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The Old English Baron Edited by Laura L. Runge ISBN 0-9679121-2-1 Price $14.00 |
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About the
Book Clara Reeve's early gothic novel, The Old English Baron (1778), is paired with Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764), the work that inspired it. Hers is the story of Edmund, the peasant-hero, who discovers his rightful heritage through mysterious portents, and whose loyalty and integrity are put to the test in bringing the villain to justice. With an emphasis on probability and domestic virtue, The Old English Baron plays an important role in the transformation of the gothic genre. While The Castle of Otranto initiates a tradition of horror, with violent deaths, tyrannical power and tragic doom, The Old English Baron redirects the gothic towards homosocial bonding, paternal goodness and, ultimately, sentimental domesticity. The College Publishing edition includes a substantial introductory essay on historical and literary contexts, with additional "links" or short essays situated throughout the text, exploring subjects such as chivalry, younger sons, women and law, anti-Catholicism, gothic architecture, and the supernatural. The appendix includes eighteenth- and nineteenth-century reviews of both novels. |
About
the Editor Laura L. Runge (Ph.D. Emory University) is Associate Professor of English at the University of South Florida in Tampa. She is the author of Gender and Language in British Literary Criticism, 1660-1790 (Cambridge University Press, 1997) and articles and reviews on eighteenth-century literature and women's writing. Her research now focuses on an interdisciplinary study of gallantry and its cultural contexts in late eighteenth-century England. A member of Phi Beta Kappa, Runge received the USF Undergraduate Teaching Award in 1996. |
Table of Contents Acknowledgments List of Illustrations For Further Exploration Note on the Texts Introduction Select Bibliography The Old English Baron Dedicatory Letter Preface Text of the 1778 Edition The Castle of Otranto Preface to the First Edition Preface to the Second Edition Dedicatory Verses Text of the 1798 Edition Appendix Reviews of The Old English Baron Reviews of The Castle of Otranto Anna Barbauld's Introductions |
