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Palgrave Macmillan

American Horror Fiction

From Brockden Brown to Stephen King

  • Book
  • © 1990

Overview

Editors:
  1. Brian Docherty
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Table of contents (10 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-ix
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  2. Introduction: Horror the Soul of the Plot

    • Brian Docherty
    Pages 1-12

  3. A Darkness Visible: the Case of Charles Brockden Brown

    • A. Robert Lee
    Pages 13-32

  4. Poe: Rituals of Life and Death

    • Robert Giddings
    Pages 33-58

  5. This Revolting Graveyard of the Universe: the Horror Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft

    • Clive Bloom
    Pages 59-72

  6. The Evidence of Things Seen and Unseen: William Faulkner’s Sanctuary

    • David Seed
    Pages 73-91

  7. Robert Bloch’s Psycho: Some Pathological Contexts

    • David Punter
    Pages 92-106

  8. A Feminist Approach to Patricia Highsmith’s Fiction

    • Odette L’Henry Evans
    Pages 107-119

  9. Shirley Jackson and the Reproduction of Mothering: The Haunting of Hill House

    • Judie Newman
    Pages 120-134

  10. Stephen King: Powers of Horror

    • Clare Hanson
    Pages 135-154

  11. De-fanging the Vampire: S. M. Charnas’s The Vampire Tapestry as Subversive Horror Fiction

    • Anne Cranny-Francis
    Pages 155-175

  12. Back Matter

    Pages 176-180
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Keywords

About this book

This volume offers critical and theoretical perspectives on a genre which has remained popular for nearly two hundred years: American horror fiction. There are essays on Charles Brockden Brown, Edgar Allan Poe, H.P.Lovecraft, William Faulkner, Robert Bloch, Patricia Highsmith, Shirley Jackson, Stephen King and Suzy McKee Charnas, covering the period from 1798 to 1983. Each essay deals with a major figure in the genre, from Gothic orginators to modern feminist reworkings. A variety of reading strategies are employed to interrogate these texts, with feminist and psychoanalytic approaches well represented. These essays illustrate the fact that modern literary theory can usefully be applied to any text or genre. Students of horror fiction seeking new readings, and readers interested in modern approaches to literature, will find this book useful and informative. The essays are all new, and have been specially written for Insights by leading academics.

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: American Horror Fiction

  • Book Subtitle: From Brockden Brown to Stephen King

  • Editors: Brian Docherty

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-20579-0

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan London

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts Collection, Literature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

  • Copyright Information: Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 1990

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-0-333-46129-7Published: 01 March 1990

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-349-20579-0Published: 01 March 1990

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: IX, 180

  • Topics: Fiction, Feminism

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