Excavating the Castle
Early Examples of the Gothic Concept and a Lost Tradition of Gothic Studies, 1814 – 1921
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Anthem Press
Published:13th Oct '26
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
Investigates Gothic’s place in English literary history from 1814 to 1921, revealing its earlier and deeper integration into the selective tradition than previously recognized, and challenging long-held assumptions in Gothic studies and literary historiography
Excavating the Castle demonstrates that the serious and respectable historiography of the Gothic begins not in 1921 but in the early nineteenth century and that the Gothic concept crystallized more than half a century earlier than historians of the Gothic had realized previously.
This book seeks to excavate the changing status of the Gothic within what, after Raymond Williams, we might call the selective tradition, from approximately 1814 to 1921. Excavating the Castle demonstrates that the Gothic novel was present in the selective tradition almost from its inception, was present in the first durable consolidation of English literary history written after its emergence, and that the Gothic concept crystalized more than half a century earlier than historians of the Gothic had realized previously. The historiography of the Gothic has long been considered a settled story, though the findings of this book call that story into significant question. How did we miss so much of the story? This is above all a work of literary history, but it is a work of literary history designed to serve the needs of the field of Gothic studies. That said, it is also about more than the Gothic, implicating much larger issues related to the history of ideas; book history; information and library sciences; the materials, methods, and practice of literary history; the digital humanities; and even questions of individual positionality and human contingency.
"Turning a self-reflexive gaze upon the assumptions that generations of Gothic scholars have brought to bear upon their work, Excavating the Castle provides an engaging and truly illuminating pre-history and reappraisal of the entire critical field. As methodologically innovative as it is theoretically rich, Tuttle’s study is bound to have a lasting impact upon the ways in which we appreciate, read, and study the Gothic today." —Dale Townshend, Professor of Gothic Literature, Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies, UK.
“Joshua Tuttle’s forensic examination of the historical record establishes that almost from the beginning of its rise the Gothic novel understood itself to be a coherent and original generic innovation. The common story that ‘the Gothic novel’ was a concept early twentieth-century scholars needed to invent to rescue the genre from critical neglect, is, as Tuttle shows, a myth. Tuttle’s revisionist narrative will be indispensable reading for all scholars of the Gothic.”—Dr Robert Miles, Professor Emeritus in the Department of English, University of Victoria, Canada.
"The examination of early literary histories and literary encyclopedias as evidence of the status and definition of the Gothic novel during the roughly hundred-year period following the height of its popularity yields a new understanding of the genre upon which future scholarship can now begin to build.”—Elizabeth Kraft, University of Georgia, USA.
"The Gothic, perhaps more than any other genre, is ideally suited to the painstaking literary digging that Excavating the Castle undertakes. Like a Gothic protagonist revealing a forgotten, repressed, or misremembered past, this study unearths a trove of resources and upends what we think we know about the history of Gothic Studies, reshaping the field to create a new path forward while showcasing the value of traditional analog research in the digital age."— Professor Leah Richards, Professor of English at LaGuardia Community College, City University of New York.
ISBN: 9781839998072
Dimensions: 229mm x 153mm x 20mm
Weight: 552g
284 pages