Comic Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion

(Paperback)

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Description

The Edinburgh Companion to Comic Gothic explores the role of irony, satire, parody, pastiche and the absurd in Gothic texts dating from the eighteenth century up to the present day. Its particular focus on the use of Comic Gothic in social media and popular culture make it a distinctive and original contribution to Gothic studies that will be especially welcomed by undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Reviews

The Gothic has to do with the dark, but ever since the days of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey it has also had its comic side, revelling in exaggeration, melodrama, pastiche, satire and the absurd, as this brilliant collection of essays demonstrates across a satisfyingly wide range of periods and styles.

Author Bio

Avril Horner is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at Kingston University. With Sue Zlosnik she has co-authored many articles and several books, including Daphne du Maurier: Writing, Identity and the Gothic Imagination (1998), Gothic and the Comic Turn (2005) and Women and the Gothic (2016). Other works include Living on Paper: Letters from Iris Murdoch, 1934-1995 (with Anne Rowe, 2015) and Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence (2024). Alone, she has published essays on writers such as Djuna Barnes, Kate Chopin, Iris Murdoch and Carol Ann Duffy. Her biography of Barbara Comyns will be published in 2024.