American gothic

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The chilling creativity of the American Gothic has retained its power to attract readers since it burst onto the literary scene in the eighteenth century, yet it has been the object of serious scholarship for only a few decades. Edited by a founding member of the International Gothic Association, the new edition of this anthology incorporates the whole range of factual and imaginative writing, from Cotton Mather's account of the witchcraft trials in the colonial era, through the poetry of Poe, Dickinson, and Longfellow and unsettling tales both long (Henry James's "The Turn of the Screw") and short (the anonymous "Talking Bones"), to the beginning of the modernism in the twentieth century. The collection demonstrates the startling abundance of themes explored by these writers and reflects contemporary academic perspectives, with generous selections from genres such as feminist and "wilderness" Gothic. It includes recently unearthed as well as canonical material and provides an unflinching view of America's secrets and fears: the thoughts that have been repressed, silenced, or forbidden. -- From publisher's description.