The Introduction to Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides: The Marriage of French and British Gothic Literature, 1789-1897

“his trousers here, his towels there, and his French novels everywhere.”

— Wilkie Collins, The Moonstone

The above quote from Wilkie Collins’ 1868 masterpiece[i] testifies that young gentlemen in England at the time were reading French novels, and yet the influence of French literature has been all but ignored by most scholars of British Gothic literature. This omission is surprising given that French novels were read in England by a wide audience in the nineteenth century as British literature of the period itself testifies. Besides the reference in Collins’ The Moonstone, in Anthony Trollope’s The Small House at Allington (1864), we are told of the Earl de Courcy that “He always breakfasted alone, and after breakfast found in a French novel and a cigar what solace those innocent recreations were still able to afford him.”[ii] In the last chapter of Barchester Towers (1857), Trollope references three contemporary French authors as he attempts to complete his story, “What novelist, what Fielding, what Scott, what George Sand, or Sue, or Dumas can impart an interest to the last chapter of his fictitious history?”[iii] Mary E. Braddon, best remembered for Lady Audley’s Secret (1862), writes in her short story “Good Lady Ducayne” (1896) of a young companion paid to read to the title character, but because the companion’s French is not good, the French maid instead reads French works to Lady Ducayne: “When she is tired of my reading she orders Francine, her maid, to read a French novel to her, and I hear her chuckle and groan now and then, as if she were more interested in those books than in Dickens or Scott.”[iv] Furthermore, in Lady Audley’s Secret, the lawyer Robert Audley is emphatically associated with reading French novels to the point of neglecting his work, and in William Makepeace Thackeray’s Pendennis (1848-50), a student’s quarters are described as, “While there was quite an infantine law library clad in skins of fresh new born calf, there was a tolerably large collection of classical books which he could not read, and of English and French works of poetry and fiction which he read a great deal too much.”[v]

Countless books have been written on nineteenth-century British Gothic literature, including my previous book The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption. Possibly, books have also been written on nineteenth-century French Gothic literature that are not accessible to an English-speaking audience since they were written in French, although the study of the Gothic does not yet seem to have become popular among academics in France.[vi] Even some significant nineteenth-century French Gothic novels have not been translated into English, and some of those that have been translated have suffered from being abridged. As a result, many students of the Gothic, myself included until recently, have been unfamiliar with the incredible influence that French and British Gothic novelists of this period had upon one another.

In scholarly works, if influence between French and British literature is mentioned, it is usually done so in passing and rarely detailed. To the best of my knowledge, no one to date has written a full study of how British and French Gothic texts influenced each other. The most thorough study I have found of English literature’s influence on French novels has been Eric Partridge’s The French Romantics’ Knowledge of English Literature, which was published in 1924, and as thorough as it is, it only briefly mentions a few Gothic novels and quotes extensively in French, which makes it inaccessible to many readers. M. G. Devonshire’s The English Novel in France (1929) similarly extensively discusses how English literature influenced French literature from 1830-70, but also makes little mention of Gothic fiction beyond Radcliffe and Lewis. Neither Partridge nor Devonshire mention Polidori or vampire fiction at all. Many other critics have discussed the specific influence of an individual work upon an author or work, but none have broadly discussed such influences upon the Gothic novel throughout the nineteenth century.

A misconception also appears to exist that British Victorians did not read French literature, thinking it too risqué. The above examples prove that is largely untrue. While some Victorians did hold that viewpoint, the extent of it has been heavily exaggerated. In his Preface to The Modern Literature of France (1839), George W. M. Reynolds, one of the most prolific British Victorian Gothic novelists, addressed this issue by stating that the journals of the day expressed as much dislike for anything French as they did during the Napoleonic Wars. He also disputed an article written three years earlier in the Quarterly Review that suggested the 1830 insurrection in France resulted from “the depraved taste of the nation with regard to literature, a proposition no less ridiculous than unfounded.”[vii] He goes on to argue that the divorce, licentiousness, and murders that take place in France cannot be attributed to its literature and that the British are just as guilty if not more so of such behaviors. Then he argues that the sense of freedom that resulted from the 1830 revolution is precisely what has led to an increase of high quality literature in France.[1] Consequently, his study reviews only French literature written after 1830. Most remarkably, with every author Reynolds discusses, he translates passages from works not yet known in England as examples of the French authors’ writing styles.

Despite Reynolds’ arguments and efforts, it is hard to know how many people listened to him. While some prejudice toward French literature doubtless remained, Juliette Atkinson has revealed in her 2013 article “The London Library and the Circulation of French Fiction in the 1840s” that circulation records from the London Library and other British libraries prove early British Victorians were reading French literature. Furthermore, Alexander Hugh Jordan, in an article discussing the influence of Carlyle upon Eugène Sue, remarks:

As Juliette Atkinson has recently noted, the assumption that the Victorians rejected contemporary French literature as “immoral” has proven stubbornly persistent, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary (391-93). In fact, the productions of leading French novelists met with a wide-ranging and enthusiastic response in Britain, not least through the medium of English translations. For instance, between 1842 and 1847, no less than seven of George Sand’s novels made their way to Britain (Bensimon 200-01). Moreover, thanks to the endeavours of Berry Palmer Chevasco [in Mysterymania], we now possess a near-exhaustive study of the British reception of Eugène Sue, and particularly of his Mystères de Paris. As Chevasco points out, in 1844 and 1845 alone, thirteen separate editions of Sue’s novels appeared in Britain (80).[viii]

Consequently, a convincing argument can be made not only that the British read French literature, but that British authors were influenced by their French contemporaries and vice versa. In fact, the influence of British authors on French authors is better documented, at least among studies written in English. Literary historian Maurice Lévy has documented more than one hundred English Gothic novels translated into French by the 1820s.[ix] Regardless, much work remains to be done to understand the influences that extended in both directions among British and French Gothic novelists from the time of the French Revolution through the nineteenth century.

Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides: The Marriage of French and British Gothic Literature seeks to help fill the void of documenting the influence that both nations’ Gothic literature had upon one another. While no study can fully display the depth of influence individual works had upon each other, I hope this book will inspire a revision of Gothic studies with the understanding that there is no isolated British or French Gothic tradition, but rather a tradition that crosses national boundaries. I am also fully aware that the French and British novels I will discuss influenced other nations’ literatures and were influenced by them. For example, it is well known that German Gothic works had a significant influence upon British and French Gothic works, especially in the days of the Gothic’s infancy. However, to create a manageable survey, I will focus, with a few exceptions, on British and French texts.

