The Gothic Novel 1790 – 1830: Index to Motifs

by Lawrence Evalyn · September 15, 2014

Frontispiece_to_Frankenstein_1831Lawrence Evalyn’s last piece for The Toast was 100 Actual Titles of Real Eighteenth-Century Novels.

As a graduate student of specializing in eighteenth century British literature, I get to read some pretty amazing stuff. The following is a curated selection of actual entries in the index of Ann B. Tracy’s important reference text, The Gothic Novel, 1790-1830: Plot Summaries and Index to Motifs. Before the Victorians turned the Gothic into moor-stranded governesses and the brooding hunks who love them, the Gothic novel was characterized by:

baby swapping, 22, 33, 34, 45, 56, 113, 119, 154, 191.

Bible-reading, dangers of, 99, 128.

blood: alleged pool of, 53; baptism of infant in, 107; boiling, 158; bowl of, dipping daggers in, 116; cup of, in demon’s hand, 10; drinking, 59, 75, 102, 129, 187, 206; on face, from invisible hands, 108; of lover, on cudgel, 98; as noble adornment on scarf, 100; overflowing room, dream about, 137; as payment to witch, 10; spreading magically, 134.

bosom: bloodstained, 9, 90, 116; as distraction, 74, 99, 167; hag’s naked, 75, 100; lover’s severed heart placed on, 33; pawed by lecherous jailer, 75; viper in (figurative), 30, 35, 36, 46, 61, 71, 83, 108, 113, 168, 178, 183, 188, 194.

corpse: in bed, 205; behind curtain, 136; blue, 108; burnt, 33, 191; changing places with, 177; dragged past heroine’s dungeon, 5; as entertainment for villainess, 46; equestrian, 67; physical contact with fresh, 1, 24, 33, 47, 74, 75, 100, 111, 119, 130, 136, 149, 154, 162, 193; physical contact with moldering, 9, 23, 29, 99, 107, 110, 123, 129, 130, 133, 168, 191, 204; plural, in piles, 28, 33, 97; produced as evidence in trial, 167; in sack, 119, 135, 173; of seduced woman, provoking hysteria in seducer, 195; thrown over precipice, 33, 123; in trunk, 91, 125, 148; waxen representation of, 136, 208.

decapitation, 1, 16, 47, 74, 75, 92, 96, 100, 129; interrupted, 1, 30, 193.

elopement, 1, 12, 40, 41, 49, 56, 57, 65, 71, 90, 100, 104, 112, 122, 130, 144, 150, 152, 154, 163, 171, 182, 185, 199, 204; bungled, 99, 128, 174, 183, 185; prevented, 59, 99, 138, 177.

funeral: attended accidentally, 57, 100, 119, 130; clandestine, 186; gorgeous, 114; sham, 3, 6, 65, 70, 75, 92, 99, 138, 191.

ghost: with baby, 29; dancing or singing, 107, 206; fiery, 33, 76, 79, 80; in flaming boat, 34; hairy, 9, 187; helpful, 24, 26, 29, 30, 31, 56, 67, 75, 82, 90, 102, 130, 158, 187, 188, 194, 200; lower-class, 101; murderous, 207; nonhuman, 43, 75, 79, 83, 128; of victim, appearing to murderer, 1, 7, 9, 10, 29, 33, 55, 56, 70, 76, 82, 99, 108, 135, 139, 178, 188, 194, 199, 201, 202.

guest: perfidious, 35, 38, 86, 127; uninvited and sinister, 10, 42, 75, 187.

hand, cold, seizing heroine, 154.

hermit’s narrative, 1, 24, 47, 60, 62, 87, 118, 122, 123, 199; prevented by muteness of hermit, 86.

homosexuality. See cross-gender dressing, confusion of affections resulting from.

illness, emotionally induced, 1, 3, 7, 13, 20, 28, 30, 31, 41, 43, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 57, 62, 64, 69, 75, 80, 83, 84, 86, 92, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 100, 109, 111, 112, 114, 118, 119, 122, 123, 127, 128, 130, 133, 135, 136, 137, 140, 145, 149, 160, 162, 164, 165, 168, 171, 174, 175, 177, 180, 182, 183, 187, 188, 191, 199, 204, 206, 207. See also death, emotionally induced.

