‘Historical anecdotes are the most proper vehicles for the elucidation of mysteries’: the ‘Historical Gothic’ and the Minerva Press, 1790–99

Ravenwood, Victoria 2020. ‘Historical anecdotes are the most proper vehicles for the elucidation of mysteries’: the ‘Historical Gothic’ and the Minerva Press, 1790–99. Romantic Textualities (23) , pp. 60-75. 10.18573/romtext.72

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Abstract

Through the exploration of a selection of Minerva titles from across the period of the Press’s dominance (1790–99), focusing on the recurring trope of violence, its varying portrayals by individual authors, and its censure by critics, this essay argues that the Press makes a unique contribution to the Romantic literary marketplace with regard to its output of violent gothic fiction. In particular, it proposes that what some Minerva authors were doing was cleverly combining gothic sensationalism with historical fact, thereby allowing Lane’s press to gain popularity by catering to the fashion for violent gothic novels while simultaneously responding to rhetoric about the corrupting influence of such violence on female readers. In addition to this, at a time when historical writing was not showcasing the horrors of war that women were experiencing, the use of gothic conventions when writing historical conflicts permitted writers to do exactly that—the implication being that Minerva authors’ use of gothic violence was not simply to entertain, but also to portray the horrors of war and its impact on women and the domestic space. Taken together, the use of historical facts alongside gothic tropes in Minerva Press works allows for a confident evaluation of the formation of an historical gothic mode.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	English, Communication and Philosophy
Subjects:	D History General and Old World > D History (General) > D204 Modern History H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) > PN0441 Literary History Z Bibliography. Library Science. Information Resources > Z004 Books. Writing. Paleography
Publisher:	Cardiff University Press
ISSN:	1748-0116
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	16 November 2020
Date of Acceptance:	8 February 2019
Last Modified:	03 May 2023 20:41
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/136387

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