‘Poe’s Gothic poem tells of a distraught man who is bemoaning the loss of his beloved Lenore when he is visited by a talking raven. Perched on a bust of Athena, the Raven repeatedly squawks “Nevermore!” As the narrator slowly descends into madness.’

‘Jane Eyre is a female bildungsroman or coming of age story in a male dominated genre. Progressive for its time on the topics of class, sexuality, religion, and feminism. Gothic elements include the explained supernatural and the imposing architecture of Thornfield Hall.’

‘One of the first feminist novels, Tenant of Wildfell Hall tackles issues of alcoholism, gender equality and domestic violence. It lacks a gothic atmosphere but uses a frame narrative common to gothic narratives with letters and diaries providing clues to the mystery.’

‘Wuthering Heights is a gothic novel that tells the story of Healthcliff and Catherine Earnshaw’s tortured love affair. Gothic elements include a frame narrative, doubles, and the supernatural.’

‘Charlotte Bronte’s last novel is a study of how isolation, doubling, displacement, and subversion adversely affect the psyche of the young female protagonist.’

‘Collin’s mystery novel is an example of sensation fiction and covers the unequal position of married women according to British law at the time. ‘

‘Dickens uses Gothic tropes in his other novels to represent the social problems of Victorian society, but Edwin Drood was his first true mystery. The novel is unfinished and despite several clues Dickens left about how he intended to complete the story, the ending remains a mystery.’

‘Stevenson uses the supernatural transformation of Dr. Jekyll into the monstrous Mr. Hyde to represent human duality in the struggle between good and evil. The novella addresses the Victorian preoccupation with public versus private life that bred social hypocrisy and the concept of repression which occurs when thoughts and desires are banished to the unconscious mind but continue to motivate the behaviour of the conscious mind.’

‘The stories in Kipling’s first collection of prose stories contain examples of Imperial Gothic. They are mostly set in British India and depict the horrors the empire acted out by colonisers and their subjects.’

‘Le Fanu’s tale of the mysterious Carmilla owes a debt to Samuel Coleridge’s unfinished poem Christabel, but becomes influential in its own right, second only to Dracula in terms of popular vampire characters. Le Fanu draws on emerging ideas about female sexuality to depict a vampire whose lesbian inclinations are surprisingly explicit by Victorian standards. Carmilla becomes the model for female vampires in film, with variations of the character appearing in Hammer horrors, among others.’

- https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/articles/zvr9vk7

A collection of five short stories by Carmilla author J Sheridan Le Fanu, this is a collection of Gothic horror and mystery stories. The stories draw upon classic Gothic elements, such as ghosts and vampires. ‘Le Fanu redefined the parameters of supernatural fiction. He had little interest in the crude depiction of other worldly phenomena in order to provide the reader with a pleasurable frisson of fear. Le Fanu’s concern rather lay in the examination of the results of supernatural experience on the psyche of his protagonist.’ - Wordsworth Editions

‘Uncle Silas’ submitted as “A Tale of Bertram Haugh” by the author of Carmilla is an 1864 Victorian Gothic Mystery-thriller. And is considered an ‘early example of the locked-room mystery subgenre, rather than a novel of the supernatural (despite a few creepily ambiguous touches), but doe show strong interest in the occult and in the ideas of Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish scientist, philosopher and Christian mystic.’

‘There are strong connections between Uncle Silas and some of Wilkie Collins’ novels especially The Woman in White; both writers, while recognisably within the Gothic tradition, depict heroines who are far more highly developed than the persecuted maidens of Ann Radcliffe and others.’