The volume includes an introduction by Roger Luckhurst that considers the Gothic genre and vampire legend, discusses the vampire tale as sexual allegory, and outlines the social and cultural contexts that feed into the novel, including the New Woman, new technology, race, immigration, and religion. In addition, Luckhurst provides comprehensive explanatory notes that flesh out vampire mythology and historical allusions, plus an appendix featuring Stoker's...

"The story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly place called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a "haunting"; Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a chilling encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering...

"A stunning new clothbound edition of Mary Shelley's infamous work of horror fiction, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. These delectable and collectible Penguin editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design Obsessed by creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life by electricity. But his botched creature,...

Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera, first published in 1910, remained a perennial favorite throughout the twentieth century and into the early 2000s. It was adapted to several popular motion pictures and into one of the most successful stage musicals of all time. Its main character, Erik, is a romantic figure whose appeal reaches across different cultures and times. He is a sensitive soul, an accomplished composer and musician whose great...

"Marlinchen and her two sisters live with their wizard father in a city shifting from magic to industry. As Oblya's last true witches, she and her sisters are little more than a tourist trap as they treat their clients with archaic remedies and beguile them with nostalgic charm. Marlinchen spends her days divining secrets in exchange for rubles and trying to placate her tyrannical, xenophobic father, who keeps his daughters sequestered from the outside...

Two hours before he vanished, Mark Dixon stole a glass of wine. That's what bartender Sophie Braam told the cops when they questioned her about the customer whose mutilated body was just found. What she didn't tell them is that she's the one who killed him. Officer Nora Martin is new to the Bellair Police Department and trying very hard to learn the ropes from Detective Murphy while ignoring all the men in the department snapping about a diversity...

Winner of the Somerset Maugham Award One of Granta 's Best Young British Novelists From the acclaimed author of Boy, Snow, Bird There's something strange about the Silver family house in the closed-off town of Dover, England. Grand and cavernous with hidden passages and buried secrets, it's been home to four generations of Silver women--Anna, Jennifer, Lily, and now Miranda, who has lived in the house with her twin brother, Eliot, ever since their...

Do the portrayals of objects in literary texts represent historical evidence about the material culture of the past? Or are things in books more than things in the world? Sophie Volpp considers fictional objects of the late Ming and Qing that defy being read as illustrative of historical things. Instead, she argues, fictional objects are often signs of fictionality themselves, calling attention to the nature of the relationship between literature...

Martha has many moments of foreboding as she begins her new job as governess to Alvean, daughter of widower, Con TreMellyn. Soon she hears of strange accidents, sudden deaths, and mysteries, and only her love for the little girl- and her father- makes Martha resolve to stay and unravel the mystery of Mellyn.

"In this wickedly whimsical Gothic murder mystery brimming with romance, betrayals, and chills, a fake spiritualist is summoned to hold a séance for a bride who died on the eve before her wedding, but as nefarious secrets are revealed, the line between hoax and haunting blurs."--Amazon.com. "In Victorian London, Genevieve Timmons poses as a spiritualist to swindle wealthy mourners--until one misstep lands her in a jail cell awaiting the noose. Then...