Gothic Hipster Novels
By FernKettle
I feel like everyone talks about the usual Gothic classics—Frankenstein, Dracula, Jekyll/Hyde—but nobody really seems to bring up the weirder, less talked-about ones. And I’m not trying to be all “ugh, mainstream” about it or anything (mods, title checks out). I’ve been reading a few and I honestly think they deserve more attention. I’m in a Master’s Lit program, and for class I’ve been digging into the British Gothic stuff. I’m especially interested in Ann Radcliffe’s *The Mysteries of Udolpho* and *The Italian*, and Matthew Lewis’s *The Monk*. Just to be clear, I’m not asking for homework help or anything I’m planning to publish—this is really just me wanting to chat about the genre and these three books in particular. From what I’ve read, *Udolpho* came first, then *The Monk*, and *The Italian* last. I’ve also seen it mentioned (maybe in an intro?) that they kind of feel like a back-and-forth between Radcliffe and Lewis, but I’m not 100% sure there’s agreement on that. Either way, they’re wildly different. Radcliffe is basically like, “No real supernatural stuff, please.” Any ghosts/demons/monsters end up feeling like overactive imaginations, superstition, or plain old bad guys trying to scare everyone. But she still keeps you on edge—there’s plenty of kidnapping, violence, murder, all that. She seems to reject the “devil is real” gimmick and go with the real evil people actually do. Like… why invite demons when humans can already do the worst things? Then *The Monk* is the opposite vibe. It’s brutal and way more openly supernatural—black magic, demons, and even Lucifer gets in on it. The nasty stuff isn’t there because of magic, though; it’s mostly humans doing horrible things and using the supernatural as basically the tool. And I swear there’s some karma involved, because the main guy absolutely gets what’s coming. It’s still kind of bittersweet, which is the mood I like best for Gothic. Everything’s punished, but it doesn’t erase the damage, and yeah, you end up feeling sad and grim for a bit—like you want a happy palette cleanser afterward. And I think *The Italian* might be Radcliffe responding to *Monk*. It’s shorter than *Udolpho* and doesn’t waste as much time on huge amounts of backstory and buildup. She still gives you the same kind of emotional characters, pretty (and intense) landscapes, and that “maybe it’s not supernatural after all?” feel. The Inquisition shows up again too, and it’s a big part of what happens—same kind of control, male power establishment that a lot of Gothic writers leaned on. She kind of bends a little (shorter, more “okay fine” concession), but her voice is still unmistakably hers. So yeah, these novels aren’t super popular, but they’ve got a lot going on. Has anyone else read them? What did you think? And if you haven’t, do they sound like something you’d actually want to try?