This volume, which weds a socio-historical and intellectual approach to classic British Gothic literature, is a perfect introduction to the genre for the student and lay reader alike. Works by gothic authors such as Horace Walpole, Matthew Lewis, Ann Radcliffe, William Godwin, and Mary Shelley, as well as traditions like the Female Gothic, are examined against the backdrop of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British political and cultural developments, culminating in a detailed and accessible exploration of the gothic's major motifs and themes.