The rise of supernatural fiction, 1762-1800 / E.J. Clery.
Clery, E. J.
1999
PR858.S85 C58 1999 (Mapit)
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Title The rise of supernatural fiction, 1762-1800 / E.J. Clery.
Author Clery, E. J.
Edition 1st pbk. ed.
ISBN 9780521664585 (paperback)
0521664586 (paperback)
9780521453165
052145316X
Imprint Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Language English
Description xii, 222 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm.
Call Number PR858.S85 C58 1999
Dewey Decimal Classification 823.08730905
Summary "A genre of supernatural fiction was among the more improbable products of the Age of Enlightenment, but produced a string of bestsellers. E.J. Clery's original and historically sensitive account charts the troubled entry of the supernatural into fiction, and examines the reasons for its growing popularity in the late eighteenth century. Beginning with the notorious case of the Cock Lane ghost, a performing poltergeist who became a major attraction in the London of 1762, and with Garrick's spell-binding performance as the ghost-seeing Hamlet, it moves on to look at the Gothic novels of Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, M.G. Lewis and others, in unexpected new lights. The central insight emerging from the rich resources of Clery's research concerns the connection between fictions of the supernatural and the growth of consumerism. Not only are ghost stories successful commodities in the rapidly commercialising book market, they are also considered here as reflections on the disruptive effects of this socio-economic transformation. In providing a newly detailed context for the rise of supernatural fiction, Clery's work will change our view of its dramatic role - as much commercial as creative - in the movement from Enlightenment to Romanticism."--Jacket.
Note Originally published in 1995.
Bibliography, etc. Note Includes bibliographical references (pages 206-217) and index.
Series Cambridge studies in Romanticism ; 12.
Record Appears in On-Campus Resources > Books
All Resources
pt. I. Techniques of Ghost-Seeing
1. The case of the Cock Lane ghost
2. Producing enthusiastic terror
pt. II. The Business of Romance
3. The advantages of history
4. Back to the future
5. The value of the supernatural in a commercial society
pt. III. The Strange Luxury of Artificial Terror
6. Women, luxury and the sublime
7. The supernatural explained
8. Like a heroine
pt. IV. Magico-Political Tales
9. The terrorist system
10. Conspiracy, subversion, supernaturalism.

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