Book contents
- Romantic Fiction and Literary Excess in the Minerva Press Era
- Cambridge Studies in Romanticism
- Romantic Fiction and Literary Excess in the Minerva Press Era
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Note on the Text
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Minerva’s Writers and Reviewers
- Chapter 2 Godwin, Bage, Parsons, and Novels as They Are
- Chapter 3 Imitating Ann Radcliffe
- Chapter 4 Hannah More’s Cœlebs and the Novel of the Moment
- Chapter 5 Fiction as Fashion from Belinda to Miss Byron
- Chapter 6 Walter Scott’s Industrial Antiques
- Epilogue
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Romanticism
Chapter 3 - Imitating Ann Radcliffe
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 May 2023
- Romantic Fiction and Literary Excess in the Minerva Press Era
- Cambridge Studies in Romanticism
- Romantic Fiction and Literary Excess in the Minerva Press Era
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Note on the Text
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Minerva’s Writers and Reviewers
- Chapter 2 Godwin, Bage, Parsons, and Novels as They Are
- Chapter 3 Imitating Ann Radcliffe
- Chapter 4 Hannah More’s Cœlebs and the Novel of the Moment
- Chapter 5 Fiction as Fashion from Belinda to Miss Byron
- Chapter 6 Walter Scott’s Industrial Antiques
- Epilogue
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Romanticism
Summary
If the Minerva Press is the publisher most strongly associated with fictional excess, then the gothic is surely excess’s most representative genre. Readers decried the great length of these novels, their numerousness, their unoriginality, and the over-the-top emotions they depicted. This chapter tracks the phenomenon of ‘imitation’ in the late eighteenth-century heyday of the gothic, first in its role as a convenient denunciation hurled at new gothic novels, and then as a broad and flexible authorial practice that, the chapter argues, allowed gothic novelists to capitalize on their strength in numbers and their dedicated readerships. Minerva Gothic novelists, including Regina Maria Roche and Eliza Parsons, used imitation to define and expand the norms of their genre, and publishers like William Lane used the recognizability of certain genres to creatively advertise their new books, while even highly successful authors like Ann Radcliffe had to grapple with charges of unoriginality.
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- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023