Haunting Realities

“This wide-ranging, thoughtfully curated collection of essays examines late-19th-century American writing in the naturalist mode that contains gothic elements. Though not all readers will be interested in all the essays, each essay has a unique perspective on the book’s themes. This collection will appeal particularly to specialists, but those enthusiastic about the influence of gothic literature may also find it worthwhile. Recommended.”
—CHOICE

“For those of us who remain haunted by the perspicacity and terror informing late nineteenth-century American literature, Haunting Realities is an important book about cultural crisis, then and now.”
—Studies in American Naturalism

“Haunting Realities is an interesting and compelling collection that offers a new and fascinating perspective on the influence of the Gothic on Naturalist texts.”
—Keith Newlin, author of Hamlin Garland: A Life and editor of The Oxford Handbook of American Literary Naturalism

“No book before Haunting Realities has explored the relationship between the Gothic and the modes of Realism and Naturalism, which are apparently antithetical to it. Yet, in the central paradox identified by Elbert and Ryden, Gothic tropes are everywhere in the literature of the post–Civil War period, and reveal much about the age’s crisis of faith in progress—and about our own times as well. This is a wide-ranging and thoughtful collection and will be studied by anyone interested in the Gothic and the literature of the United States.”
—Charles L. Crow, author of History of the Gothic: American Gothic and editor of American Gothic: An Anthology, 1787–1916