Haunted Dusk: American Supernatural Fiction, 1820-1920

Summary: Set against the background of the rapid flux of ideas and beliefs in the 19th century, these essays explore the presence of the supernatural in the works of well-known American writers. Beginning with Washington Irving's introduction of the gothic sensibility in the form of the ghost story, and following through the century to investigations of the unconscious in the works of Henry James and Jack London, this collect...ion reveals the use of the occult in fiction as a metaphor for a culture bubbling with attempts -- mesmerism, Adventism, transcendentalism, Swedenborgianism, and spiritualism, among many -- to understand nature's complex and obscure patterns. [read more]