"Jane Eyre," By Charlotte Bronte, --- [A masterpiece!!!]...

The novel is a first-person narrative from the perspective of the title character. The novel's setting is somewhere in the north of England, late in the reign of George III (1760–1820).^[a]It goes through five distinct stages: Jane's childhood at Gateshead Hall, where she is emotionally and physically abused by her aunt and cousins; her education at Lowood School, where she gains friends and role models but suffers privations and oppression; her time as governess at Thornfield Hall, where she falls in love with her Byronic employer, Edward Rochester; her time with the Rivers family, during which her earnest but cold clergyman cousin, St. John Rivers, proposes to her; and her reunion with, and marriage to, her beloved Rochester. During these sections, the novel provides perspectives on a number of important social issues and ideas, many of which are critical of the status quo. Literary critic Jerome Beaty opines that the close first person perspective leaves the reader "too uncritically accepting of her worldview", and often leads reading and conversation about the novel towards supporting Jane, regardless of how irregular her ideas or perspectives are.

Jane Eyre is divided into 38 chapters, and most editions are at least 400 pages long. The original publication was in three volumes, comprising chapters 1 to 15, 16 to 27, and 28 to 38; this was a common publishing format during the 19th century (see three-volume novel).

Brontë dedicated the novel's second edition to William Makepeace Thackeray.

Jane's childhood...

Young Jane argues with her guardian Mrs. Reed of Gateshead, illustration by F. H. Townsend

The novel begins with the titular character, Jane Eyre, aged 10, living with her maternal uncle's family, the Reeds, as a result of her uncle's dying wish. It is several years after her parents died of typhus. Mr. Reed, Jane's uncle, was the only person in the Reed family who was ever kind to Jane. Jane's aunt, Sarah Reed, dislikes her, treats her as a burden, and discourages her children from associating with Jane. Mrs. Reed and her three children are abusive to Jane, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. The nursemaid Bessie proves to be Jane's only ally in the household, even though Bessie sometimes harshly scolds Jane. Excluded from the family activities, Jane is incredibly unhappy, with only a doll and books for comfort.

One day, after her cousin John Reed knocks her down and she attempts to defend herself, Jane is locked in the red room where her uncle died; there, she faints from panic after she thinks she has seen his ghost. She is subsequently attended to by the kindly apothecary Mr. Lloyd to whom Jane reveals how unhappy she is living at Gateshead Hall. He recommends to Mrs. Reed that Jane should be sent to school, an idea Mrs. Reed happily supports. Mrs. Reed then enlists the aid of the harsh Mr. Brocklehurst, director of Lowood Institution, a charity school for girls. Mrs. Reed cautions Mr. Brocklehurst that Jane has a "tendency for deceit", which he interprets as her being a "liar". Before Jane leaves, however, she confronts Mrs. Reed and declares that she'll never call her "aunt" again, that Mrs. Reed and her daughters, Georgiana and Eliza, are the ones who are deceitful, and that she will tell everyone at Lowood how cruelly Mrs. Reed treated her.

Lowood...

At Lowood Institution, a school for poor and orphaned girls, Jane soon finds that life is harsh, but she attempts to fit in and befriends an older girl, Helen Burns, who is able to accept her punishment philosophically. During a school inspection by Mr. Brocklehurst, Jane accidentally breaks her slate, thereby drawing attention to herself. He then stands her on a stool, brands her a liar, and shames her before the entire assembly. Jane is later comforted by her friend, Helen. Miss Temple, the caring superintendent, facilitates Jane's self-defence and writes to Mr. Lloyd, whose reply agrees with Jane's. Jane is then publicly cleared of Mr. Brocklehurst's accusations.

The 80 pupils at Lowood are subjected to cold rooms, poor meals, and thin clothing. Many students fall ill when a typhus epidemic strikes, and Jane's friend Helen dies of consumption in her arms. When Mr. Brocklehurst's maltreatment of the students is discovered, several benefactors erect a new building and install a sympathetic management committee to moderate Mr. Brocklehurst's harsh rule. Conditions at the school then improve dramatically.

