Books by Marie Mulvey-Roberts

In 1858, Rosina Bulwer Lytton was incarcerated in a lunatic asylum by her husband, the eminent Victorian politician and novelist, Edward Bulwer Lytton

In 1858, Rosina Bulwer Lytton was incarcerated in a lunatic asylum by her husband, the eminent Victorian politician and novelist, Edward Bulwer Lytton

In 1858, Rosina Bulwer Lytton was incarcerated in a lunatic asylum by her husband, the eminent Victorian politician and novelist, Edward Bulwer Lytton

Through an investigation of the body and its oppression by the church, the medical profession and the state, this book reveals the actual horrors lying beneath fictional horror in settings as diverse as the monastic community, slave plantation, operating theatre, Jewish ghetto and battlefield trench. The book provides original readings of canonical Gothic literary and film texts including The Castle of Otranto, The Monk, Frankenstein, Dracula and Nosferatu. This collection of fictionalised dangerous bodies is traced back to the effects of the English Reformation, Spanish Inquisition, French Revolution, Caribbean slavery, Victorian medical malpractice, European anti-Semitism and finally warfare, ranging from the Crimean up to the Vietnam War. The endangered or dangerous body lies at the centre of the clash between victim and persecutor and has generated tales of terror and narratives of horror, which function to either salve, purge or dangerously perpetuate such oppositions. This ground-breaking book will be of interest to academics and students of Gothic studies, gender and film studies and especially to readers interested in the relationship between history and literature.

Experts on the arts of pleasure will luxuriate over Italian opera, gastronomic delights, the pleasures of Gothic terror, seduction, and the revellers of the bizarre London clubs.