The title of this book reflects the frequent attempts by male vampire characters, usually based upon John Polidori’s vampire Lord Ruthven, to force a woman to marry him so she can become his victim. William H. Ainsworth’s short story “The Spectre Bride” is also referenced in the title. It refers to a bride who, surprisingly, is not supernatural but forced to marry a supernatural being. The word “marriage” in this book’s subtitle is perfect to describe the relationship between French and British Gothic because it goes beyond the idea of simple influence to a partnership. I believe in many cases the French and British Gothic writers were conscious that they were writing within the same Gothic tradition and being influenced by one another’s work. Proof of that influence will be provided in every chapter of this book and, hopefully, readers will be convinced by the book’s conclusion of my argument for this incredible shared influence that crossed national and language barriers.

Before diving further into our subject, it is best to define a few terms. By French Gothic, I am referring specifically to novels, plays, and short stories written within the boundaries of France. Similarly, by British, I mean works produced within Great Britain. I have chosen not to use the term English because it is less encompassing and could refer solely to England, while British would include works produced in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England. I have also opted to use British rather than English so it is not confused with works written in English by people outside of Great Britain, such as in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, or Australia. Only works produced within the national boundaries of Great Britain and France between 1789 and 1897 will be discussed in detail, with the exception of two American vampire works and the Swedish translation of Dracula.

Secondly, by using the term Gothic, I am referring to texts that include supernatural beings and occurrences, also known as the masculine Gothic, which includes works by Matthew Lewis, Alexandre Dumas, Bram Stoker, and others. I am also referring to texts where supernatural beings or events are believed to be occurring, even though they turn out to have rational explanations; this school is known as the feminine Gothic and is represented primarily by the novels of Mrs. Radcliffe, although male authors like Pierre-Alexis Ponson du Terrail and Jules Verne also fit into this category.[2] By Gothic, I am also referring to works that are devoid of anything supernatural but still have a Gothic atmosphere, specifically crime-related novels, which arose out of the “mystery” aspect of earlier Gothic literature. Such works include the city mysteries novels of Eugène Sue, Paul Féval, and George W. M. Reynolds.

The bulk of the works discussed in this book belong to what I consider the Second Golden Age of the Gothic. As is well known, the Gothic novel began with Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, published in 1764, but its Golden Age really began in the 1790s when the terrors of the French Revolution resulted in a flood of Gothic novels that reflected people’s fears played out in a fictional form and set in the past because the present horrors were too terrifying to contemplate. This period ranges roughly from 1789-1820 and includes the works of Mrs. Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818), and Charles Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer (1820). The Second Gothic Golden Age began about a dozen years later. The year 1818 is a key year for the Gothic because two Gothic parody novels, Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey and Thomas Love Peacock’s Nightmare Abbey, were published that year, announcing if not causing the Gothic’s death knell for the next decade. Parodies are always a sign that genres are popular but have also begun to decline in quality or influence.

The Gothic craze fell off in the 1820s with few notable works. Not until Victor Hugo published Notre-Dame de Paris in 1831 (translated into English in 1833 by Frederic Shoberl as The Hunchback of Notre-Dame) and William Harrison Ainsworth published Rookwood in 1834 did the Gothic regain its popularity. This Second Gothic Golden Age would run through the 1850s, at which time crime fiction, the child of the Gothic, superseded it in popularity along with sensational Victorian novels. However, the Gothic would remain popular throughout the nineteenth century, and following the 1897 publication of Dracula, and the subsequent film versions of that novel that made horror a staple of modern cinema, the Gothic has become immortal in a way many of its characters who sought the elixir of life never could have foreseen.

This Second Gothic Golden Age is when the influences of French and British Gothic literature were strongest upon each other, and it is that mutual influence I wish to highlight in this book. The nineteenth century was a period when authors in France and Great Britain largely spoke each other’s language and read each other’s books, often in their original language, but also in translation. Today, I suspect people are less bilingual than they were then. As an American, I studied French in school, but I cannot speak it fluently or even read it without it being a somewhat painstaking task. I suspect many literary scholars (despite most PhD programs requiring one or two foreign languages) and most general readers would say the same. Consequently, we must rely upon translations and the decisions of publishers and translators about which works will be translated. I hope Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides will bring attention to the incredible influence that British and French authors of this period had upon each other. This literary marriage has long been overlooked largely because of translation barriers, so I wish my work to inspire further scholarship and interest.

I also hope this book will bring more attention to many significant writers of nineteenth-century Gothic literature who have largely been ignored until recent years. While Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, and Alexandre Dumas are, if not household names, known by most lovers of books, authors like George W. M. Reynolds, William Harrison Ainsworth, Eugène Sue, and Paul Féval are unknown to most readers. These authors were in many ways just as remarkable as their better-known contemporaries. In fact, Reynolds and Ainsworth’s novels are said to have outsold those of Dickens, and as much as I love Dickens, both Reynolds and Ainsworth, in my opinion, surpassed Dickens in their plotting and pacing skills, if not in their character development or overall philosophical outlook. Similarly, the imaginations of the French authors of this period knew no bounds and their fantastic works deserve to be read today. Reading Sue’s The Wandering Jew or Féval’s Vampire City are incredible treats more readers should experience.

Nineteenth-century French and British Gothic is as capable today of teaching and entertaining us as it was for its original readers, for the twenty-first century is for us just as traumatic and terrorizing, if in different ways, as the nineteenth century was for our ancestors. By exploring such fears and the works they inspired, not only do we better understand Gothic literature, but we better understand the tastes, concerns, hopes, and dreams of our nineteenth-century ancestors, and in understanding them, we can understand more about ourselves because we are living their legacy.

Tyler R. Tichelaar

Marquette, Michigan

Halloween 2022

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[1] One of the giants of French Romanticism, Charles Nodier, would agree with him on this point. In his essay “Du fantastique en littérature” in the Revue de Paris in 1830, Nodier argued that: “the fantastique requires a virginal imagination and beliefs that secondary literatures lack, and which are only reproduced therein following revolutions whose passage renews everything.” (Quoted in Stableford, “Introduction,” Weird Fiction in France, p. 6.)

[2] The terms masculine and feminine Gothic were first coined by Kate Ellis in The Contested Castle: Gothic Novels and the Subversion of Domestic Ideology (1989).

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Introduction

[i] Collins, Wilkie p. 359.

[ii] Trollope, The Small House, p. 281.

[iii] Trollope, Barchester Towers, p. 424.

[iv] Braddon p. 324.

[v] Quoted in Atkinson p. 21-2.

[vi] Horner, “Introduction,” p. 1.

[vii] Reynolds, Modern Literature, Vol 1. p. iv.

[viii] Jordan.

[ix] Hale p. 31.

New Book Reveals Dracula’s French and British Gothic Ancestors

Dr. Tyler. R. Tichelaar’s new literary history, Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides, reveals how nineteenth-century French and British Gothic novelists were continually inspired by each other to create some of the most memorable characters in literature, from Quasimodo to Dracula.

