Irish Gothic - (Edinburgh Companions to the Gothic) by Jarlath Killeen & Christina Morin

About the Book

A thorough account of the engagements with the Gothic mode by Irish artists from the eighteenth century to today.

Book Synopsis

Irish Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion provides a comprehensive account of the extent to which Gothic can be traced in Irish cultural life from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century, across both elite and popular genres, and through a range of different media, including literature, cinema, and folklore. It responds, in particular, to the understanding that Gothic is ubiquitous in Irish literature. Rather than focus specifically or exclusively on the oft-studied Irish Gothic foursome - Charles Maturin, Sheridan Le Fanu, Oscar Wilde, and Bram Stoker - this companion turns attention to overlooked 'minor' figures such as Regina Maria Roche, Stephen Cullen, and Anne Fuller. At the same time, it considers the multi-generic nature of Irish Gothic, thinking beyond fiction and, in particular, the novel, as the Gothic genre par excellence. The collection thus affords fresh perspectives on Irish Gothic and its pervasiveness in Irish culture from the eighteenth century to today.

From the Back Cover

Offers fresh perspectives on Irish Gothic and its pervasiveness in Irish culture from the eighteenth century to today. Irish Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion provides a comprehensive account of the extent to which Gothic can be traced in Irish cultural life from the eighteenth century to the contemporary moment, across both elite and popular genres and through a range of different media, including literature, cinema and folklore. It responds, in particular, to the understanding that Gothic is ubiquitous in Irish literature and culture. Rather than focus exclusively on the oft-studied Irish Gothic foursome - Charles Maturin, Sheridan Le Fanu, Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker - this companion turns attention to overlooked 'minor' figures such as Regina Maria Roche, Mrs F. C. Patrick, James Clarence Mangan and Eimear McBride. At the same time, it considers the multi-generic nature of Irish Gothic, thinking beyond fiction and, in particular, the novel, as the Gothic genre par excellence. The volume also takes account of Irish language Gothic, illuminating the ways in which the Gothic in Ireland has found and continues to find expression in different cultural and linguistic communities. Jarlath Killeen is Lecturer in Victorian Literature in the School of English, Trinity College Dublin. His publications include Imagining the Irish Child: Discourses of Childhood in Irish Anglican Writing of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (2023) and The Emergence of Irish Gothic Fiction (2013). Christina Morin is Senior Lecturer in English and Assistant Dean of Research in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Limerick. Her publications include The Gothic Novel in Ireland, c. 1760-1829 (2018) and Charles Robert Maturin and the Haunting of Irish Romantic Fiction (2011).

Review Quotes

This outstanding collection fulfils the urgent need for a throughgoing reconsideration of the Irish gothic across genres, genders, periods, and confessional communities. Not only have the editors radically and expansively redefined the Irish gothic, but by resituating the gothic in relation to Irish and British literary history, they have productively redefined the genre itself. Irish Gothic: An Edinburgh Companion represents an authoritative departure that simultaneously offers a broad account of the scholarship that heretofore defined the field.--Margot Backus, University of Houston

About the Author

Jarlath Killeen is a Lecturer in Victorian Literature in the School of English, Trinity College Dublin. He has published extensively on Irish gothic fiction, including Gothic Ireland (2005), and The Emergence of Irish Gothic Fiction (Edinburgh University Press, 2013). His most recent monograph is Imagining the Irish Child: Discourses of Childhood in Irish Anglican Writing of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (2023).

Christina Morin is a Senior Lecturer in English and Assistant Dean of Research in the Faculty of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences at the University of Limerick. She is the author of The Gothic Novel in Ireland, c. 1760-1829 (2018) and Charles Robert Maturin and the Haunting of Irish Romantic Fiction (2011). She is co-editor of Traveling Irishness in the Long Nineteenth Century (with Marguérite Corporaal, 2017) and Irish Gothics: Genres, Forms, Modes and Traditions (with Niall Gillespie, 2014). She is currently editing, with Ellen Scheible, a special issue of the Irish University Review on 'Irish Gothic Studies Today'.