Overview

An archival literary study positing the Industrial Revolution as a site of Gothic excess and horror. Stories about the real horrors of factory life frequently employed the mode of the Gothic, while nineteenth-century Gothic literature began to use new settings—factories, mills, and industrial cities—as backdrops for the horrors that once populated Gothic castles. This study carves out the “Industrial Gothic” as a new area of study that places the literature of the Industrial Revolution in dialogue with the Gothic. The book explores a significant subset of transatlantic nineteenth-century literature that employs the tropes, themes, and rhetoric of the Gothic to portray the real-life horrors of factory life. Using archival materials, Bridget Marshall frames the Industrial Revolution as a site of Gothic excess and horror.  

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9781786837707

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Reviews

Industrial Gothic is a succinctly written, well-researched study, which demonstrates how in its early stages the Gothic offered a reservoir of rhetoric and imagery to powerfully expose and vilify social injustice suffered by the most vulnerable in an era of unprecedented and uncontrolled industrial expansion. Its great merit is undoubtedly creating a new critical category of 'Industrial Gothic' which goes beyond geographical, political and class divisions and encompasses a wide selection of texts, British and American, fiction and non-fiction, canonical and by unknown factory workers. By exploring the way the Gothic was used to depict damage caused by industry not only to human beings but also to the natural environment, Bridget Marshall's book broadens our understanding of the Gothic as a powerful and effective mode directly engaged with the most acute problems of contemporary times. --Agnieszka Lowczanin, University of Lodz -- Agnieszka Lowczanin, University of Lodz * University of Wales Press *

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The book is written for an academic reader but is accessible to a wider audience. The primary market for this book will be academics in the field of Gothic studies, including undergraduate and graduate students. A non-specialist general reader with an interest in nineteenth-century literature and history, particularly those with an interest in women's labour history will also find this book accessible and interesting.

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