, there is a touch of the supernatural in the form of real or imagined ghosts or vampires.

Brief History of the Gothic

The gothic has its roots in the Romantic Movement in literature. The first novel actually recognized as gothic was The Castle of Otranto, written in1765 by Horace Walpole.

19th century poet and author Edgar Allen Poe depicted the mood of the gothic style of writing with his short stories, such as The Tell-Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado, which evoke a tone of psychological horror and impending doom.

Sisters Charlotte and Emily Bronte wrote what would later be known as gothic romance. The works of these Victorian authors, Charlotte’s Jane Eyre and Emily’s Wuthering Heights, are classic examples of gothic literature.

In 1938, the novel Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier, set the stage for many other novels written in this tradition.

Dracula, though also considered a horror novel, epitomizes the gothic atmosphere of the decaying castle and the doomed hero.

Gothics in the 1960’s -1970’s

Gothic romance became very popular in the 1960’s. Authors such as Phyllis Whitney and Victoria Holt regularly produced books which followed the gothic style. A woman running away from a castle on the cover became almost a trademark to identify these romantic suspenses that followed the tradition of Rebecca, Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. In these books, an innocent young woman, often a governess, was called to a wealthy manor where she meets the master, a darkly handsome man under suspicion of murder, usually of his wife. The hero in the gothic was usually both the focus of the heroine’s love as well as her suspicion.

The Gothic Heroine

The gothic portrayed the limited choices women once had in society. If they had no husband to support them, they had little option but to seek employment as a housekeeper or governess for some wealthy family. The gothic heroine, though not above being foolish enough to examine dark cellars in the dead of night, also expressed bravery by in some way proving her worthiness and rising above her station.

The Gothic Hero

The gothic hero was usually depicted as a good man with a secret to hide—a mad wife in the cellar or a cloud of suspicion hanging over his head for crimes he did not commit. The gothic hero is typically dark and brooding until he meets the woman who will, by her love and faith in him, offer hope and redemption.

Modern Gothics

Books that have distinctive gothic elements continue to be read and enjoyed, though they are not always marketed as gothics. Sometimes the gothic also crosses into the mainstream or horror genre. Mainstream author Joyce Carol Oates writes many books with a definite gothic tone. Horror author Anne Rice’s vampire novels, with the long-suffering Lestat as hero, have a gothic atmosphere reminiscent of Dracula. Mystery writer Barbara Vine also sets a distinctly gothic mood in her novels.

Two Contemporary Gothics

In The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Sutterfield, famous author Vida Winter, commits to tell her secret life’s story to obscure biographer Margaret Lea. The tale that unfolds, filled with castles, ghosts, and surprising twists and turns, changes both of them.

Ghost Writer by John Harwood is a gothic ghost story set in Australia. When a young boy takes on a curious pen pal, a crippled girl from England, he unwittingly opens the Pandora’s box of his mother’s past, a past she has traveled far to escape.

Click The Ghost Writer for a review of the book.

Click The Thirteenth Tale for a review.

To read more about the history of the gothic, click here: The Gothic Novel

To find out more about the Bronte sisters, click this link: The Bronte Sisters Web