The Gothic Novel in Ireland, c. 1760-1829
Synopsis "The Gothic Novel in Ireland, c. 1760-1829"
'An important and authoritative book, in which Christina Morin steps outside established definitions of ‘Irish Gothic’ in order to make a fluent and convincing case for a wider, deeper and longer history of Irish fiction. The gothic novel in Ireland not only offers a bracing challenge to existing theories of Irish Gothic, it also reshapes our understanding of the history of the novel in Britain and Ireland while redrawing the map of Irish romanticism.' Claire Connolly, Professor of Modern English, University College Cork 'The gothic novel in Ireland is a very welcome mapping of an almost completely unknown body of fiction – the early Irish Gothic novel. Morin not only brings to an end the literary historical amnesia which allowed so much interesting, important and often compelling fiction to be forgotten, but effectively rescues these novels from what Franco Moretti calls the "slaughterhouse of literature". This study will provide Irish Studies and Gothic Studies scholars with a comprehensivesense of the sheer amount of early Irish Gothic fiction, clarifying how this body of work relates to ‘canonical’ Irish and, indeed, European fiction. Crucially, Morin carefully refocuses attention on what eighteenth and early nineteenth century writers, critics, and readers understood as ‘gothic’, rather than retrospectively applying twentieth century reformulations. Her writing is a model of clarity and critical generosity, meaning the study is immensely readable and can be enthusiastically recommended to students as well as critics and scholars. This is the most significant intervention in Irish Gothic Studies for years.' Jarlath Killeen, author of The Emergence of Irish Gothic Fiction: History, Texts, Theories (2013) 'Introducing her readership to revelatory, new examples of Irish Gothic fiction during the Romantic period, Christina Morin's The gothic novel in Ireland, 1760-1829 combines meticulous research with excellent contextualization. It demonstrates just how extensive the symbolic and affective work of the Gothic was in Ireland during the Romantic period, and will become an essential work for future scholars of Gothic, Romanticism and Irish studies.' Angela Wright, Professor of Romantic Literature, University of Sheffield
