Gothic Bluebooks
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Gothic bluebooks were short forms of
gothic fiction Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror (primarily in the 20th century), is a literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name of the genre is derived from the Renaissance era use of the word "gothic", as a pejorative to mean me ...
popular in the late 18th century and early 19th century.


Description

Examples of this form of fiction are now rare, surviving only in a few collections. One of the collections where a number of gothic bluebooks have been preserved is the Corvey Library. Gothic bluebooks were descendants of the
chapbook A chapbook is a type of small printed booklet that was a popular medium for street literature throughout early modern Europe. Chapbooks were usually produced cheaply, illustrated with crude woodcuts and printed on a single sheet folded into 8, 1 ...
, trade in which had nearly disappeared by 1800. Print. They measured about three and a half to four inches wide and six to seven inches high. Many of the bluebooks contained outright
plagiarism Plagiarism is the representation of another person's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work.From the 1995 ''Random House Dictionary of the English Language, Random House Compact Unabridged Dictionary'': use or close ...
, being merely plot summaries of full-length gothic novels. Print. Almost all were abridgements of full-length gothic novels, usually without change of the title or characters' names from the original. Gothic bluebooks were usually either thirty-six or seventy-two pages long, selling for either sixpence or a shilling respectively. It is from their price that they derived the nicknames, "Shilling Shockers" and "Sixpenny Shockers". While full-length gothic novels written by authors like
Horace Walpole Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (; 24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English Whig politician, writer, historian and antiquarian. He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twickenham, southwest London ...
, Matthew Lewis, and
Ann Radcliffe Ann Radcliffe (née Ward; 9 July 1764 – 7 February 1823) was an English novelist who pioneered the Gothic fiction, Gothic novel, and a minor poet. Her fourth and most popular novel, ''The Mysteries of Udolpho'', was published in 1794. She i ...
were expensive, these "Sixpenny Shockers" were affordable versions of the same stories. Print. These short forms of the Gothic were not popular with critics, with some deeming them as the toxic literary waste of their time period. Like the gothic novel, gothic bluebooks fell into two general groups. One featured a background with a monastery or convent, following novels like ''The Monk'' or '' The Italian'', and the other group featured the gothic castle, following novels such as ''
The Castle of Otranto ''The Castle of Otranto'' is a novel by Horace Walpole. First published in 1764, it is generally regarded as the first Gothic novel. In the second edition, Walpole applied the word 'Gothic' to the novel in the subtitle – ''A Gothic Story''. Se ...
'' and ''The Mysteries of Udolpho''. One of the reasons for the appeal of these abridgements was their ability to tell the same story as a three to four volume novel in 36 or 72 pages, successfully bringing the characters to the altar or to the grave. The fiction was highly predictable, and readers could hardly miss the point of the story because the narration was straightforward. Given their reasonable prices, they were said to have been sold by 'every other bookseller in the United Kingdom' and therefore, readily available. Gothic bluebooks lured the consumer with engravings and woodcuts on their title pages and frontispieces; these illustrations were often fearsome, with a prototypical image being that of a maiden in flight down a dark path glancing over her shoulder. It was common for these books to have two titles, with the first highlighting the love interest and the second emphasizing the horrid element. An example is the title, "A Gothic Romance: The Cavern of Horrors". Important publishers of gothic bluebooks, who often referred to the works as "pamphlets", included
Thomas Tegg Thomas Tegg (1776–1845) was a British bookseller and publisher. One of his best-known publications is the '' London Encyclopaedia'' of 1829 and 1839. Early life Tegg was the son of a grocer, born at Wimbledon, Surrey, on 4 March 1776, and was ...
, Dean and Munday,
Robert Harrild Robert Harrild (1 January 1780 – 28 July 1853) was an English printing pioneer. Harrild was the founder of the business Harrild & Sons, his history is recorded in 'The House of Harrild' by Edward Liveing written in 1949, which gives the ...
, and John Aliss, who each had distribution networks throughout Britain. If a bluebook story was not long enough to fill the allotted page length, publishers had versions of shorter stories on hand that they would attach to the end. One story that was commonly attached was "Mary, A Fragment",Print. which was just one page long. Gothic bluebooks remained a popular trade through the first decade of the 19th century.


Popularity among writers

From autobiographies, it appears that gothic bluebooks were read by writers like
Percy Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was an English writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame durin ...
,
Robert Southey Robert Southey (; 12 August 1774 – 21 March 1843) was an English poet of the Romantic poetry, Romantic school, and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death. Like the other Lake Poets, William Wordsworth an ...
, and
Sheridan Le Fanu Joseph Thomas Sheridan Le Fanu (; 28 August 1814 – 7 February 1873), popularly known as J. S. Le Fanu, was an Irish writer of Gothic literature, mystery novels, and horror fiction. Considered by critics to be one of the greatest ghost ...
in their youth. One of Percy Shelley's childhood friends,
Thomas Medwin Thomas Medwin (20 March 1788 –2 August 1869) was an early 19th-century English writer, poet and translator. He is known chiefly for his biography of his cousin, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and for published recollections of his friend, Lord Byron. ...
, said of Shelley,


See also

*
Gothic fiction Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror (primarily in the 20th century), is a literary aesthetic of fear and haunting. The name of the genre is derived from the Renaissance era use of the word "gothic", as a pejorative to mean me ...
*
Chap-book A chapbook is a type of small printed booklet that was a popular medium for street literature throughout early modern Europe. Chapbooks were usually produced cheaply, illustrated with crude woodcuts and printed on a single sheet folded into 8, 1 ...


References

{{Reflist


External links

* Angela Koch
'The Absolute Horror of Horrors' Revised: A Bibliographical Checklist of Early-Nineteenth-Century Gothic Bluebooks
''Cardiff Corvey: Reading the Romantic Text'' 9 (Dec 2002). Accessed 28 April 2013 18th-century books 19th-century books * * Horror genres Chapbooks