Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-245) and index
Introduction: Romanticism's "pageantry of fear" -- Gothic, reception, and production -- Gothic and its contexts -- "Gross and violent stimulants": producing Lyrical ballads 1798 and 1800 -- National supernaturalism: Joanna Baillie, Germany, and the gothic drama -- "To foist thy stale romance": Scott, antiquarianism, and authorship
"Michael Gamer offers a sharply focused analysis of how and why romantic writers drew on gothic conventions whilst, at the same time, denying their influence in order to claim critical respectability. He shows how the reception of gothic writing, including its institutional and commercial recognition as a form of literature, played a fundamental role in the development of romanticism as an ideology. In doing so he examines the early history of the romantic movement and its assumptions about literary value, and the politics of reading, writing, and reception at the end of the eighteenth century. As a whole the book makes an original contribution to our understanding of genre, tracing the impact of reception, marketing, and audience on its formation."--Jacket
