The Gothic and the Rule of the Law, 1764-1820 [Hardcover]

This book is the first full-length theoretical and historical study of the relation between early Gothic fiction and an emerging modern rule of law. The work identifies not only a political and cultural, but also an ontological relation between what critics have conceptualized as 'Gothic' and the nature and function of modern juridical power.Acknowledgements Introduction: Thresholds Fictions of Origin 'Written in the Black Letter': The Gothic and/in the Rule of Law Spectres of Law in The Castle of Otranto Clara Reeve and the Problem of Romance The Law's Gothic Space: Sophia Lee's The Recess A Maternal Tale Unfolds: Radcliffean Gothic A Supplement: Gaston de Blondeville Before the Law: Godwin's Caleb Williams In Excess: St Leon and Melmoth the Wanderer Conclusion: Frankenstein - Reproducing the Gothic Bibliography IndexSUE CHAPLIN is Senior Lecturer in English at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK, where she specialises in Romantic-era writing and Gothic fiction. She is the author of Law, Sensibility and the Sublime in Eighteenth-Century Women's Fiction (2004).