incest: actual, 20, 29, 47, 99, 129, 130; literary flirtation with, 5, 16, 21, 22, 28, 32, 33, 40, 48, 56, 64, 65, 75, 78, 79, 85, 87, 88, 89, 90, 92, 103, 106, 109, 113, 116, 120, 125, 128, 129, 135, 137, 143, 145, 148, 154, 165, 171, 186, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 200, 2007.

infant, nonflammable, 101.

jilting, 46, 56, 83, 84, 109, 110, 120, 149, 207.

letter, concealed in lemon, 88.

monk, unusually mysterious, 5, 70, 74, 75, 76, 85, 101, 119, 135, 139, 171, 181.

murder. See ax murder; filicide; fratricide; mariticide; matricide; parricide; poison; regicide; sororicide; suicide; uxoricide.

novel reading, dangers of, 35, 37, 64, 111, 204.

novice or nun: debauched, 31, 69, 75, 99, 100, 101, 117, 137; eloped, 1, 84; ruined, 29, 60, 69, 70, 99; wicked, 9, 29, 99, 117, 154.

portrait: fascinating, 9, 16, 28, 71, 99, 109, 193; frightening, 108, 109, 187; with matching ghost, 102, 134, 142, 187; morally supportive, 120; revelatory of incest, 130.

pulp, bloody: formerly abbess, 99; formerly baby, 129; formerly devotees of Juggernaut, 109.

Satan and lesser demons, 3, 9, 10, 38, 43, 53, 54, 61, 66, 67, 70, 81, 85, 98, 99, 101, 117, 129, 130, 158, 166, 206.

skeleton: animated, 80, 82, 88; at banquet, 121; in bed with, 1; costumed, 28, 208; hand of, clutching murder weapon, 139; in quantity, 3; in trunk, 16, 31, 108, 137; wearing familiar ring, 28.

skull, 16, 29, 47, 85, 99, 109, 168, 170; as base for cauldron, 75; at feet of demon, 10; food in, 21; object made from, 53, 82, 109; rat in, 80; talking, 187.

spider, supernatural, 82, 158.

statue, peculiar: animated, 2, 75; with bleeding nose, 193; with disappearing helmet, 193; with secret button, 1, 99; unexpected, 47, 62.

sword, unusual: outsize, 95, 193; with message on blade, 182, 193; self-propelled, 3.

teeth, shot out by former abductee, 63.

villain, gauche: dagger caught in cloak, 33; discovered with monastic equivalent of pants down, 99.

wedding: aborted prior to ceremony, 6, 19, 24, 56, 138, 149, 199; clandestine, 1, 8, 28, 29, 40, 56, 60, 64, 86, 88, 92, 99, 108, 109, 112, 114, 116, 119, 120, 126, 127, 128, 139, 140, 149, 171, 183, 186, 193, 199; counterfeit, 11, 29, 31, 35, 115, 142, 149, 171, 183, 198; forced, 1, 5, 6, 44, 45, 46, 61, 62, 76, 82, 83, 85, 87, 92, 95, 97, 101, 107, 112, 116, 122, 125, 139, 144, 147, 148, 151, 179, 181, 185; interrupted, 6, 9, 26, 29, 31, 33, 61, 62, 76, 80, 86, 88, 92, 95, 97, 116, 117, 122, 129, 134, 135, 139, 152, 178, 187; by specter clergyman, 109, 139.

Work Cited:

Tracy, Ann Blaisdell. The Gothic Novel, 1790-1830: Plot Summaries and Index to Motifs. Lexington: Kentucky UP, 1981. Print.

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120 Comments

  1. EPWordsnatcher +57

    We could write an entire Decemberists album with this post.

    (My favorites are either teeth, shot out by former abductee or the twelve entries for an unusually mysterious monk.

    Or the pulp, bloody, formerly devotees of Juggernaut.)

      1. Isaac, Northern +7

        Yes, you know it’s going to be a bad day when your infants are nonflammable and the monk is unusually mysterious.

    2. threatqualitypress +13

      A+ Decemberists album, I am waiting for them to do the Spectral Clergyman’s Wedding tour.

  2. meetapossum +29

    This is the greatest. I really want to know more about the portrait that was “revelatory of incest.”