Marquette, MI, January 2, 2023—Gothic literature studies usually focus on one nation’s tradition. Dr. Tyler R. Tichelaar, however, argues that the Gothic crossed the English Channel regularly, providing blood transfusions of new life into the Gothic corpus as revealed in detail in his new book Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides: The Marriage of French and British Gothic Literature, 1789-1897.

When Gothic novels are mentioned, Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) quickly comes to mind, but Dracula was only one in a long tradition of vampire stories that stretches back to John Polidori’s The Vampyre (1819). Dracula scholars today focus on the handful of British vampire stories by John Polidori, James Malcolm Rymer, and J. S. Le Fanu, as sources for Dracula, but in Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides, Tichelaar looks to the plethora of vampire texts from France by Charles Nodier, Étienne-Léon de Lamothe-Langon, Alexandre Dumas, Paul Féval, and several other authors as influential in the creation of Stoker’s masterpiece. In fact, the female vampires in Dracula make far more sense within the context of the French vampire tradition.

Beyond Dracula, French literature inspired numerous British Gothic works and was inspired by them. Tichelaar explores how early British Gothic novelists like Radcliffe, Lewis, and Scott influenced French Gothic works by Hugo, Dumas, and Sue, and those works inspired British works by William Harrison Ainsworth, George W. M. Reynolds, Charles Dickens, and many others. Besides vampires, Tichelaar examines such literary archetypes as immortals, werewolves, cursed transgressors, and redeemed Gothic wanderers. Separate chapters include thorough discussions of the city mysteries genre and depictions of secret societies and the French Revolution in Gothic novels.

Tichelaar argues that by exploring how the French and British Gothic traditions influenced each other, a new understanding arises of many literary classics from The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Count of Monte Cristo to A Tale of Two Cities and Dracula. “To explore the French and British Gothic traditions together,” says Tichelaar, “is like performing an archeological dig that exposes the missing links in Gothic development. Reading Dracula and Carmilla in the context of early French Gothic literature allows us to understand better the continuity of the Gothic tradition. Today, Paul Féval is almost unknown and largely overlooked by scholars of British literature, yet his vampire and Irish novels probably influenced Bram Stoker. Even British novelists like Ainsworth and Reynolds, who have been ignored by literary critics, provide fascinating understandings of the Gothic’s cross-cultural influence. Dickens and Stoker regularly visited France, and French authors regularly read British works, so the two literatures deserve to be read together as one Gothic literary tradition.”

Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides: The Marriage of French and British Gothic Literature includes in-depth discussions of a wide range of British and French Gothic novelists from 1789-1897, including Mrs. Radcliffe, Matthew Lewis, Sir Walter Scott, John Polidori, Charles Nodier, Victor Hugo, William Harrison Ainsworth, George Croly, Edgar Quinet, Eugène Sue, Paul Féval, George W. M. Reynolds, Alexandre Dumas, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Charles Dickens, Marie Nizet, J. S. Le Fanu, Jules Verne, and Bram Stoker. The book’s cover art by Ukrainian artist Inna Vjuzhanina perfectly complements the title, suggesting not only the marriage of these two literary traditions but how the first literary vampires, including Polidori’s Lord Ruthven, continually tried to dupe unsuspecting women into marrying them so they could avoid eternal damnation. A comprehensive index, endnotes, and an extensive bibliography complete the study.

About the Author

Tyler R. Tichelaar has a PhD in Literature from Western Michigan University and Bachelor and Master’s Degrees in English from Northern Michigan University. He owns his own publishing company, Marquette Fiction, and Superior Book Productions, a professional editing, proofreading, and book layout company. The former president of the Upper Peninsula Publishers and Authors Association, Tichelaar has been a book reviewer for Reader Views, Marquette Monthly, and the UP Book Review, and regularly blogs about Gothic, Arthurian, and Michigan literature and history. Tichelaar is the award-winning author of thirteen novels and nine nonfiction books, including The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, When Teddy Came to Town: A Novel, and Kawbawgam: The Chief, The Legend, The Man.

Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides: The Marriage of French and British Gothic Literature, 1789-1897 (ISBN: 978-0-9962400-9-3 hardcover; 978-0-9962400-8-6 paperback; 979-8-9872692-0-6) is available through local and online bookstores.

For more information, visit www.GothicWanderer.com. Publicity contact: tyler@marquettefiction.com. Review copies available upon request.

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A New Biography of Jane and Anna Maria Porter, the Mothers of Historical Fiction

In 2017, I wrote a blog post here on Jane Porter’s The Scottish Chiefs (1810), in which I lamented that more is not known about Jane Porter or her relationship with Sir Walter Scott in connection to the development of the historical novel. That gap in literary history has now been filled by a monumental biography just published by Devoney Looser titled Sister Novelists: The Trailblazing Porter Sisters, Who Paved the Way for Austen and the Brontës. The lack of information about Jane Porter available is apparent just in the fact that I was clueless she had a sister, Anna Maria Porter, who was also a historical novelist, and though Jane’s junior by three years, was published first.

Looser’s dedication to the sisters’ memory is extraordinary given the compiling of this 500-plus-page biography that must have taken her years to research and write. Between them, the sisters published twenty-six books, the best known today being Jane’s The Scottish Chiefs and Thaddeus of Warsaw, but Jane also wrote The Spirit of the Elbe, The Pastor’s Fire-Side, and Duke Christian of Luneberg, plus many more. Anna Maria’s titles included The Lake of Killarney, The Hungarian Brothers, and Don Sebastian, to name only a few. Beyond the novels, Looser had access to countless letters by the sisters that have only come to light in recent years. The letters show the depth of their affection for each other, as well as their humor, and give deep insight into the workings of their family and how they felt the need to write to support their family when their brothers were often falling into debt.

Looser’s book needs to be read to do full justice to the sisters. I will just briefly say it is invaluable for many reasons. One of the chief is how the critics of the day responded to the sisters, often suggesting they should put down their pens. We also get insight into the workings of the literary world in the first half of the nineteenth century as the sisters made deals to sell their books, including how many copies to be printed, what they were paid, and what they received for future editions. Looser often compares what they were paid to other writers, including Austen and Scott, to put the amounts in context. In addition, the sisters wrote for magazines, and they wrote plays that sadly were mostly failures, including due to being rewritten by others.

One of the book’s real marvels is the depiction of the social circles the Porter sisters existed within. They had many connections to members of the gentry and even nobility, counting dukes as their friends and a Russian princess as their sister-in-law. They continually tried to get favors in regards to their publishing through this network, but usually with little success. American publishers made a fortune off Jane’s novels yet paid her nothing. Jane also tried to acquire a pension from the government, going so far as to write Duke Christian of Luneburg about George IV’s ancestors to get his help. Instead of receiving a long-term annual payment, she was only given a few occasional and small monetary gifts that barely sustained the family.

