Emily C. Hughes

First things first: I won’t attempt to provide one clear-cut definition of the Gothic, lest I incur the wrath of a horde of angry postgrads. When the genre emerged in the mid-18th century, early novels and short stories shared a set of common trademarks — good-hearted female characters under the thumb of cruel, powerful men; melodrama and high emotion; supernatural events — and were laden with the social, political and moral anxieties of a rapidly changing moment in European society.