Editing Gothic fiction (section)

===Eighteenth-century Gothic novels===
{{main|Eighteenth-century Gothic novel}}
[[File:The Castle of Otranto title page.jpg|thumb|''[[The Castle of Otranto]]'' (1764) is regarded as the first Gothic novel. The aesthetics of the book have shaped modern-day gothic books, films, art, music and the goth subculture.<ref name="Gothic genre">[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30313775 "The Castle of Otranto: The creepy tale that launched gothic fiction"]. ''BBC News''. 13 December 2014. Retrieved 9 July 2017.</ref>]]
The first work to be labeled as "Gothic" was [[Horace Walpole]]'s ''[[The Castle of Otranto]]'' (1764).<ref name="Birch"/> The widely popular first edition presented the story as a translation of a sixteenth-century manuscript.<ref name="Gothic genre"/> In the second edition, Walpole revealed himself as the author, adding the subtitle ''A Gothic Story''. The revelation prompted a backlash from readers, who considered it inappropriate for a modern author to write a supernatural story in a rational age.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Clery |first=E. J. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/776946868 |title=The Rise of Supernatural Fiction, 1762–1800 |date=1995 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-511-51899-7 |location=Cambridge |oclc=776946868}}</ref> By initiating a literary genre, Walpole's Gothic tale inspired many contemporary imitators, including [[Clara Reeve]]'s ''[[The Old English Baron]]'' (1778). Reeve writes in the preface: "This Story is the literary offspring of ''The Castle of Otranto''".<ref name="Gothic genre"/> Like Reeve, other writers attempted his combination of supernatural plots with emotionally realistic characters in the 1780s. Examples include [[Sophia Lee]]'s ''The Recess'' (1783–5) and [[William Beckford (novelist)|William Beckford]]'s ''[[Vathek]]'' (1786).<ref name="Sucur" />

[[File:The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794).png|thumb|upright|left|[[Ann Radcliffe]]'s ''[[The Mysteries of Udolpho]]'' (1794), a bestselling novel that was critical in setting off the Gothic craze of the 1790s]]
At the height of the Gothic novel's popularity in the 1790s, the genre was almost synonymous with [[Ann Radcliffe]], whose works highly anticipated and widely imitated works helped shape the period. ''[[The Romance of the Forest]]'' (1791) and ''[[The Mysteries of Udolpho]]'' (1794) were particularly popular.<ref name="Sucur">{{Cite encyclopedia|title=Gothic fiction|encyclopedia=The Literary Encyclopedia.|last=Sucur|first=Slobodan|date=2007-05-06|issn=1747-678X}}</ref> In an essay on Radcliffe, [[Walter Scott]] wrote about the popularity of ''Udolpho'' at the time stating, "The very name was fascinating, and the public, who rushed upon it with all the eagerness of curiosity, rose from it with unsated appetite. When a family was numerous, the volumes flew, and were sometimes torn from hand to hand."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/livesnovelists01scotgoog/page/n5/mode/2up |title=Lives of the Novelists |last=Scott |first=Walter |publisher=Carey & Lea|page=195| date=1825}}</ref> Her novels were often seen as the feminine and rational opposite of a more violently horrifying male Gothic associated with [[Matthew Lewis (writer)|Matthew Lewis]]. Radcliffe's final novel, [[The Italian (Radcliffe novel)|''The Italian'']] (1797) was written in response to Lewis's ''[[The Monk]]'' (1796).<ref name="Hogle"/> Radcliffe and Lewis have been called "the two most significant Gothic novelists of the 1790s."<ref>{{Cite book|author=Miles, Robert|url=https://archive.org/details/a_companion_to_the_gothic/page/n49/mode/2up|title=
A Companion to the Gothic |date=2000|page=49|isbn=978-0-63123-199-8}}</ref>

[[File:Minerva Press publications notice, The Gloucester Journal, 1795.jpg|upright|thumb|[[Minerva Press]] notice in London from October 1795 listing new publications, including many Gothic titles.]]
The popularity and influence of ''The Mysteries of Udolpho'' and ''The Monk'' led to the rise in shorter, cheaper versions of Gothic literature. These included [[Gothic bluebooks]] and [[chapbooks]], many of which were plagiarized or abridged versions of well-known Gothic novels.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Thomas|first=Susan |url=https://library.unimelb.edu.au/asc/whats-on/exhibitions/dark-imaginings/gothicresearch/gothic-bluebooks-the-popular-thirst-for-fear-and-dread |title=Gothic bluebooks: The popular thirst for fear and dread|date=18 April 2018 |publisher=[[University of Melbourne]]}}</ref> ''The Monk,'' in particular, with its immoral and sensational content, saw many plagiarized copies, and was notably drawn from in the cheaper pamphlets.<ref>{{Cite book |last=J. Potter|first=Franz J. |url=https://thedarkartsjournal.wordpress.com/2021/05/14/review-gothic-chapbooks/ |title=Gothic Chapbooks, Bluebooks and Shilling Shockers, 1797–1830 |date=2021 |publisher=University of Wales Press |isbn=978-1-78683-670-0}}</ref>