Anna Maria Porter

The sisters’ social circles included other female authors. Brother Robert Ker Porter was an artist, which opened the art world to the sisters, plus they had many friends in theatrical circles. The result is the sisters experienced more freedom in society than one would expect, given the limited social circles of the females in Jane Austen’s novels.

And then there is the sisters’ relationship with Sir Walter Scott. I had read that Scott was friends with the Porters, but Looser makes the relationship clear that they were only acquaintances in their youth, and long before Scott took up his pen. Years later when the sisters were novelists and he was a poet, they renewed their acquaintance, but they were never really more than acquaintances. In 1814, Scott published Waverley without revealing his identity, but it was generally known he was the author. In the preface, he claimed he had begun the novel a decade before, which meant he could avoid any claim of being influenced by Jane’s The Scottish Chiefs. He also cited the names of other authors, including Maria Edgeworth, who inspired him, but the Porter sisters’ names were noticeably absent. The sisters were always cordial to him, but also resented that he never acknowledged that they had been writing historical fiction before him, and he never acknowledged it, acting as if his work were original. The sisters were clearly jealous of his popularity, though they never openly accused him of plagiarizing their works or ideas, but they did want him to acknowledge their role in the development of the historical novel. The ultimate insult came when Scott died and Jane was asked to donate to the fund to help save Abbottsford because Scott’s debts were so great. Jane had known debt all her life, yet she contributed so she would not be seen as being mean for not doing so.

Jane Porter

I do think The Scottish Chiefs a remarkable historical novel with many of the elements Scott used in his own works. (At times, it also equals or surpasses Scott in dullness, but overall, it is a masterpiece.) Of course, its style is different from Scott’s, but I don’t think anyone can deny it is a great achievement in the historical novel that predates Scott’s work. Yes, it may be more romance than historical, but it was a vast improvement on earlier historical romances like Sophia Lee’s The Recess. Whether Jane Porter or Sir Walter Scott “invented” the historical novel may be argued for generations to come, but as much as I like much of Sir Walter Scott’s work, I would give the laurels to Jane as the true originator. As for Anna Maria Porter, I have yet to read any of her work, but I am sure she deserves partial credit given how the sisters worked together in partnership, not helping to write each other’s novels, but deliberately taking turns writing novels to support the family.

While Looser’s book is a tremendous achievement and one of the best literary biographies I have read in years, it is not without a few shortcomings. Despite the copious endnotes that list her sources, there is no proper bibliography. I would have liked to see a list of all her sources, especially those by the other few Porter scholars like Thomas McLean, whom she quotes. I also feel that the descriptions of the Porter sisters’ novels could be more extensive. Looser briefly tells us what each novel is about, but she does not go into detailed plot summaries, much less real literary criticism. I can understand this minimalism with the lesser known novels, but I think Thaddeus of Warsaw and The Scottish Chiefs could have had entire chapters devoted just to analyzing the works. Looser must have wanted to focus more on the sisters and their lives than the details of their work. Notably, Looser does not give the novels much praise herself, which suggests while the sisters are fascinating, perhaps their work is less so. I hope not since I think both Thaddeus of Warsaw and The Scottish Chiefs extremely readable and interesting, with a few lapses here and there, but if they are the two that became most famous, it’s possible the others are sub-par. Only reading them will tell. Hopefully, volumes of criticism on the Porter sisters’ novels are yet to be written.

A dramatic moment in The Scottish Chiefs, painted by N. C. Wyeth

I sincerely wish Looser’s book paves the way for a renewed interest in the Porter sisters. With the exception of Jane’s two best-known works, no critical editions exist of the other novels. Most of them can be bought in poorly produced editions online at Amazon—the kind that are often reprints with small fonts and scarcely readable. Instead, scholarly editions of all their books need to be produced, as well as ebook editions that contain their complete works so readers of Looser’s fascinating biography can get to know the sisters better.

I thank Looser for her devotion to making the Porter sisters real people who live again two centuries after they created a genre that remains one of the most popular in literature today.

Addendum: After Devoney Looser read my blog, she wrote to tell me she will be posting a bibliography at her website https://www.sisternovelists.com/

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Tyler Tichelaar, PhD, is the author of The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, the upcoming Vampire Grooms and Spectre Brides: The Marriage of French and British Gothic Literature, King Arthur’s Children: A Study in Fiction and Tradition, Haunted Marquette: Ghost Stories from the Queen City, and many other fiction and nonfiction titles. Visit Tyler at www.GothicWanderer.com, www.ChildrenofArthur.com, and www.MarquetteFiction.com.

William Harrison Ainsworth: Father of the Second Gothic Golden Age

Stephen Carver’s new biography of William Harrison Ainsworth (1805-1882), The Man Who Outsold Dickens: The Life & Work of W. H. Ainsworth, is an eye-opening look at the man who helped to start what I consider the Second Gothic Golden Age. The first Gothic Golden Age I would define as from 1789-1820, beginning with the publication of Mrs. Radcliffe’s first novel, The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne and ending with the publication of Charles Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer. With the publication of Ainsworth’s Rookwood in 1834, the Gothic was heavily revived and a new Gothic age began that would extend into the 1850s, ending roughly with the publication of George W. M. Reynolds’ last Gothic novel The Necromancer (1852). That is not to say the Gothic did not remain popular during the interim—Scott himself used Gothic elements in his novels, most notably in Anne of Geierstein—but Rookwood created a new form of Gothic that combined historical detail with Gothic elements on a level not done previously. In its wake would be many more Gothic novels by Ainsworth, as well as Gothic works by George W. M. Reynolds, and other English novels that used Gothic elements, including the works of Bulwer-Lytton, Dickens, and the Brontës, as well as several French Gothic novels.

A front page of “Reynolds sMiscellany” depicts England’s three bestselling authors of the day, Dickens, Bulwer-Lytton, and Ainsworth. It is interesting that George W. M. Reynolds would pay such homage to these authors since Dickens particularly hated him for writing unauthorized sequels and spin-offs of his books.

Carver’s book is a straightforward biography that details the entire life of Ainsworth, while also taking time to give plot descriptions, literary criticism, and the reception history of the various books Ainsworth wrote. I will discuss here just some of the more interesting points Carver discusses, especially in relation to Ainsworth’s Gothic works.

Ainsworth’s life and career spanned most of the nineteenth century and the Romantic and Victorian periods. Ainsworth’s interest in the Gothic began early. In 1819, at age fourteen, he wrote the story “The Specter Bridegroom.” His early horror stories were influenced by Scott’s ballads, but this story also inverted Washington Irving’s “The Spectre Bride” by having the bridegroom not only be the specter but the Wandering Jew, showing Ainsworth was familiar with the Wandering Jew fiction of the period. (For more about the Wandering Jew in Gothic fiction, see my book The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption.) Carver says this story’s violent climax recalls those of William Beckford’s Vathek (1786) and Matthew Lewis’ The Monk (1795). (Notably, the Wandering Jew made his first appearance in Gothic fiction in The Monk.)

