American Gothic

American Gothic remains an enduringly fascinating genre, retaining its chilling hold on the imagination. This revised and expanded anthology brings together texts from the colonial era to the twentieth century including recently discovered material, canonical literary contributions from Poe and Wharton among many others, and literature from sub-genres such as feminist and ‘wilderness’ Gothic.

• Revised and expanded to incorporate suggestions from twelve years of use in many countries
• An important text for students of the expanding field of Gothic studies
• Strong representation of female Gothic, wilderness Gothic, the Gothic of race, and the legacy of Salem witchcraft
• Edited by a founding member of the International Gothic Association

List of Authors x

Chronology xi

Thematic Table of Contents xv

Preface to the Second Edition xxviii

Editorial Principles xxix

Acknowledgments xxx

Introduction 1

Cotton Mather (1663–1728) 3

“The Tryal of G. B.” 4

“The Trial of Martha Carrier” 8

A Notable Exploit; wherein, Dux Faemina Facti [The Narrative of Hannah Dustan] 10

“Abraham Panther” 12

A surprising account of the Discovery of a Lady … 12

J. Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur (1735–1813) 16

from Letters from an American Farmer: “Letter IX” 16

Charles Brockden Brown (1771–1810) 24

“Somnambulism: A Fragment” 24

Washington Irving (1783–1859) 36

“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” 36

John Neal (1793–1876) 55

“Idiosyncrasies” 55

Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) 73

“Alice Doane’s Appeal” 74

“Young Goodman Brown” 80

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) 89

“The Skeleton in Armor” 89

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) 94

“Hop-Frog” 94

“The Cask of Amontillado” 100

“The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” 104

“The Fall of the House of Usher” 110

Five Poems 121

“The Raven” 121

“The City in the Sea” 124

“Ulalume” 125

“Annabel Lee” 127

“Dream-Land” 128

Herman Melville (1819–1891) 131

“The Bell-Tower” 131

George Lippard (1822–1854) 141

from The Quaker City; or, The Monks of Monk Hall 141

Henry Clay Lewis (1825–1850) 146

“A Struggle for Life” 146

Rose Terry Cooke (1827–1892) 152

“My Visitation” 152

Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) 164

Eight Poems 164

F 43 “Through lane it lay – thro’ bramble –” 164

F 340 “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” 165

F 341 “’Tis so appalling – it exhilarates –” 165

F 360 “The Soul has Bandaged moments –” 166

F 407 “One need not be a Chamber – to be Haunted –” 166

F 425 “’Twas like a Maelstrom, with a notch” 167

F 431 “If I may have it, when it’s dead,” 167

F 1433 “What mystery pervades a well!” 168

Louisa May Alcott (1832–1888) 170

“A Whisper in the Dark” 170

Harriet Prescott Spofford (1835–1921) 194

“Her Story” 194

“Circumstance” 206

Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914?) 215

“An Inhabitant of Carcosa” 215

“The Death of Halpin Frayser” 217

Henry James (1843–1916) 227

The Turn of the Screw 227

George Washington Cable (1844–1925) 290

“Jean-Ah Poquelin” 290

Madeline Yale Wynne (1847–1918) 304

“The Little Room” 304

Sarah Orne Jewett (1849–1909) 312

“The Foreigner” 312

Kate Chopin (1851–1904) 328

“Désirée’s Baby” 328

Mary E. Wilkins Freeman (1852–1930) 333

“Old Woman Magoun” 333
“Luella Miller” 344

Gertrude Atherton (1857–1948) 353

“The Bell in the Fog” 353

Anonymous (Folk Tale) 367

“Talking Bones” 367

Charles W. Chesnutt (1858–1932) 368

“The Dumb Witness” 369
“The Sheriff’s Children” 376

Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935) 387

“The Giant Wisteria” 387
“The Yellow Wall-Paper” 392

Elia Wilkinson Peattie (1862–1935) 403

“The House That Was Not” 403

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) 406

“The Eyes” 406

Robert W. Chambers (1865–1933) 419

“In the Court of the Dragon” 419

Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950) 425

Two Poems 425

“Nancy Knapp” 425
“Barry Holden” 425

Edwin Arlington Robinson (1868–1935) 427

Six Poems 427

“Luke Havergal” 427
“Lisette and Eileen” 428
“The Dark House” 429
“The Mill” 430
“Souvenir” 431
“Why He Was There” 431

Frank Norris (1870–1902) 432

“Lauth” 432

Stephen Crane (1871–1900) 449

“The Monster” 449

Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872–1906) 483

“The Lynching of Jube Benson” 483

Alexander Posey (1873–1908) 488

“Chinnubbie and the Owl” 488

Jack London (1876–1916) 492

“Samuel” 492

H[oward] P[hillips] Lovecraft (1890–1937) 505

“The Outsider” 505

Select Bibliography 510

Index of Titles and First Lines 513

Index to the Introductions and Footnotes 515

“This excellent anthology provides an entertaining collection of gothic works of various genres written by both canonical authors, such as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe, and less familiar American writers, such as Harriet Prescot Spofford and Ella Wilkinson Peattie ... Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-and upper-division undergraduates; general readers.” (Choice, 1 January 2014)

"One of the main strengths of this collection lies in the fact that it places alongside the intelligent selection of extracts from authors already rightly well associated with the genre contributions from lesser known figures such as George Lippard. John Neal, Charles W. Chestnutt, and Cotton Mather, to name but a few. The edition also benefits greatly from a much greater acknowledgement of the traditionally underlooked contributions to the genre made by female authors… The anthology's thoughtful selection of texts and authors, and useful, practical, scholarly apparatus mean that it should be an immensely useful resource for anyone teaching on courses related to this ever-expanding and influential subsection of American literary studies." - Bernice Murphy, Trinity College Dublin

Charles L. Crow is Professor Emeritus of English at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, USA, and has been a visiting scholar or lecturer at universities in Austria, the Czech Republic, China, and Croatia. He edited the first edition of this volume for Blackwell in 1999 and has written monographs and articles on several nineteenth- and twentieth-century American writers. A founding member of the International Gothic Association, he is also editor of A Companion to the Regional Literatures of America (Wiley-Blackwell, 2003).

The chilling creativity of the American Gothic has retained its power to attract readers since it burst onto the literary scene in the eighteenth century, yet it has been the object of serious scholarship for only a few decades. Edited by a founding member of the International Gothic Association, the new edition of this anthology incorporates the whole range of factual and imaginative writing, from Cotton Mather’s account of the witchcraft trials in the colonial era, through the poetry of Poe, Dickinson, and Longfellow and unsettling tales both long (Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw)and short (the anonymous “Talking Bones”), to the beginning of modernism in the twentieth century.

The collection demonstrates the startling abundance of themes explored by these writers and reflects contemporary academic perspectives, with generous selections from genres such as feminist and “wilderness” Gothic. This new edition benefits from more than ten years of suggestions from readers and teachers while still offering prose and poetry from luminaries such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Henry James, Stephen Crane, Jack London, and Edith Wharton. It includes recently unearthed as well as canonical material and provides an unflinching view of America’s secrets and fears: the thoughts that have been repressed, silenced, or forbidden. All editorial materials have been revised for this new edition, which includes brand-new selections such as the captivity narrative of Hannah Dustan, Madeline Yale Wynne’s “The Little Room,” Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper,” and H. P. Lovecraft’s “The Outsider.”

“This anthology is comprehensive and authoritative and will be an essential source for scholars and students for years to come. Professor Crow is to be congratulated for the meticulous care he has taken to introduce authors and for the extraordinary inclusiveness of the material selected.”—Dr Andrew Smith, University of Sheffield

“This is the definitive anthology of American Gothic tales, the one that offers the most representative range of major authors and texts, in addition to excellent introductions and helpful annotations. All of this has only been enhanced in this Second Edition, since now there is even a wider range of important Gothic works for students and more advanced scholars to study and interpret. For reading and understanding the American Gothic short story, then, there is no better single volume anywhere.” —Jerrold E. Hogle, University of Arizona