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Walpole's Legacy: a Study of Modern, Popular Gothic Novels

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Walpole's Legacy: a Study of Modern, Popular Gothic Novels WALPOLE'S LEGACY: A STUDY OF MODERN, POPULAR GOTHIC NOVELS by BEVERLY SIX CASE, B.A, A THESIS IN ENGLISH Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS Approved December, 1976 P ' ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There have been many who have aided and encouraged me in my quest for gothic definition. I would like to thank Dr. J. Wilkes Berry for his encouragement, careful reading, and conscientious criticism. In particular I would like to thank Dr. Jack D. Wages who, in two years of work with me, has been unceasingly supportive and constructively critical throughout. His unfailing patience has made this thesis possible. n 1^ CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii I. INTRODUCTION 1 II. HISTORY AND DEFINITION OF GOTHIC 8 Walpole's Legacy 8 Gothic Devices 20 III. THE BRITONS 27 Victoria Holt 27 Dorothy Eden 44 IV. THE AMERICANS 54 Jane Aiken Hodge 54 Phyllis Whitney 69 V. CONCLUSION 83 ENDNOTES 87 LIST OF SOURCES 94 APPENDICES 98 A. AUTHORS AND WORKS LINKED WITH THE GOTHIC TRADITION 99 B. SYNOPSES OF NOVELS UNDER CONSIDERATION 103 Victoria Holt 103 Dorothy Eden 115 Jane Aiken Hodge 120 Phyllis Whitney 128 m CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The purpose of this thesis is to study the novels of four contempo­ rary authors--Victoria Holt, Dorothy Eden, Jane Aiken Hodge, and Phyllis Whitney--in order to ascertain to what extent these four authors have utilized in their novels those patterns of plot and characterization that have become the gothic tradition. In the pursuit of this purpose one must of necessity also become involved in the discovery of the changes each author has made in the gothic tradition in order to adapt gothic patterns of style to her own literary needs. In order to pursue the purpose of this thesis one must follow sev­ eral steps. The first step is investigation of the gothic tradition it­ self in order to establish what aspects of the gothic tradition will be sought in the novels of the four authors under consideration. The second step will be evaluation of the works of each novelist in turn in order to find examples of gothic techniques and to relate those techniques to the gothic tradition. The third step will be the goal, the conclusions drawn from the evidence cited in steps one and two. This thesis will follow these three steps. Before following the steps that will lead the reader to the conclu­ sions drawn about the relationship between the novels under consideration and other novels in the gothic tradition, one must first establish that the novels under consideration are of literary merit. When Horace Walpole 1 and his eighteenth-century contemporaries produced gothic novels, the novels were popular in both literary and social circles. In fact, the novels of Walpole and his contemporaries are accepted as literature today. Somewhere in the two-hundred-year interval between Walpole and the modern gothic writers, however, the contemporary gothic novel lost its place in literature. Today the gothic novel is forced into the realm of "women's reading," a denigrated area of the written word that lumps together the gothic novel, movie magazines, confession magazines, nurse novels, and the like, as if modern women read nothing else. In fact, it is true that contemporary gothic novels do not suit the literary needs of everyone, and Appendix B of this thesis, which contains brief synopses of the novels under consideration, is mute acknowledgement of the fact that many readers of this thesis may be un­ familiar with the works of Holt, Eden, Hodge, and Whitney. One cannot, however, dismiss the novels of these four authors as having no literary merit after only cursory investigation. It was more than cursory inves­ tigation of the earliest gothic novels, listed in Appendix A, that gave them a place in literature, for the titles alone (The Hag of the Moun­ tains, or Mysterious Memoirs of the Marquis de la Terra and His Supposed Friend the Count di Suza, Including Those of Lucetta and Vittoria, The Lovely Daughters of a Vintager, at Montmelian, in Savoy, for example) are not convincing as indicators of literary masterpieces. These'early nov­ els do have an established place in literature under the aegis of the gothic tradition, as do contemporary gothic novels, despite the depreca­ tory gestures of the literarily astute. /^ X 1^ y Actually, it is not that modern gothic novels, i.e., those gothics written today, are so much despised by the literarily astute as ignored. It is rare today to find literary discussions of modern gothic novels. One exception to this rule of silence is Joanna Russ, and her approach to the modern gothic not only reflects the usual approach to the gothic tradition but also reflects the almost universally accepted "literary" approach today. In an article titled "Somebody's Trying to Kill Me and I Think It's My Husband: The Modern Gothic," Ms. Russ begins with the question, "What fiction do American women read?" and the answer, "God knows." Ms. Russ establishes that the fiction read exclusively by women includes the mod­ ern gothic, and then she states her thesis: "If you look inside the covers [of the modern gothic] you will find that the stories bear no resemblance to the literary definition of 'Gothic' They are not related to the works of Monk Lewis or Mrs. Radcliffe, whose real descendants are known today as Horror Stories." Ms. Russ goes on to say that "Modern Gothics . are read by middle-class women or women with middle-class aspirations,"^ leaving the general impression that the gothic novel, as well as the middle-class, carries some terrible, non-literary stigma. Ms. Russ follows her thesis carefully in a well-written article, and, with a somewhat feminist flourish, concludes that the popularity of the modern gothic among women readers is not a compliment to the general intelligence of that sex. Ms. Russ is not alone in her assessment of the gothic novel and its readers, nor will she or anyone else ever find a dearth of ill-written, ill-conceived contemporary gothics to use as examples. The purpose of this study, however, is not refutation, but investigation. Such comments as those expressed in Ms. Russ's article are not new in the two-hundred- year history of the gothic tradition, for the gothic has never been as popular with critics as other literary genres. One must therefore set such comments aside and begin with the modern writers under considera- ti on. An exhaustive study of every contemporary gothic writer would, in­ deed, be exhausting; so, for the purpose of reasonable investigation, this study has been narrowed to four of the better gothic writers in terms of literary ability and popularity with the reading public. The works chosen for this study meet the following criteria: 1) they all have nineteenth- or early-twentieth-century settings, 2) they have been published and sold as gothic novels, 3) they are all considered to be "popular" fiction, and 4) they are contemporary, having all been written and published no earlier than 1950. One facet of this study must be the evaluation of the effects of the American way of life on the gothic tradition in America. Of course, the reader will, with Richard Chase, recognize "... the difficulty of making accurate judgments about what is specially American in American novels . .,"^ but, nonetheless, the possibility of differences between gothics written by Americans and gothics written by Europeans must be investigated. Despite the focus on American authors, however, one cannot undertake a discussion of representative contemporary gothic novelists today without beginning with a Briton, Victoria Holt. Ms. Holt (Eleanor Burford Hibbert), the most prominent and possibly most prolific contemporary gothic writer of the twentieth century, has written romances under the names Elbur Ford, Kathleen Kellow, Ellalice Tate and Eleanor Burford, and historical novels under the names Jean Plaidy, Eleanor Hibbert, and, most recently, Philippa Carr. As Victoria Holt, Ms. Hibbert is universally recognized as the "Mistress of the turn- of-the-century Gothic." With Lord Of The Far Island, Victoria Holt pro­ duced her thirteenth, consecutive, international, best-selling gothic romance.^ She has perhaps the largest reading audience of any gothic novelist today, she commands an impressive monetary remuneration for each book, she frequently heads book club best-seller lists with her new publications, and she is rarely, if ever, read or studied for her gothic techniques. Being ignored by literary critics does not bother this Mistress of the Gothic, however, for she says, "I don't care about the critics. I write for the public. It's nicer to be read than to get nice reviews." Victoria Holt j^ read, and the praise "In the best tradition of Victoria Holt" is very nearly a guarantee of success for aspiring young gothic writers today. Twelve of Ms. Holt's gothics are set in the nineteenth century, and she deals primarily with British backgrounds or characters. Another well-known British writer, Dorothy Eden, provides a transition between the Britons and the Americans in this study because she sometimes uses an American setting or heroine, and she utilizes the gothic framework for non-gothic purposes, as do the American writers under consideration. She writes historical romances as well as gothic romances, but only five of her novels fit the criteria for this study. The five novels consid­ ered here show both tradition and innovation within the gothic framework. The two American authors under consideration in this study, like Ms. Eden, use traditional gothic techniques in their novels, and, at the same time, incorporate innovative twists to the traditional gothic plots.
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