Another early Gothic work was December Tales (1823), Ainsworth’s second published work when he was only eighteen. Among the Gothic stories is a wandering immortal who sells his soul for eternal life so he can revenge himself on his enemies; then he has eternity to repent. He experiences such agonies as drowning without dying, which predates the similar situation in Varney the Vampire (1846), whose title character continually tries to destroy himself, only to have nature continually thwart him—the volcano he jumps in spits him back out; the sea he tries to drown in casts him ashore.

As early as Ainsworth’s first novel, Sir John Chiverton (1826), Ainsworth was being compared to Scott and Radcliffe and blending the Gothic with historical romance. Carver refers to Sir John Chiverton as possibly the first example of nineteenth century literature struggling to establish a new form of English Gothic since it is set in England (39).

In the preface to later editions of Rookwood, Ainsworth talks about writing the novel with the trappings of Radcliffe, but with an English setting. He discusses the design of romance and his intent to start a Gothic revival, so the preface is really like a Gothic manifesto for a Gothic revival. I have written extensively about Rookwood elsewhere at this blog, so I won’t discuss it further here, but it is the seminal work of this Gothic revival. I will note that according to Carver, Scott’s St. Ronan’s Well (1823) appears to have been an influence on the novel, but Scott’s work is a comedy of manners, while Ainsworth uses the Cain and Abel motif, the Gothic, and revenge tragedy to create a Gothic extravaganza.

Rookwood’s success led Ainsworth to be the darling of literary circles. He was befriended by Bulwer-Lytton, invited to Lady Blessington’s literary evenings, and hailed as the English Victor Hugo and successor to Sir Walter Scott.

Carver goes on to discuss Jack Sheppard (1839) and its role in the Newgate novels controversy, which I will skip over discussing here.

The opening of Windsor Castle

Other novels of Gothic interest include Guy Fawkes (1841), which is a Gothic tragedy with a Catholic hero. The novel’s family is named Radcliffe, which may be a homage to Mrs. Radcliffe. According to Carver, Ainsworth transforms Guy Fawkes from a terrorist into a revolutionary leader and hero in the novel (119).

The Tower of London (1840) is interesting also because it turns an English monument into a setting of Gothic horror. It also shows the influence of Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris (1831). In that novel, Hugo was treating the cathedral as if it were itself a book, “a book of stone.” Similarly, in Ainsworth’s novel, the history of England is written in the edifice of the Tower of London. (128). Like Notre Dame Cathedral, which was in disrepair when Hugo wrote his novel, the Tower of London was abandoned and neglected when the novel was published. Ainsworth’s novel resulted in the Tower becoming popular and being restored as a Victorian museum. The novel would be so popular that it would be referenced at length in Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), nearly half a century later. Carver goes on to discuss how in successive novels Ainsworth turned national landmarks into Gothic castles, an epic and ongoing process of “psycho-geography” (130).

Significantly, while Ainsworth wrote Gothic novels, he continued to blend historical details into them. The Tower of London is about Lady Jane Grey, and Windsor Castle (1843) and Old Saint Paul’s (1841) also have historical backgrounds. Ainsworth always did a lot of research for his novels and he even includes indexes in some of them (149). In Windsor Castle, Henry VIII sells his soul to marry Jane Seymour, and the mythical Herne the Hunter helps the characters to save their souls. While Herne goes back to Shakespeare, Ainsworth creates his own version of Herne. He did the same with other legends and historical personages in a way that made them sink into the national consciousness so that what people thought they knew about their own English history and myth was really stuff they had learned from Ainsworth (151-2).

Other Gothic works include Auriol, or: The Elixir of Life (1850) and The Lancashire Witches (1849), both of which I’ve discussed at length in separate blog posts.

Worth mentioning, however, is that Ainsworth draws on Milton’s Paradise Lost (1667) and the depiction of Eve for his female witches. Carver argues that Ainsworth was in the feminist camp. In Jack Sheppard, his powerful sexual women are the ones left standing. In The Lancashire Witches, the witches are trail-blazing female characters because they self-emancipate. Eve in Paradise Lost dreams of flying, while Ainsworth’s witches do fly. Furthermore, the witches have a matriarchal dynasty, rather than one based in patriarchal authority. They are women of self-realization and determinism (163-66). Carver suggests that Alice, who has a mark on her forehead, may have inspired Stoker, in Dracula (1897), to give Mina the mark on her forehead (166). I think that a bit of a stretch given that the Mark of Cain was common in Gothic literature, but I will admit that usually it is on the forehead of a male and Ainsworth was the first to place it on a female’s forehead.

The Lancashire Witches was Ainsworth’s last major success and his last truly Gothic work, but he went on to write many more novels, most with Lancashire settings and about Lancashire history. Most notably, The Manchester Rebels of the Fatal ’45 (1873) discusses how Manchester raised a regiment to help support Bonnie Prince Charlie and is comparable to Scott’s Waverley (1814).

Ainsworth’s novels were popular enough in his time to be translated into German, Dutch, French, and Russian, and to sell well in America. In fact, Jesse and Frank James read or knew of them because they signed their letters to the newspapers as “Jack Sheppard” (212).

The Tower of London’s opening pages.

No doubt, Ainsworth deserves more recognition for his contributions to literature and his role in influencing many of his contemporary authors as well as those who came after him. An additional treat in reading this biography is how in-depth Carver is about the early Victorian publishing industry, particularly novel serialization, and we are given insight into Ainsworth’s relationships with Dickens, Thackeray, George W. Reynolds, his illustrator Cruikshank, and several other authors.

In the “L’Envoi” section that concludes the book, Carver provides an excellent summary of Ainsworth’s role in literature:

“In Ainsworth’s long life, we can see not only the struggle and commitment that necessarily comes of laying down one’s life for literature, but in his professional and personal relationships with friends and foes alike, the entire literary and cultural milieu of his age. And beyond this, there is the evolution of the English novel itself, from Romanticism to Realism, from Scott to Dickens. Writers like Ainsworth and his forgotten friends represent the transition, a dynamic period of literary production that was neither Regency nor Victorian but something in between, in which genres were born, merged and abandoned with dizzying speed.” (213)

Consequently, I feel Ainsworth is the link between the older Gothic novels of Radcliffe and a newer form of Gothic, which in Ainsworth’s novels meant a more historical Gothic, one also set in England, one valuable in itself, but that also paved the way for later works like Varney the Vampire and Dracula.

