Ghost Stories by Victorian Women Writers: Feminist Gothic

This examination of 32 ghost stories by 21 Victorian women writers defines a new genre, Feminist Gothic, that utilizes the Gothic structure and its uncanny atmosphere of ambiguity to deploy competing narratives that seek to undermine patriarchy by simultaneously upholding and subverting its dominant myths. While a surface reading of these tales often interprets the outer, public, overt voice as one of patriarchal appeasement, a second reading uncovers an inner, private, covert voice that undermines the first. By focusing exclusively on women’s stories and examining Victorian ghost stories by lesser-known women writers alongside those more widely disseminated and discussed, this study aims to establish a definition of Feminist Gothic that transcends the binaries of horror/terror, physical/psychological, and intrusive/liminal. It also explores the issues that haunt the Victorian female literary imagination and techniques women writers employ to incarnate and exorcise those revenants. Aimed at scholars of feminist literary criticism, Victorian literature, and the Gothic genre, this study combines close readings of primary sources with current scholarship, arranged thematically in chapters that examine women’s issues, including marriage, children, and property ownership.

Anne DeLong is Professor of English at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, USA, where she teaches courses in nineteenth-century British literature and women’s studies.