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Stoker’s Muse: The Blood Countess
Cited alongside Vlad the Impaler as an inspiration for Bram Stoker’s eponymous vampire, Dracula, the blood-thirsty version of ‘The Blood Countess’ is the one most ingrained in the collective memory....
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A Walk Through Salem: A Photo Essay
The sky is grey and filled with drizzle so British it could only be New England west of the Atlantic. The train slowly fills, stop by stop, with tourists, commuters, and the occasional resident in...
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Between One Cap and One Period: Reading William Faulkner
In an interview in the spring of 1956, Southern Gothic author William Faulkner was asked to advise readers who remained unable to understand his writing after two or three attempts. His response was...
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The Uncanny as we Picture it: Freud and the Photographer
Describing himself as “a fetishist for reflections, saturated colors, details and religious icons,” Seigar is a photographer, a high school teacher, and an English philologist. His ‘Plastic People’...
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Generally Gothic Bookworm Readalong: Midway Musings on ‘Little Sister Death’
“𝓣𝓱𝓮 𝓶𝓸𝓼𝓽 𝓽𝓮𝓻𝓻𝓲𝓯𝔂𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵 𝔂𝓸𝓾’𝓵𝓵 𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓭 𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓼 𝔂𝓮𝓪𝓻.” Now there’s a claim that’s hard to refuse!During the summer I spent a month, entitled Southern Spell , exploring the southern gothic. I first posted...
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Words Curling Round Me: 2020 Reading List
Welcome to 2020! It is the year of the rat, and so I begin by rummaging through the dark corners of my bookcase for the texts that I have hoarded this past year, but not yet read. “𝓦𝓱𝓮𝓷 𝓘 𝓬𝓪𝓷𝓷𝓸𝓽 𝓼𝓮𝓮...
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Stone upon Stone: ‘Circe’ Readalong
Madeline Miller’s 2018 international number 1 bestseller, Circe, takes classical Greek literature, in turn based upon classical Greek mythology, as its subject. The title character is perhaps most...
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An Unutterable Wretchedness of the Mind: ‘Jane Eyre’
Born in Yorkshire, England, on the 21st of April, 1816, Charlotte Brontë was the third of six Brontë children, and the longest surviving. Along with her younger sisters Emily (1818-1848) and Anne...
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Everything was Brightness, or Dark: ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’
With Jane Eyre on my mind, I picked Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) up on a whim at the library. I opened it one evening. I was hooked. I paused to sleep. Awoke. Opened it again. And was done....
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A Dream Dreaming Itself: ‘Hiraeth’ Author Interview
In her ambitious debut novel, Sabina Lungeanu builds a deliciously gloomy gothic world, at once familiar and entirely new. Set along the rugged coastline of rural Scotland, with the almost mythical...
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Generally Gothic Book Club Readalong: ‘The Masque of the Red Death’
As the world’s population becomes increasingly locked away indoors, many of us are feeling panic or anxiety in the face of change and uncertainty. Whilst we all strive to maintain our collective...
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New Gothic Voices: an Interview with New Gothic Review
Originally planned for longer ago than I care to admit, today’s blog post is one I have been eager to share with you. It is one that feels increasingly relevant as we strive towards global...
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Hawai’i, History, & the Unexpected Gothic: ‘The Hala Tree Walks in Darkness’
As if by magic it is barely June any longer, but one witch flies, still, through the sky. The month may have turned long ago – whilst I was soaring through the night myself, as it happens – but I have...
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Guest Post: ‘Geek Love’, An Intimate Portrait of a Nuclear Family
Before the dust of the departing circus train settles, there is time for a post or two more. June, which was dedicated to the Circus of Horrors (that is, the horror of the circus) certainly lived up...
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Duality: ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’
With summer somewhere between full swing and distant memory depending on where you were on the globe, in August we retreated from the sunshine of the Southern Gothic to the dimly lit cityscapes and...
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Love Letters to Poe: A Convergence of Wonder and Terror
“[D]iscover a convergence of wonder and terror, romance and horror within its pages.” This is the introduction and invitation offered by Sara Crocoll Smith, publisher and editor-in-chief of Love...
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That Very Special Gingerbread: ‘A Gothic Cookbook’ Recipe
When Ella Buchan, co-author of A Gothic Cookbook, reached out to me, I was excited for the opportunity to test any recipe in her and Alessandra Pino’s forthcoming gothic literature-inspired cookery...
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Guest Post: Wicked Women and the Female Gothic, Du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’ &‘My...
As the sun in the northern hemisphere gains strength, many of us seek the coast. Always geographically close, on this island as I am, the coast I seek is literary: Du Maurier’s sharp and unforgiving...
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