Ainsworth’s role in the evolution of the Gothic novel definitely deserves further exploration. I applaud Stephen Carver for this new biography that will raise new appreciation of Ainsworth, the author who not only rivaled his friend Dickens but inspired so many other great writers.

Stephen Carver also has a blog titled Ainsworth & Friends that is worth visiting.

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Tyler Tichelaar, PhD, is the author of King Arthur’s Children: A Study in Fiction and Tradition, The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, The Children of Arthur novel series, Haunted Marquette: Ghost Stories from the Queen City, and many other titles. Visit Tyler at www.GothicWanderer.com, www.ChildrenofArthur.com, and www.MarquetteFiction.com.

Rookwood: The Gothic Family Plot Taken to the Extreme

William Harrison Ainsworth’s 1834 novel Rookwood took the literary world by storm in its day, and although it is largely forgotten now, its influence lingers on in much better known works of literature.

William Harrison Ainsworth, painted by Daniel Maclise

In Rookwood, Ainsworth wanted to write a Gothic novel in the style of Walpole and Radcliffe, but at the same time, he was heavily influenced by the rise of the historical novel, particularly by Sir Walter Scott, and so he set the novel in England in the reign of George II in 1737. This decision was also partly made because of his long-time interest in the famous highwayman Dick Turpin, who figures as a main character in the novel, and reflects the influence of the Newgate novels of the time, novels which focused upon criminals.

Anne Williams, in her book Art of Darkness: The Poetics of Gothic, has said “Gothic plots are family plots; Gothic romance is family” (22-3). Nothing could be truer of Rookwood, which has one of the most complex family inheritance storylines of any novel ever written.

The novel opens at the manor of Rookwood Place. The owner Sir Piers Rookwood has recently died after a bough of an ancient tree is found on the ground. Family legend says a death always follows the dropping of a branch from the tree. Sir Piers’ son Ranulph is believed to be the true heir to Rookwood Place, but Peter Bradley, the estate’s keeper, reveals to his grandson Luke Bradley that he is really Sir Piers’ legitimate and oldest son. Sir Piers had married Peter Bradley’s daughter, and Peter brings Luke into the family vault to show him his mother’s body and even the hand bearing the wedding ring. In a grotesque moment, Luke takes his mother’s hand and ring as proof of his legitimate birth. Not surprisingly, we also learn Luke’s parents were married by a Jesuit priest, Father Checkley. The Gothic loved to pick on Catholics, and the Jesuits were frequently manipulative plotters in Gothic storylines, especially in Eugene Sue’s The Wandering Jew (1846). Rookwood, however, may be the first use of Jesuits in a Gothic plot.

Peter Bradley now plots to marry Luke to his cousin Eleanor Mowbray, the daughter of Sir Piers’ sister. However, Ranulph is also in love with Eleanor. Luke is not interested in Eleanor at first. Rather, he has been raised by gypsies and is in love with a young gypsy named Sybil Lovel. At his grandfather’s insistence on the marriage to Eleanor, however, Luke finally gives way.

Eleanor Mowbray comes to Rookwood Place with her mother for Sir Piers’ funeral and under the belief she will marry Ranulph. However, their carriage is waylaid and they find themselves among the gypsies. Dick Turpin, at this point, intercedes to help Luke marry Eleanor. However, at the ceremony performed among the gypsies, Luke is fooled into marrying Sybil. Sybil, realizing Luke does not love her, kills herself. Sybil’s grandmother then takes revenge by poisoning a lock of Sybil’s hair and giving it to Luke, which eventually results in his death.

Rookwood’s cover page

After Luke’s death, Peter Bradley reveals that he is really Alan Rookwood, the brother of Reginald Rookwood, the father of Piers. (This makes the family tree extremely complicated since Luke’s parents were first cousins and he also has attempted to marry his first cousin.) Ranulph’s mother, Maud, who has been scheming for her son, now manages to find herself accidentally locked inside the family tomb with Peter Bradley, in one of the most terrifying moments in the novel as they realize they will die before they are ever found. In the end, Ranulph and Eleanor, the only surviving members of the family, marry.

The plot is more complicated than my summary, and it includes a long chase of Dick Turpin by the law, which goes on for many chapters and was said to thrill readers, although the modern reader wonders why Dick is really in the novel at all and wants to get back to the dysfunctional family plot.

The novel would win no awards for subtlety or even style, but it is a rousing good story for the most part. It is sensational and at times gory—who would want to carry around their long-dead mother’s hand? It is also amoral. The reader is not clear whom to cheer for. At times, it seems like Ainsworth is on Luke’s side as the rightful heir, but critic Stephen Carver in his article “The Design of Romance: Rookwood, Scott, and the Gothic,” argues that Luke’s fatal flaw is his lust for power, property, and revenge for his mother, which is why he fails in the end. Furthermore, Luke is driven on by his grandfather’s own desire for revenge upon the family—his own family.

As stated earlier, Ainsworth’s goal was to write a novel like Radcliffe. In the novel’s 1849 preface, he states, “I resolved to attempt a story in the bygone style of Mrs. Radcliffe,—which had always inexpressible charms for me,—substituting an old English squire, an old English manorial residence, and an old English highwayman, for the Italian marchese, the castle, and the brigand of the great mistress of Romance.” He succeeded in doing so, and notably, like Mrs. Radcliffe, he shies away from any actual supernatural events, although at times the characters think supernatural things are happening, and there are both family curses and legends and contradicting curses and legends. Like Mrs. Radcliffe, Ainsworth also sprinkles poetry throughout the novel, most of it in the form of songs, many of them about highwaymen and of questionable merit—Mrs. Radcliffe was no great poet herself. The songs tend to delay the action for the modern reader, but they have some charm.

The Bridal scene by George Cruikshank who did several illustrations for the novel.

Sir Walter Scott’s influence is prevalent in the novel’s historical setting in England—one of the first Gothic novels to be set in England rather than abroad. Ainsworth is less interested, however, in the historical drama of the period that Scott tried to depict in his own works. Stephen Carver, in the article referenced above, argues that Scott’s poetry was a greater influence on Ainsworth than his fiction.

Having just reread Notre-Dame de Paris, which was the subject of my last blog post, Victor Hugo’s novel was strongly in my mind as I read Rookwood, and consequently, I felt the influence of Hugo throughout. Given that Notre-Dame de Paris was published in French in 1831 and in English as The Hunchback of Notre Dame in 1833, it is very likely Ainsworth read the novel before or while writing Rookwood. Furthermore, Ainsworth references Hugo in his preface along with several other authors, stating:

“The chief object I had in view in making the present essay was to see how far the infusion of a warmer and more genial current into the veins of old Romance would succeed in reviving her fluttering and feeble pulses. The attempt has succeeded beyond my most sanguine expectation. Romance, if I am not mistaken, is destined shortly to undergo an important change. Modified by the German and French writers—by Hoffman, Tieck, Hugo, Dumas, Balzac, and Paul Lecroix (le Bibliophile Jacob)—the structure commenced in our own land by Horace Walpole, Monk Lewis, Mrs. Radcliffe, and Maturin, but left imperfect and inharmonious, requires, now that the rubbish which choked up its approach is removed, only the hand of the skilful architect to its entire renovation and perfection.”