Other notable Gothic novels of the 1790s include [[William Godwin]]'s ''[[Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams|Caleb Williams]]'' (1794), [[Regina Maria Roche]]'s ''[[Clermont (novel)|Clermont]]'' (1798), and [[Charles Brockden Brown]]'s [[Wieland (novel)|''Wieland'']] (1798), as well as large numbers of anonymous works published by the [[Minerva Press]] established by [[William Lane (bookseller)|William Lane]] at [[Leadenhall Street]], London in 1790.<ref name="Sucur" /> In continental Europe, Romantic literary movements led to related Gothic genres such as the German ''Schauerroman'' and the French R''oman noir''.<ref>{{Citation |last=Hale |first=Terry |title=French and German Gothic: the beginnings |date=2002 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-gothic-fiction/french-and-german-gothic/D2C9BAEC304DC0E27775DF1CE36B9DA3 |work=The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction |pages=63–84 |editor-last=Hogle |editor-first=Jerrold E. |series=Cambridge Companions to Literature |place=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-79124-3 |access-date=2020-09-02}}</ref><ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Seeger |first=Andrew Philip |date=2004 |title=Crosscurrents between the English Gothic novel and the German Schauerroman |type=PhD dissertation |publisher=University of Nebraska–Lincoln |url=https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI3131562 |id={{ProQuest|305161832}} |pages=1–208}}</ref> Eighteenth-century Gothic novels were typically set in a distant past and (for English novels) a distant European country, but without specific dates or historical figures that characterized the later development of historical fiction.<ref name="Richter">{{Cite book|last=Richter|first=David H.|title=The Oxford Handbook of the Eighteenth-Century Novel |chapter-url=https://oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199566747.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199566747-e-021|chapter=The Gothic Novel and the Lingering Appeal of Romance|date=2016-07-28|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-956674-7|editor-last=Downie|editor-first=James Alan|pages=471–488|language=en|doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199566747.013.021}}</ref>

[[File:NACatherinereading.jpg|left|thumb|Catherine Morland, the naive protagonist of ''[[Northanger Abbey]]'' (1818), [[Jane Austen]]'s Gothic parody]]

The saturation of Gothic-inspired literature in the 1790s led to criticism, as noted by [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]] in a letter dated 16 March 1797. Reflecting on his review work, he wrote, "indeed I am almost weary of the Terrible, having been a hireling in the [[The Critical Review (newspaper)|Critical Review]] for the last six or eight months – I have been reviewing ''[[the Monk]]'', ''[[The Italian (Radcliffe novel)|the Italian]]'', ''[[Hubert de Sevrac]]'' &c &c &c – in all of which dungeons, and old castles, & solitary Houses by the Sea Side & Caverns & Woods & extraordinary characters & all the tribe of Horror & Mystery, have crowded on me – even to surfeiting."<ref>{{Cite web|author=Norton, Rictor|url=http://rictornorton.co.uk/gothic/monk.htm |title=Gothic Readings, 1764–1840 |date=2000|access-date=May 11, 2022}}</ref>

The excesses, stereotypes, and frequent absurdities of the Gothic genre made it rich territory for satire.<ref>Skarda 1986.</ref> Historian [[Rictor Norton]] notes that satire of Gothic literature was common from 1796 until the 1820s, including early satirical works such as ''The New Monk'' (1798), ''More Ghosts''! (1798) and ''Rosella, or Modern Occurrences'' (1799). Gothic novels themselves, according to Norton, also possess elements of self-satire, "By having profane comic characters as well as sacred serious characters, the Gothic novelist could puncture the balloon of the supernatural while at the same time affirming the power of the imagination."<ref>{{Cite web|author=Norton, Rictor|url=http://rictornorton.co.uk/gothic/parody.htm |title=Gothic Readings, 1764–1840, Gothic Parody |date=2000}}</ref> After 1800 there was a period in which Gothic parodies outnumbered forthcoming Gothic novels.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Potter |first=Franz J. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/58807207 |title=The history of Gothic publishing, 1800–1835 : exhuming the trade |date=2005 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=1-4039-9582-6 |location=Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire |oclc=58807207}}</ref> In ''[[The Heroine (novel)|The Heroine]]'' by [[Eaton Stannard Barrett]] (1813), Gothic tropes are exaggerated for comic effect.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Horner |first=Avril |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/312477942 |title=Gothic and the comic turn |date=2005 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-0-230-50307-6 |location=Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire |pages=27 |oclc=312477942}}</ref> In [[Jane Austen]]'s novel ''[[Northanger Abbey]]'' (1818), the naive protagonist, a female named Catherine, conceives herself as a heroine of a Radcliffean romance and imagines murder and villainy on every side. However, the truth turns out to be much more prosaic. This novel is also noted for including a list of early Gothic works known as the [[Northanger Horrid Novels]].<ref>Wright (2007), pp. 29–32.</ref>