Gothic fiction , which is largely known by the subgenre of Gothic horror , is a genre or mode of literature and film that combines fiction and horror , death, and at times romance. Gothic fiction tends to place emphasis on both emotion and a pleasurable kind of terror, serving as an extension of the Romantic literary movement that was relatively new at the time that Walpole's novel was published. The most common of these "pleasures" among Gothic readers was the sublime —an indescribable feeling that "takes us beyond ourselves. The literary genre originated in England in the second half of the 18th century where, following Walpole, it was further developed by Clara Reeve , Ann Radcliffe , William Thomas Beckford and Matthew Lewis. Another well known novel in this genre, dating from the late Victorian era , is Bram Stoker 's Dracula. The name Gothic , which originally referred to the Goths , and then came to mean "German", [2] refers to the Gothic architecture of the medieval era of European history, in which many of these stories take place. This extreme form of Romanticism was very popular throughout Europe, especially among English- and German-language writers and artists. The novel usually regarded as the first Gothic novel is The Castle of Otranto by English author Horace Walpole , which was first published in Walpole published the first edition disguised as a medieval romance from Italy discovered and republished by a fictitious translator.


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The BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs invites castaways to choose eight pieces of music, a book in addition to the Bible - or a religious text appropriate to that person's beliefs - and the Complete Works of Shakespeare and a luxury item that they would take to an imaginary desert island, where they will be marooned indefinitely. The rules state that the chosen luxury item must not be anything animate, nor anything that enables the castaway to escape from the island, for instance a radio set, sailing yacht or aeroplane. The choices of book and luxury can sometimes give insight into the guest's life, and the choices of guests between and are listed here. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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Lyrical, furious and meticulously researched, it is a necessary act of historical reclamation. Marilynne Robinson turned her Gilead trilogy into a quartet with Jack Virago , a romance across the race divide in segregated mid-century America which explores the redeeming, transcendent power of love and faith. Brit Bennett also anatomised racism in The Vanishing Half Dialogue , a stunning family saga about passing for white and the hollowness of the American dream that won her comparisons to Toni Morrison. The year began with an impressively assured debut from US author Kiley Reid; Such a Fun Age Bloomsbury is a razor-sharp take on white fragility and millennial uncertainty, beginning when a black nanny is accused of kidnapping her white charge.