It is noteworthy here that Ainsworth does not list Scott among the English writers of romance. Of course, that is not to say all these writers were influences upon Ainsworth since he wrote the preface in 1849, fifteen years after the novel was first published, and Dumas, for example, did not begin publishing until a few years after the novel’s publication. However, Hugo’s influence seems highly likely, especially since after the novel was published, Ainsworth was praised as “The English Victor Hugo” (Carver p. 4).

Turpin’s Flight Through Edmonton, also by Cruikshank

While the comparison to Hugo may be general because Ainsworth had written a popular Gothic and historical novel like Hugo, the influence seems more apparent in the sort of lack of a moral to the work, just as Hugo’s novel, as I argued in my previous blog post, presents an existential or amoral viewpoint. Certainly, Ranulph seems no more moral than Luke, and Luke has more reason to behave in dastardly ways because of his being cheated from his inheritance. None of the characters are overly moral, but the theme of revenge does suggest Luke fails due to his lust for property, as Carver suggests. In any case, as with Notre-Dame de Paris, we are left with bodies littering the novel’s pages and most of the characters dead because of their inability to control their passions. As scholar Heather Glen states, Dick Turpin, Luke, and other Newgate heroes seem driven to break the law to right the injustices of society (Glen xxii), and Luke here believes himself wronged and trying to right that wrong. This position of the hero also makes him an outcast in society, a type of Gothic wanderer, who is not a transgressor, but rather feels society has transgressed against him, and consequently, he must transgress against society to right the first transgression.

As for Rookwood’s influence, one has to wonder if the revenge theme played into the creation of Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo. Dumas’ Edmond Dantes also seeks revenge after being wronged. He just carries it out far more intelligently than Luke does.

More definitely, the novel influenced the works of Charlotte and Emily Brontë. In her introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of Charlotte Brontë’s Tales of Angria, Heather Glen discusses Rookwood’s influence on the Angria stories. She says the character of Henry Hastings in the stories is an ironic treatment of Rookwood (Glen xxiii). In my opinion, Jane Eyre also well may have been influenced by Rookwood. The gypsies who are primary characters in Rookwood may have inspired Mr. Rochester dressing up as a gypsy in Jane Eyre. Notably, Brontë has Jane call this supposed gypsy a “Sybil,” which is the name of the primary gypsy character in Rookwood. Of course, the name is also appropriate since a Sybil can foresee the future and Brontë’s fake gypsy claims to be a fortune teller. Furthermore, while Sybil in Rookwood does not appear to be prophetic, the novel has several prophecies, one of which Sybil helps to fulfill.

Even more so, in reading Rookwood, one cannot help thinking of Wuthering Heights. The complicated family relationships of Rookwood all relate to a family fight over who will inherit the property. It is interesting that Luke has to prove himself the legitimate heir. Critics have often speculated that in Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff may be Mr. Earnshaw’s bastard child. Heathcliff is also referred to as a gypsy in the novel since his origins are unknown. Luke was himself raised by the gypsies. Like Luke, Heathcliff tries to gain control of the family property. However, Heathcliff succeeds where Luke fails. Regardless, in the end, Heathcliff dies and the property returns to the only two remaining descendants of the Earnshaws and Lintons. Similarly, in Rookwood, the only remaining family members inherit the property. Emily Brontë must have had Rookwood in the back of her mind and simplified the family plot while also whitewashing the taint of illegitimacy from the novel enough just to hint at it for Heathcliff rather than make it blatant.

The Vault by Sir John Gilbert

Finally, I can’t help wondering if the creators of the Gothic TV soap opera Dark Shadows (1966-1971) were influenced by Rookwood. The house in the series is named Collinwood—is the similar name a coincidence? There is no plot of fighting over the inheritance of the property, but the series chronicles the Collins family over two centuries. Most notably, in the episodes set in 1897, there are gypsy characters, a dismembered hand of great power (which recalls Luke’s mother’s hand), and a family curse. The very complicated family tree of the series also reflects the complicated, multigenerational family tree of Rookwood.

Rookwood has been almost forgotten today, but it is a notable link in the chain of Gothic literature between Radcliffe and Scott and later writers like Dickens, George W. M. Reynolds, and the Brontës. I hope this article helps to create renewed interest in Rookwood and all of Ainsworth’s works.

(For other reviews at The Gothic Wanderer of Ainsworth’s work, visit Auriol, or the Elixir of Life and The Lancashire Witches.)

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Tyler Tichelaar, PhD, is the author of King Arthur’s Children: A Study in Fiction and Tradition, The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, The Children of Arthur novel series, Haunted Marquette: Ghost Stories from the Queen City, and many other titles. Visit Tyler at www.GothicWanderer.com, www.ChildrenofArthur.com, and www.MarquetteFiction.com.

Anne of Geierstein: Sir Walter Scott’s Most Gothic Novel

Anne of Geierstein (1829) is Sir Walter Scott’s most Gothic novel and probably the last true masterpiece that he wrote. It was well-received in its time and holds up remarkably well still today. Despite Scott’s typical slow-pacing, the reader is moved on from one dramatic scene to the next so that the novel makes an overall powerful impression.

An illustration of Arthur Philipson trying to cross over the ravine. Illustrator and source unknown.

The story begins with a merchant named Phillipson and his son Arthur who are English but traveling through Switzerland in the 1470s. When the son takes a path that results in his nearly falling off a cliff, he finds himself perched in a tree with a ravine below him that he dare not try to cross. Enter Anne, our heroine, who, as nimble as a mountain goat, jumps across to the tree and convinces him he can jump back, which makes him feel a bit silly considering we will soon find out he is a brave knight and that he and his father are traveling in disguise.

The Philipsons continue their journey with the party of Anne’s uncle, whom they learn was the rightful heir to Geierstein, a nearby castle, but he had given up his title to his brother, Albert of Arnheim, who is rather a villain. Anne is under her uncle’s protection. Of course, young Arthur soon falls in love with Anne.

But Arthur and his father have other concerns. Arthur’s father is the Earl of Oxford and they are traveling to the Duke of Burgundy to enlist his aid in the Lancastrian cause. This eventually leads them also to Anjou where lives Margaret of Anjou in exile now that her husband Henry VI and her son Edward have both died. She lives at her father’s court in misery while her father tries to distract her with frivolous entertainments.

