Catherine Wynne

Arthur Conan Doyle is often perceived as the quintessential Englishman, patriotically devoted to the Crown and the empire's defender and apologist. But such a relegation is both limiting and simplistic. This book examines how British imperialism, Irish nationalism, and Catholic allegiance converge uneasily in his fictions. It places his works within a colonial context, the complexity of which is evident in his gothic tropes of shifting landscapes, disguised criminalities, spiritualism, and sexual anomalies and conflicts. In doing so, it challenges the prevailing view of Doyle as an imperial writer and underscores the importance of colonialism in his fiction.

British Imperialism, Irish Nationalism, and the Gothic

The Colonial Conan Doyle

Bram Stoker and the Gothic takes its cue from Dracula's warning to the group of vampire hunters that his 'revenge is just begun.' The collection appraises the impact of Stoker's Gothic predecessors, provides new readings of his fictions and explores transformations of the Gothic.

Formations to Transformations

Bram Stoker and the Gothic

'My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side,' warns Dracula. This statement is descriptive of the Gothic genre. Like the Count, the Gothic encompasses and has manifested itself in many forms. Bram Stoker and the Gothic demonstrates how Dracula marks a key moment in the transformation of the Gothic. Harking back to early Gothic's preoccupation with the supernatural, decayed aristocracy and incarceration in gloomy castles, the novel speaks to its own time, but has also transformed the genre, a revitalization that continues to sustain the Gothic today. This collection explores the formations of the Gothic, the relationship between Stoker's work and some of his Gothic predecessors, such as Poe and Wollstonecraft, presents new readings of Stoker's fiction and probes the influences of his cultural circle, before concluding by examining aspects of Gothic transformation from Daphne du Maurier to Stoker's own 'reincarnation' in fiction and biography. Bram Stoker and the Gothic testifies to Stoker's centrality to the Gothic genre. Like Dracula, Stoker's 'revenge' shows no sign of abating.

Sabine Vanacker

Sherlock Holmes is an iconic figure within cultural narratives. More recently, Conan Doyle has also appeared as a fictional figure in contemporary novels and films, confusing the boundaries between fiction and reality. This collection investigates how Holmes and Doyle have gripped the public imagination to become central figures of modernity.

Multi-Media Afterlives

Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle

Martin Willis

Victorian Literary Mesmerism examines the engagement between literature and mesmerism in Victorian writing. Drawing on recent trends in interdisciplinary literary scholarship the essays collected here investigate the complex connections between scientific mesmerism, its manifestations in the Victorian social and cultural world, and the literary imagination. Here, for the first time, the varied themes and contexts shaped by mesmeric practices are brought together in one volume. Mesmerism's influence on phrenology, medicine and mental health; its interaction with the occult and with communication technologies; the effects of mesmeric principles on gender and sexuality, as well as on criminal behaviour, are all set within the context of literary texts that interrogate and critique mesmerism's influence on the Victorians. This volume will be of interest, therefore, to scholars of Victorian literature and the history of science, as well as to those interested in cultural history with a focus on gender, sexuality, and sciences of the mind.

Catherine Wynne

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