Gothic Fiction and the Writing of Trauma, 1914-1934 - by Andrew Smith

About the Book

The first detailed analysis of Gothic literature and trauma in World War One.

Book Synopsis

This book examines how the representation of the ghost-soldier in literature published between1914-1934, both marks the presence of trauma and attempts to make sense of it. Andrew Smith examines short stories, novels, poems and memoirs that employ ghosts to reflect upon feelings of loss, paralleling the literary context with accounts of shell-shock which construe the damaged soldier as psychologically missing and therefore spectre-like.
The author argues that literary and non-literary texts repeatedly deploy a form of the uncanny, familiar from a Gothic tradition, as a way of reflecting upon grief. In support of this claim, he draws on fiction by well-known authors such as M. R. James, E. F. Benson, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Dennis Wheatley, alongside largely forgotten contributions to The Strand and other periodical publications such as The Occult Review.

From the Back Cover

The first detailed analysis of Gothic literature and trauma in World War One This book examines the representation of the ghost-soldier in literature published from 1914-1934 both marking the presence of trauma and attempting to make sense of trauma. Andrew Smith examines short stories, novels, poems and memoirs that employ ghosts to reflect upon feelings of loss, paralleling the literary context with accounts of shell-shock which construe the damaged soldier as psychologically missing and therefore spectre-like. The author argues that literary and non-literary texts repeatedly deploy a form of the uncanny, familiar from a Gothic tradition, as way of reflecting upon grief. In support of this claim, he draws on fiction by well-known authors such as M. R. James, E. F. Benson, Dorothy L. Sayers and Dennis Wheatley, alongside largely forgotten contributions to The Strand and other periodical publications such as The Occult Review. Andrew Smith is Professor of Nineteenth-Century English Literature at the University of Sheffield where he co-directs the Centre for the History of the Gothic. He is the author or editor of over twenty published books including Gothic Death 1740-1914: A Literary History (2016) and The Ghost Story 1840-1920: A Cultural History (2010).

Review Quotes

This extraordinary book draws on resources both literary and otherwise, to make sense of the unexpected cultural work done by ghost stories during the First World War. As one panelist says, the book is "a deftly assembled, compellingly argued, and sensitively written examination of the Gothic's work mediating the traumatic experiences and losses of the Great War by way of its army of ghosts - homely, homeless, malevolent, restless. A major contribution to the rapidly expanding field of War/Battlefield Gothic, this study remains, tragically, timely and topical."

Another panelist stated that the book is, "a weighty and serious work that has already begun to influence how I think about ghost stories. Smith also notably combines attention to canonical Modernist texts with little-known fiction, both of which expand the Gothic canon in different ways."
This is a vital book for anybody working on ghost fiction in any period, and for any scholar of war or of trauma, in any period. Smith's book helps us think in subtle, new ways about how gothic representation can be part of struggles to come to terms with mass suffering. Smith shows the contradictory, surprising, and moving ways in which ghost stories are part of such cultural work - cultural work which is, sadly, of continuing and sharp relevance.

--Sara Wasson "Chair of the International Gothic Association's Allan Lloyd Smith Prize"

In the course of this finely argued book, Andrew Smith offers an important historicist revision of Freud on trauma and the uncanny before moving on to explore a hugely impressive range of ghost-texts written during the First World War and later. The criticism is acute and sensitive, the historical context vividly drawn.

--David Punter, University of Bristol

About the Author

Andrew Smith is Professor of Nineteenth-Century English Literature at the University of Sheffield where he co-directs the Centre for the History of the Gothic. He is the author or editor of over 20 published books including Gothic Death 1740-1914: A Literary History (Manchester University Press, 2016), The Ghost Story 1840-1920: A Cultural History (Manchester University Press, 2010), Gothic Literature (Edinburgh University Press, 2007, revised 2013), Victorian Demons (Manchester University Press, 2004) and Gothic Radicalism (Macmillan, 2000). He is a past president of the International Gothic Association.