Enough about the plot. Let’s get to the Gothic moments. The moment Arthur finds himself facing jumping from the tree across a gulf might be termed the first Gothic moment, for it is a moment of fear for Arthur, even though there is nothing supernatural about it. Switzerland with its mountains and sublime landscape had already been a popular setting for other Gothic novels, notably Frankenstein (1818), so it is an appropriate Gothic setting in which the landscape creates fear and awe.

Next, Arthur’s interest in Anne results in his hearing the history of her family. Her grandfather, Herman, Baron of Arnheim, took a stranger into his castle who needed his protection. Although the stranger, a Persian named Dannischemend, says he could only live for a year and a day, he begs the Baron to protect him during that time. The baron agrees in exchange that Dannischemend teach him his secrets since he’s a member of the Sacred Fire. The Persian agrees to this, but when the year comes to an end, he asks for his daughter to have shelter in the castle, and in exchange, she will then also teach the baron. However, the Persian warns the baron not to fall in love with her. Despite this warning, they do fall in love and are eventually wed. The legend then says that they had a daughter, and at the christening, the baron allowed a drop or two of holy water to fall on his bride, who then turned to ash. The story recalls that of the French medieval fairy Melusine, and many other fairy-type characters who were pagan and unable to be baptized or to live as Christians. Although later Arthur hears the truth of what happened to Anne’s grandmother and knows he should dismiss this story as a false legend, his next encounter with Anne makes him wonder whether there may be some truth to Anne having a supernatural parentage.

Several illustrations from the Collier Books edition of The Waverley novels. These illustrations for Anne of Geierstein depict scenes of Switzerland and Arthur being visited in the dungeon by Anne.

More specifically Gothic is the moment when Arthur finds himself imprisoned in a castle, only to have Anne and another woman appear to him through means inexplicable at first, making her appear like an elemental spirit. He cannot explain how these women entered the prison, and being under a vow, Anne cannot speak to him, which adds to the mystery. Of course, Anne leads Arthur out of the prison. Eventually, Anne explains how she was able to appear in Arthur’s prison, and any hint at the supernatural is resolved, just as it would be in one of Radcliffe’s novels.

Perhaps the most stunning Gothic moment in the novel is when Arthur’s father rents a room in an inn. As he is lying in the bed, he finds himself suddenly strapped to the bed as a prisoner. The bed is then lowered through the floor into a mysterious subterranean chamber where he becomes the prisoner of the Holy Vehme, a secret organization that has taken upon itself to judge men for their crimes. It is also known as the Initiated, the Wise Men, and the Secret Tribunal. Dressed as monks, the members of the Holy Vehme interrogate Philipson in a manner that recalls scenes of the Inquisition in Radcliffe’s The Italian (1797) and Maturin’s Melmoth the Wanderer (1820). Although accused of slandering the Holy Vehme, Philipson is finally set free.

Scott now begins to cast aside the love story and focus on Arthur and his father’s mission. They travel to Anjou to meet Margaret and her father. These scenes are some of the most powerful in the novel as we are introduced to a King Rene who engages in merriment and a Queen Margaret who is grieving her losses. Margaret, unable to enjoy her father’s frolicsome ways, does not live in his castle but at the nearby monastery. In a dramatic scene, Arthur meets with Margaret at the monastery to tell her what luck they’ve had negotiating with the King of Burgundy to aid the Lancastrian cause. Margaret is willing to make sure Burgundy gets Provence from her father in exchange for his aid, though her father is less willing to agree to it. Margaret and Arthur meet on a parapet where Arthur finds her seated with her disheveled hair tossing about in the wind. She is described as noble and beautiful, yet having ghastly and wasted features. Arthur feels terror because a storm is approaching, and he beseeches her to go inside, but she refuses because monks and walls have ears.

Margaret tells Arthur that there is a cavern beneath the monastery where in pagan days people went to consult an oracle whose voice comes up from the cavern and is known as Lou Garagoule. Roman generals once consulted it, but this oracle is deaf to Margaret’s inquiries. This scene shows the desperation the queen feels in seeking supernatural aid. It reminds one of Gothic wanderer figures willing to sell their soul to the devil to achieve what they desire, including forbidden knowledge of the future. Margaret, in her desperate and bereaved state, certainly wins the prize as the most Gothic wanderer type character in the novel. Soon after Arthur’s meeting with her, Margaret dies.

The central illustration depicts Arthur and Margaret on the parapet.

The novel seems to lose its impact once Margaret dies. Anne is absent from the novel for about a third of it during this time. Toward the end there are some battles that then lead to a happy ending with Arthur and Anne being married. For a while the couple live in Switzerland until Henry VII gains the throne of England, and then they travel there to live and Anne becomes an ornament at the English court.

Sir Walter Scott, though we might consider him the father of the historical novel, takes many liberties with history in Anne of Geierstein, so we might term this book more akin to a Gothic romance in keeping with Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels than just historical fiction, despite the introduction of many historical characters. I consider it romance because of the broad use Scott makes of history to serve his narrative purposes rather than letting history create the outline for his narrative. No self-respecting present-day historical novelist would play fast and loose with history to the extent Scott does. He allows Margaret to die in 1476 when she did not actually die until 1482, and he allows King Rene to outlive her when he actually died in 1480. Worse, while the Earl of Oxford did support the Lancastrian cause, he never even had a son named Arthur so our main hero and our heroine are completely fictional.

Regardless, Scott’s portraits of his characters are remarkable, and I think his depiction of Margaret of Anjou easily rivals that of Shakespeare in the Henry VI plays. Also fascinating is Scott’s use of the Holy Vehme in the novel which surely must have inspired George W. M. Reynolds’ Faust, or The Secret of the Tribunals (1847), which also features the Holy Vehme in its plot. Scott also knows how to take a fascinating moment in history and make it come alive in complex ways as reflected in his depictions of the court of Burgundy, the court of King Rene, and the various political implications involved. Scott may not always be historically accurate, but he makes history come alive, and he inspires the reader to want to learn more about the history behind his novels. At the same time, his characters reflect the true pathos and the broken hearts that result from some of history’s most tragic moments in a way few reliable historians can accomplish.

A volume of the 9 volume set of Waverley novels published by Collier in New York. No date is printed in the book but a former owner wrote a date of 1887 in one volume. I have owned them since 1993.

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Tyler Tichelaar, PhD, is the author of King Arthur’s Children: A Study in Fiction and Tradition, The Gothic Wanderer: From Transgression to Redemption, The Children of Arthur novel series, and Haunted Marquette: Ghost Stories from the Queen City. Visit Tyler at www.GothicWanderer.com, www.ChildrenofArthur.com, and www.MarquetteFiction.com.