The name Lowood symbolizes the "low" point in Jane's life where she was maltreated. Helen Burns is a representation of Charlotte's elder sister Maria, who died of tuberculosis after spending time at a school where the children were mistreated.

Thornfield Hall...

After six years as a student and two as a teacher at Lowood, Jane decides to leave, like her friend and confidante Miss Temple, who recently married. She advertises her services as a governess and receives one reply, from Alice Fairfax, housekeeper at Thornfield Hall. Jane takes the position, teaching Adèle Varens, a young French girl.

One night, while Jane is walking to a nearby town, a horseman passes her. The horse slips on ice and throws the rider. Despite the rider's surliness, Jane helps him to get back onto his horse. Later, back at Thornfield, she learns that this man is Edward Rochester, master of the house. Adèle is his ward, left in his care when her mother abandoned her.

At Jane's first meeting with him within Thornfield, Mr. Rochester teases her, accusing her of bewitching his horse to make him fall. He also talks strangely in other ways, but Jane is able to stand up to his initially arrogant manner. Mr. Rochester and Jane soon come to enjoy each other's company, and spend many evenings together.

Odd things start to happen at the house, such as a strange laugh, a mysterious fire in Mr. Rochester's room (from which Jane saves Rochester by rousing him and throwing water on him and the fire), and an attack on a house guest named Mr. Mason. Then Jane receives word that her aunt Mrs. Reed is calling for her, because she suffered a stroke after her son John died. Jane returns to Gateshead and remains there for a month, attending to her dying aunt. Mrs. Reed confesses to Jane that she wronged her, giving Jane a letter from Jane's paternal uncle, Mr. John Eyre, in which he asks for her to live with him and be his heir. Mrs. Reed admits to telling Mr. Eyre that Jane had died of fever at Lowood. Soon afterward, Mrs. Reed dies, and Jane helps her cousins after the funeral before returning to Thornfield.

St. John Rivers admits Jane to Moor House, illustration by F. H. Townsend

Back at Thornfield, Jane broods over Mr. Rochester's rumoured impending marriage to the beautiful and talented, but snobbish and heartless, Blanche Ingram. However, one midsummer evening, Rochester baits Jane by saying how much he will miss her after getting married, but how she will soon forget him. The normally self-controlled Jane reveals her feelings for him. Rochester is then sure that Jane is sincerely in love with him, and he proposes marriage. Jane is at first sceptical of his sincerity, but eventually believes him and gladly agrees to marry him. She then writes to her Uncle John, telling him of her happy news.

As she prepares for her wedding, Jane's forebodings arise when a strange woman sneaks into her room one night and rips her wedding veil in two. As with the previous mysterious events, Mr. Rochester attributes the incident to Grace Poole, one of his servants. During the wedding ceremony, Mr. Mason and a lawyer declare that Mr. Rochester cannot marry because he is already married to Mr. Mason's sister, Bertha. Mr. Rochester admits this is true but explains that his father tricked him into the marriage for her money. Once they were united, he discovered that she was rapidly descending into congenital madness, and so he eventually locked her away in Thornfield, hiring Grace Poole as a nurse to look after her. When Grace gets drunk, Rochester's wife escapes and causes the strange happenings at Thornfield.

It turns out that Jane's uncle, Mr. John Eyre, is a friend of Mr. Mason's and was visited by him soon after Mr. Eyre received Jane's letter about her impending marriage. After the marriage ceremony is broken off, Mr. Rochester asks Jane to go with him to the south of France, and live with him as husband and wife, even though they cannot be married. Refusing to go against her principles, and despite her love for him, Jane leaves Thornfield in the middle of the night.

Other employment...

Jane travels as far from Thornfield as she can using the little money she had previously saved. She accidentally leaves her bundle of possessions on the coach and has to sleep on the moor, and unsuccessfully attempts to trade her handkerchief and gloves for food. Exhausted and hungry, she eventually makes her way to the home of Diana and Mary Rivers, but is turned away by the housekeeper. She collapses on the doorstep, preparing for her death. St. John Rivers, Diana and Mary's brother and a clergyman, saves her. After she regains her health, St. John finds Jane a teaching position at a nearby village school. Jane becomes good friends with the sisters, but St. John remains aloof.

The sisters leave for governess jobs, and St. John becomes somewhat closer to Jane. St. John learns Jane's true identity and astounds her by telling her that her uncle, John Eyre, has died and left her his entire fortune of 20,000 pounds (equivalent to over £1.3 million in 2011. When Jane questions him further, St. John reveals that John Eyre is also his and his sisters' uncle. They had once hoped for a share of the inheritance but were left virtually nothing. Jane, overjoyed by finding that she has living and friendly family members, insists on sharing the money equally with her cousins, and Diana and Mary come back to live at Moor House.

Proposals...

Thinking Jane will make a suitable missionary's wife, St. John asks her to marry him and to go with him to India, not out of love, but out of duty. Jane initially accepts going to India but rejects the marriage proposal, suggesting they travel as brother and sister. As soon as Jane's resolve against marriage to St. John begins to weaken, she mystically hears Mr. Rochester's voice calling her name. Jane then returns to Thornfield to find only blackened ruins. She learns that Mr. Rochester's wife set the house on fire and committed suicide by jumping from the roof. In his rescue attempts, Mr. Rochester lost a hand and his eyesight. Jane reunites with him, but he fears that she will be repulsed by his condition. "Am I hideous, Jane?", he asks. "Very, sir: you always were, you know", she replies. When Jane assures him of her love and tells him that she will never leave him, Mr. Rochester again proposes, and they are married. He eventually recovers enough sight to see their firstborn son.

Love Scene From "Jane Eyre," - [I think the best version with Toby Stephens as the sexiest and most romantic Mr. Rochester EVER!!!]...

"A Visit From Saint Nicholas," --- [The complete poem by Clement Clarke Moore, 1837]...

As dry leaves before the wild hurricane fly,
When they met without obstacle, mount to the sky,
So, up to the housetop the reindeer they flew,
With a sleigh full of toys and Saint Nicholas too.
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof,
The prancing and pawing of each tiny hoof.
As I drew in my head and was turning around,
Down the chimney Saint Nicholas came with a bound!
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And, his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth and the smoke
Encircled his head like a wreath.
His eye how they twinkled!
His dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses!
His nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up in a bow.
And, the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work.
He filled every stocking, then turned with a jerk.
And, laying his finger beside his nose and giving a nod
Up the chimney he rose!
He sprang to his sled!
To his team, gave a whistle!
And, away they all flew like the down of a thistle!
But, I heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight,
"Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!"
    --- Clement Clarke Moore, 1837.



 

The Deadly Risks Of A Victorian Beauty Regime...

The deadly risks of a Victorian beauty regime:
Aspiring to classical ideals, 19th-century aristocrats applied lead, ammonia and radium powder to their skin and eyes, and bathed in arsenic springs. A splash of mercury on your eyelashes. A few drops of deadly nightshade in your eyes. A dash of ammonia for your face.
It’s not that Victorian women didn’t know these beauty practices were dangerous. They were perfectly aware that nightshade could cause blindness; that ammonia could corrode the skin. They just felt like it was worth it, according to Alexis Karl, a Brooklyn-based artist, perfumer and researcher. For “Dangerous Beauty,” an upcoming lecture at New York’s Morbid Anatomy Museum — a Brooklyn exhibition space devoted to exploring “the intersections of death, beauty and that which falls between the cracks” — Karl has been delving into the archives of Victorian beauty manuals, advice columns and old issues of Harper’s Bazaar, with a focus on England, France and the United States. In the Victorian era, Karl told Women in the World, aristocratic women were trying to achieve a set of beauty standards influenced by classical ideals. “They’re looking back at Hellenistic work — this archetype of beauty: the perfect marble statue, the perfection of form, the perfection of skin,” Karl said. Many Victorian beauties ate just enough to stay alive.
Another trend: the “dying of tuberculosis” look. Weakness and fragility were in, and “consumptives were thought to be very beautiful,” Karl said. That meant women were striving for “big, watery eyes,” an “extremely cinched waist” and “extremely pale, translucent skin.” White skin connoted “purity, innocence, health, beauty … and also class,” Karl said. “Women of money are going to have white skin — they’re not going to be working outside.” Many of the cleansers and potions Victorian women brewed contained highly toxic ingredients, like radium powder, ammonia and a kind of opium that can be extracted from lettuce stalks. Face paint usually contained lead enamel, and painting on makeup meant risking not just exposure to deadly chemicals, but to social embarrassment as well. “If they were too expressive, their faces would crack like a china doll,” Karl said. Women didn’t stop at merely applying toxins to their skin and eyes. In Bavaria, women bathed in an arsenic spring. “They were said to emerge looking like goddesses,” Karl said — “curly and white” (and poisoned). Sometimes, women even ingested toxins. Arsenic wafers were thought to improve the skin’s translucence.

Women in Victorian England...

Happy Yule...

Top Weird & Creepy Victorian Era Facts...

"The Raven," By Edgar Allen Poe...

The Raven 

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"'Tis some visiter," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door—
            Only this and nothing more."

 [show]

—Edgar Allan Poe

"Not the least obeisance made he", as illustrated by Gustave Doré (1884)

"The Raven" follows an unnamed narrator on a dreary night in December who sits reading "forgotten lore" by a dying fire as a way to forget the death of his beloved Lenore. A "tapping at [his] chamber door"^[6] reveals nothing, but excites his soul to "burning". The tapping is repeated, slightly louder, and he realizes it is coming from his window. When he goes to investigate, a raven flutters into his chamber. Paying no attention to the man, the raven perches on a bust of Pallas above the door.

Amused by the raven's comically serious disposition, the man asks that the bird tell him its name. The raven's only answer is "Nevermore". The narrator is surprised that the raven can talk, though at this point it has said nothing further. The narrator remarks to himself that his "friend" the raven will soon fly out of his life, just as "other friends have flown before" along with his previous hopes. As if answering, the raven responds again with "Nevermore".The narrator reasons that the bird learned the word "Nevermore" from some "unhappy master" and that it is the only word it knows.

Even so, the narrator pulls his chair directly in front of the raven, determined to learn more about it. He thinks for a moment in silence, and his mind wanders back to his lost Lenore. He thinks the air grows denser and feels the presence of angels, and wonders if God is sending him a sign that he is to forget Lenore. The bird again replies in the negative, suggesting that he can never be free of his memories. The narrator becomes angry, calling the raven a "thing of evil" and a "prophet".^[8] Finally, he asks the raven whether he will be reunited with Lenore in Heaven. When the raven responds with its typical "Nevermore", he is enraged, and, calling it a liar, commands the bird to return to the "Plutonian shore"^[8]—but it does not move. Presumably at the time of the poem's recitation by the narrator, the raven "still is sitting"^[8] on the bust of Pallas. The narrator's final admission is that his soul is trapped beneath the raven's shadow and shall be lifted "Nevermore".

A Bit Of Info On the Origin Of The Vampire...

The Vampire, by Philip Burne-Jones, 1897

A vampire is a being from folklore that subsists by feeding on the life essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires were undead beings that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods they inhabited when they were alive. They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the early 19th century.

Vampiric entities have been recorded in most cultures; the term vampire, previously an arcane subject, was popularised in the West in the early 19th century, after an influx of vampire superstition into Western Europe from areas where vampire legends were frequent, such as the Balkans and Eastern Europe;^[1] local variants were also known by different names, such as shtriga in Albania, vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania. This increased level of vampire superstition in Europe led to mass hysteria and in some cases resulted in corpses being staked and people being accused of vampirism.

In modern times, the vampire is generally held to be a fictitious entity, although belief in similar vampiric creatures such as the chupacabra still persists in some cultures. Early folk belief in vampires has sometimes been ascribed to the ignorance of the body's process of decomposition after death and how people in pre-industrial societies tried to rationalise this, creating the figure of the vampire to explain the mysteries of death. Porphyria was linked with legends of vampirism in 1985 and received much media exposure, but has since been largely discredited.

The charismatic and sophisticated vampire of modern fiction was born in 1819 with the publication of The Vampyre by John Polidori; the story was highly successful and arguably the most influential vampire work of the early 19th century.^[4] Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula is remembered as the quintessential vampire novel and provided the basis of the modern vampire legend. The success of this book spawned a distinctive vampire genre, still popular in the 21st century, with books, films, and television shows. The vampire has since become a dominant figure in the horror genre.  Anne Rice, author of "The Vampire Chronicles," did a lot to bring about the popularity of the sexy male vampire.  

21 Rare Vintage Christmas Photos From The Victorian Era...

"Jane Eyre," --- With Toby Stephens As The Sexiest Mr. Rochester EVER, --- [Lots of electricity & flirting!!!]...

Ten Victorian Etiquette Rules...

Gypsy Vardo History With Art & Old Photos...

The Violin Solo On The Beach With The Gypsy Girl From, --- "Queen Of The Damned"...

Yes, Gypsies know all about vampires!!!

"The Black Butler," --- [Anime set in Victorian times, about an elegant demon butler, Sebastian, and a child spy]...

The very cool, unflappable & charming Sebastian, --- above...

"Jack the Ripper," (1988) Trailer, --- [With Michael Caine, best Jack The Ripper movie]...

"From Hell," Official Trailer # , - 1, --- [Great Victorian movie, with Johnny Depp!!!]...

I remember reading the rating on the video case, after seeing it had Johnny Depp, and that it was --- "Rated R: For graphic violence and gore, nudity, drug paraphernalia, strong language, sexual situations..." and thinking, --- I'm gonna love this movie!!!

Dark Angels...

Dark angels are more beautiful and seductive than any human man could ever be.  They have figured in Gothic literature that is set in both Victorian and, especially, in modern times.

The dark angel is not loving or healing. Dark angels have no respect for humankind. They spend their time trying to tempt people to do wrong.  When the person sins and is hopeless ensnared the dark angel simply vanishes, returning to the spirit world.

Some of the most popular dark angels include:

***Abaddon – in Hebrew his name means "destruction." Abaddon is also part of the underworld where lost souls in some legends are said to lie in fire and snow. This is one of the places in Hell that Moses visited. Abaddon was a Seraphim angel in Heaven. 

***Gressil – He is also known as Cresil and is the dark angel of impurity and uncleanliness. 

***Forneus – His name originates from the Latin to translate into "oven." He is a Great Marquis of Hell and has twenty-nine legions of dark angels under his command.

Victorian Gothic Literature...

Cover of a Varney the Vampirepublication (1845)

By the Victorian era, Gothic had ceased to be the dominant genre, and was dismissed by most critics. (Indeed, the form's popularity as an established genre had already begun to erode with the success of the historical romance popularized by Sir Walter Scott.) However, in many ways, it was now entering its most creative phase. Recently readers and critics have begun to reconsider a number of previously overlooked Penny Blood or "penny dreadful" serial fictions by such authors as G.W.M. Reynolds who wrote a trilogy of Gothic horror novels: Faust(1846), Wagner the Wehr-wolf (1847) and The Necromancer (1857). Reynolds was also responsible for The Mysteries of London which has been accorded an important place in the development of the urban as a particularly Victorian Gothic setting, an area within which interesting links can be made with established readings of the work of Dickens and others. Another famous penny dreadful of this era was the anonymously authored Varney the Vampire (1847). Varney is the tale of the vampire Sir Francis Varney, and introduced many of the tropes present in vampire fiction recognizable to modern audiences — it was the first story to refer to sharpened teeth for a vampire.The formal relationship between these fictions, serialised for predominantly working class audiences, and the roughly contemporaneous sensation fictions serialised in middle class periodicals is also an area worthy of inquiry.

Edgar Allan Poe was an important reinterpreter of Gothic fiction.

An important and innovative reinterpreter of the Gothic in this period was Edgar Allan Poe. Poe focused less on the traditional elements of gothic stories and more on the psychology of his characters as they often descended into madness. Poe's critics complained about his "German" tales, to which he replied, 'that terror is not of Germany, but of the soul'. Poe, a critic himself, believed that terror was a legitimate literary subject. His story "The Fall of the House of Usher" (1839) explores these 'terrors of the soul' while revisiting classic Gothic tropes of aristocratic decay, death, and madness.^[42] The legendary villainy of the Spanish Inquisition, previously explored by Gothicists Radcliffe, Lewis, and Maturin, is based on a true account of a survivor in "The Pit and the Pendulum" (1842). The influence of Ann Radcliffe is also detectable in Poe's "The Oval Portrait" (1842), including an honorary mention of her name in the text of the story.

The influence of Byronic Romanticism evident in Poe is also apparent in the work of the Brontë sisters. Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights(1847) transports the Gothic to the forbidding Yorkshire Moors and features ghostly apparitions and a Byronic hero in the person of the demonic Heathcliff. The Brontës' fiction is seen by some feminist critics as prime examples of Female Gothic, exploring woman's entrapment within domestic space and subjection to patriarchal authority and the transgressive and dangerous attempts to subvert and escape such restriction. Emily's Cathy and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre are both examples of female protagonists in such a role. Louisa May Alcott's Gothic potboiler, A Long Fatal Love Chase (written in 1866, but published in 1995) is also an interesting specimen of this subgenre.

Elizabeth Gaskell's tales "The Doom of the Griffiths" (1858) "Lois the Witch", and "The Grey Woman" all employ one of the most common themes of Gothic fiction, the power of ancestral sins to curse future generations, or the fear that they will.

Bram Stoker, author of Dracula

The gloomy villain, forbidding mansion, and persecuted heroine of Sheridan Le Fanu's Uncle Silas (1864) shows the direct influence of both Walpole's Otranto and Radcliffe's Udolpho. Le Fanu's short story collection In a Glass Darkly (1872) includes the superlative vampire tale Carmilla, which provided fresh blood for that particular strand of the Gothic and influenced Bram Stoker's vampire novel Dracula (1897). According to literary critic Terry Eagleton, Le Fanu, together with his predecessor Maturin and his successor Stoker, form a subgenre of Irish Gothic, whose stories, featuring castles set in a barren landscape, with a cast of remote aristocrats dominating an atavistic peasantry, represent in allegorical form the political plight of colonial Ireland subjected to the Protestant Ascendancy.

The genre was also a heavy influence on more mainstream writers, such as Charles Dickens, who read Gothic novels as a teenager and incorporated their gloomy atmosphere and melodrama into his own works, shifting them to a more modern period and an urban setting, including Oliver Twist (1837–8), Bleak House (1854) (Mighall 2003) and Great Expectations (1860–61). These pointed to the juxtaposition of wealthy, ordered and affluent civilisation next to the disorder and barbarity of the poor within the same metropolis. Bleak House in particular is credited with seeing the introduction of urban fog to the novel, which would become a frequent characteristic of urban Gothic literature and film (Mighall 2007). His most explicitly Gothic work is his last novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, which he did not live to complete and which was published in unfinished state upon his death in 1870. The mood and themes of the Gothic novel held a particular fascination for the Victorians, with their morbid obsession with mourning rituals, mementos, and mortality in general.

Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) was a classic Gothic work of the 1880s, seeing many stage adaptations.

The 1880s saw the revival of the Gothic as a powerful literary form allied to fin de siecle, which fictionalized contemporary fears like ethical degeneration and questioned the social structures of the time. Classic works of this Urban Gothicinclude Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886), Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), George du Maurier's Trilby (1894), Richard Marsh's The Beetle: A Mystery (1897), Henry James' The Turn of the Screw (1898), and the stories of Arthur Machen. Some of the works of Canadian writer Gilbert Parker also fall into the genre, including the stories in The Lane that Had No Turning (1900).

The most famous Gothic villain ever, Count Dracula, was created by Bram Stoker in his novel Dracula (1897). Stoker's book also established Transylvania and Eastern Europe as the locus classicus of the Gothic. Gaston Leroux's serialized novel The Phantom of the Opera(1909–1910) is another well-known example of gothic fiction from the early 20th century.

In America, two notable writers of the end of the 19th century, in the Gothic tradition, were Ambrose Bierce and Robert W. Chambers. Bierce's short stories were in the horrific and pessimistic tradition of Poe. Chambers, though, indulged in the decadent style of Wilde and Machen, even to the extent of his inclusion of a character named 'Wilde' in his The King in Yellow

Victorian Childbirth...