Women in Horror Month (WiHM) Event

First published in 1818, Frankenstein has spellbound, disturbed, and fascinated readers for generations. One of the most haunting and enduring works ever written in English, it has inspired numerous retellings and sequels in virtually every medium, making the Frankenstein myth familiar even to those who have never read a word of Mary Shelleyâe(tm)s remarkable novel. Now, this freshly annotated, illustrated edition illuminates the novel and its electrifying afterlife with unmatched detail and vitality. From the first decade after publication, "Frankenstein" became a byword for any new, disturbing developments in science, technology, and human imagination. The editors' Introduction explores the fable's continuing presence in popular culture and intellectual life as well as the novel's genesis and composition. Mary Shelley's awareness of European politics and history, her interest in the poets and philosophical debates of the day, and especially her genius in distilling her personal traumas come alive in this engaging essay. The editors' commentary, placed conveniently alongside the text, provides stimulating company. Their often surprising observations are drawn from a lifetime of reading and teaching the novel. A wealth of illustrations, many in color, immerses the reader in Shelley's literary and social world, in the range of artwork inspired by her novel, as well as in Frankenstein's provocative cinematic career. The fresh light that The Annotated Frankenstein casts on a story everyone thinks is familiar will delight readers while deepening their understanding of Mary Shelley's novel and the Romantic era in which it was created.

A novel about the fortunes and loves of an Irish family, the father, Fitzalan, a military man, Amanda, the daughter, and the son, Oscar, in the lordly circles of Scottish and English society, and especially their relationship to the people of Dunreath Abbey.

Clermont is the story of Madeline, who lives in seclusion with her eponymous father until they are visited by a mysterious Countess from Clermont's past. Madeline travels to complete her education with her and a series of assaults by shadowy foes cannot dissuade her from unravelling the mystery of her father's past and pursuing her paramour De Sevignie. She uncovers the secret of her own noble origins and her virtue proves its strength through a series of trials and tribulations.

From the first moment Vincentio di Vivaldi, a young nobleman, sets eyes on the veiled figure of Ellena, he is captivated by her enigmatic beauty and grace. But his haughty and manipulative mother is against the match and enlists the help of her confessor to come between them. Schedoni, previously a leading figure of the Inquisition, is a demonic, scheming monk with no qualms about the task, whether it entails abduction, torture - or even murder. The Italian secured Ann Radcliffe's position as the leading writer of Gothic romance of the age, for its atmosphere of supernatural and nightmarish horrors, combined with her evocation of sublime landscapes and chilling narrative.

"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will." Bronte's infamous Gothic novel tells the story of orphan Jane, a child of unfortunate circumstances. Raised and treated badly by her aunt and cousins and eventually sent away to a cruel boarding school, it is not until Jane becomes a governess at Thornfield that she finds happiness. Meek, measured, but determined, Jane soon falls in love with her brooding and stormy master, Mr Rochester, but it is not long before strange and unnerving events occur in the house and Jane is forced to leave Thornfield to pursue her future.

Written in 1866, this heretofore undiscovered gem by the author of Little Women tells the story of Rosamund Vivian, an intelligent, strong-willed, 18-year-old young woman who longs for adventure. But when she marries a wealthy, jaded young man, and is swept off to Europe, Rosamund too soon learns that her new husband is not as he had presented himself. First serial to Ladies' Home Journal.

"Manfrone; or, The One-Handed Monk" (1809) opens with one of the most unforgettable scenes in all of Gothic literature when a lascivious monk enters the lovely Rosalina's room in an attempt to rape her, but suffers the gruesome severing of his hand when he is caught in the act.
Yet other dangers await Rosalina: her father, the haughty Duca di Rodolpho is determined to marry her to the cruel Prince di Manfrone and imprisons her true love, Montalto, in the dungeons of his castle. And then there is the mysterious monk Grimaldi, who seems to be an ally of the Duca. What are his inscrutable plans, and is he trying to aid Rosalina or destroy her?

A best-seller in its day and a potent influence on Sade, Poe, and other purveyors of eighteenth and nineteenth-century Gothic horror, The Mysteries of Udolpho remains one of the most important works in the history of European fiction. After Emily St. Aubuert is imprisoned by her evil guardian, Count Montoni, in his gloomy medieval fortress in the Appenines, terror becomes the order of the day. With its dream-like plot and hallucinatory rendering of its characters' psychological states, The Mysteries of Udolpho is a fascinating challenge to contemporary readers.

The star of Northanger Abbey is seventeen-year-old Catherine Morland, Jane Austen's youngest and most impressionable heroine. Away from home for the first time, on a visit to Bath with family friends, Catherine, a passionate consumer of novels (especially of the gothic variety), encounters a world in which everything beckons as a readable text: not only books, but also conversations and behaviors, clothes, carriages, estates, and vistas. In her lively introduction to this newest volume in Harvard's celebrated annotated Austen series, Susan Wolfson proposes that Austen's most underappreciated, most playful novel is about fiction itself and how it can take possession of everyday understandings. The first of Austen's major works to be completed (it was revised in 1803 and again in 1816-17), Northanger Abbey was published months after Austen's death in July 1817, together with Persuasion. The 1818 text, whose singularly frustrating course to publication Wolfson recounts, is the basis for this freshly edited and annotated edition. Wolfson's running commentary will engage new readers while offering delights for scholars and devoted Janeites. A wealth of color images bring to life Bath society in Austen's era--the parade of female fashions, the carriages running over open roads and through the city's streets, circulating libraries, and nouveau-riche country estates--as well as the larger cultural milieu of Northanger Abbey. This unique edition holds appeal not just for "Friends of Jane" but for all readers looking for a fuller engagement with Austen's extraordinary first novel.

When Sir Philip Harclay returns to England after a long absence, he finds that his childhood friend, Arthur, Lord Lovel, is no longer alive, and that the castle and estates of the Lovel family have twice changed hands. But a mysteriously abandoned set of rooms in the castle of Lovel promises to disclose the secrets of the past. After a series of frantic episodes and surprising revelations, culminating in a trial by combat, the crimes of the usurper and the legitimacy of the true heir are finally discovered.

Emily Brontë's only novel, a work of tremendous and far-reaching influence, the Penguin Classics edition of Wuthering Heights is the definitive edition of the text, edited with an introduction by Pauline Nestor. Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, situated on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord. There he discovers the history of the tempestuous events that took place years before; of the intense relationship between the gypsy foundling Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw; and how Catherine, forced to choose between passionate, tortured Heathcliff and gentle, well-bred Edgar Linton, surrendered to the expectations of her class. As Heathcliff's bitterness and vengeance at his betrayal is visited upon the next generation, their innocent heirs must struggle to escape the legacy of the past.