Timeline

Lifetime: 1889 - 1951 Passed: ≈ 73 years ago

Title

Lecturer

Country/Nationality

United States
Wikipedia

Edith Birkhead

Edith Birkhead was a lecturer in English Literature at the University of Bristol and a Noble Fellow at the University of Liverpool. She wrote a pioneering work on Gothic literature: The Tale of Terror . This work described the fascination with supernatural fiction in English literature from the publication of Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto in 1764 to Charles Maturin's Melmoth the Wanderer in 1820 on to modern times. She included works from Europe as well as America, including Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe.

Books by Edith Birkhead

The Tale of Terror: A Study of the Gothic Romance  Cover image

The Tale of Terror: A Study of the Gothic Romance

Non-Fiction Essays
Gothic Romance Literature Literary Criticism Guide Writing Horror

A seminal essay on the development of horror as a genre, highly influential on later writers. The Tale of Terror is a brilliant guide book for the study of Gothic novels.