The Oxford book of gothic tales /

This is not a horror-story anthology, although it includes Poe, Bierce, and Lovecraft. It is not a clutch of little cousins to the romances sold in supermarkets, although the aura of the Brontes hangs over several of the contents as it does over the paperback rack. Nor is it a set of the menace-reeking narratives of Faulkner, Welty, and other so-called southern Gothic authors, although both those names appear in its pages. Editor Baldick has selected according to a strict standard: "For the Gothic affect to be attained, a tale should combine a fearful sense of inheritance in time with a claustrophobic sense of enclosure in space, these two dimensions reinforcing one another to produce an impression of sickening descent into disintegration." Baldick sees this Gothic affect at work in a handful of late-eighteenth-century entries by hands either anonymous or forgotten; in nineteenth-century tales by Hawthorne, Poe, Stevenson, Hardy, Conan Doyle (a Sherlock Holmes adventure), and E. Nesbit; and in twentieth-century efforts by Ellen Glasgow, Jorge Luis Borges, Angela Carter, and Isabel Allende. A theme anthology that imparts knowledge as well as entertainment. ~--Ray Olson

The fog-enshrouded castle, the crumbling family manor; old secrets unveiled, curses cast, chains clanking, fear and trembling; dread, decay, disintegration, death--each of these trademarks of the well-made Gothic tale is vividly represented in this comprehensive anthology. Informatively introduced and chronologically arranged, the 37 stories showcase the Gothic tradition from its late-18th-century inception up to the present. Included are genre classics from such illustrious practitioners as Poe, Hawthorne, Lovecraft and McGrath, as well as gems from literary masters like Faulkner, Welty, Oates and Borges, all of whom dabble(d) to fine effect in the form. Among the highlights are ``The Parricide Punished,'' an anonymous entry from 1799 set in an enormous castle and narrated by a guest whose visit becomes a waking nightmare; Eden Glasgow's ``Jordan's End,'' in which a long history of family madness gives rise to a most untimely death; F. M. Mayor's ``Miss DeMannering of Asham,'' the story of two women on holiday who get more local color than they bargained for when they learn the shocking truth about DeMannering's dead infant; and especially Ray Russell's bizarre ``Sardonicus,'' whose title character gives the kind of villainous performance that evokes Vincent Price in his horror-movie heyday. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved