The
gothic novel in Ireland, c. 1760-1830 offers a
compelling account of the development of gothic literature in late-eighteenth
and early-nineteenth century Ireland. Countering traditional scholarly views of
the so-called ‘rise of the gothic novel’ on the one hand, and, on the other,
Irish Romantic literature, this study persuasively re-integrates a body of now
overlooked works into the history of the literary gothic as it emerged across
Ireland, Britain, and Europe between 1760 and 1830. Its twinned quantitative
and qualitative analysis of neglected Irish texts produces a new formal,
generic, and ideological map of gothic literary production in this period,
persuasively positioning Irish works and authors at the centre of a new
critical paradigm with which to understand both Irish Romantic and gothic
literary production.