    2. lawrence +28

      “Then they decide to decorate their quarters with portraits of Louisa’s father and Ernestus’s mother, the latter newly painted from a miniature. They think that the portraits will surprise Louisa’s father, as indeed they do, for he realizes that the woman is his lost wife and the Berchtold twins his own children. The final penalty exacted for his occult dealings is the knowledge that his children have committed double incest.” — Ann Tracy’s summary of ERNESTUS BERCHTOLD, OR, THE MODERN OEDIPUS. A TALE

    3. Abanthis +27

      I’d like to hear the morally supportive portrait. I imagine it like the Fat Lady in Harry Potter, mothering some traumatised hero all “Cheer up, chook, you’re right, the abbot is a nasty man. Don’t you bother your dear head about all the incest.”

      1. lawrence +20

        “Laura’s hysterical reaction to a Massacre of the Innocents picture – one of the killers looks like Zeluco, she thinks – makes her brother suspicious. He writes “Zeluco” over it to test his brother-in-law, but Carlostein manages to draw Zeluco’s consequent rage onto himself to avoid familial slaughter. On his way to duel Carlostein, Zeluco is stabbed by a man whom he discovers in Nerina’s bed. Dying, he realizes that other people seem to have a certain nobility which he lacks and understands that he has never had a friend. Laura marries Carlostein and charitably extricates Nerina from prison.” — Ann Tracy’s summary of ZELUCO. VARIOUS VIEWS OF HUMAN NATURE, TAKEN FROM LIFE, AND MANNERS, FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC.

        …I am REALLY UNCLEAR as to how this constitutes as ‘morally supportive’ portrait!!

        1. Abanthis +11

          Poor Zeluco! It sounds like he could do with some moral support, even if it is from an inanimate object.

  3. elesmi +28

    My favorite Gothic novel moment is the beginning of The Castle of Otranto, when a bridegroom is killed before his wedding by a giant helmet falling out of the sky. I suspect this could be categorized under wedding: aborted prior to ceremony; I am now curious as to what the other Gothic methods of aborting a wedding ceremony would be.

    2. littlehuntingcreek +5

      In Lorna Doone there is a shooting right as the bride is coming up the aisle – that’s one method

    3. lawrence +26

      Well, there’s always this one: “Decorating for the wedding, Elvira finds behind a picture in the gallery a little panel with a lock that her mysterious key fits. Inside is a golden casket containing a red velvet case containing in turn a manuscript by Elvira’s mother… [revealing] that the Prince is Elvira’s half-brother. The mere sight of the wedding decorations makes her shudder now, and she lies down and dies in a matter of hours.” — Ann Tracy’s summary of VANCENZA, OR, THE DANGERS OF CREDULITY

      1. elesmi +23

        Ooh, yes. I only took one course on eighteenth century novels, but even from that I remember there being a tremendous obsession with the discovery of accidental incest. And no Google to reassure poor readers that, no, they’re definitely not related to their fiancés!

        I like that Elvira progresses from shuddering at the wedding decorations to lying down and dying. These are, of course, similarly proportionate responses to her discovery.

        1. lawrence +23

          I’m more impressed with her ability to die at will, and in such a calm, premeditated way! Usually an emotionally-induced death is a lot more… sudden.

          1. Unreadaethel +26

            Truly strong-willed heroines are actually only alive by virtue of deciding, at all moments of the day, to remain so. When they no longer wish to do so, they have only to pick a suitably dramatic time and place in which to stop making the life choice.

      1. elesmi +8

        Hooray! I love how many people at The Toast can recognize it, there is definitely an unusually high number of Bujold readers here (i.e., people with excellent taste!).

        1. divingbeth +4

          I’m waiting very patiently for Nicole to discover the Vorkosigan Saga and write a long, flaily post about it!

  4. Hannele +32

    I am only disappointed that viper in (figurative) is not immediately followed with an equally lengthy viper in (literal).

    1. maccrocodile +46

      At that time, Madame Snakeboobs appeared at the doorway.

      “Thank you all for coming,” she said. “I have some terrible news that you all must hear.

      “But what could it be, dear Madame?” cried the Duke, who had planned to propose to her after the party.

      “I am dying,” she said, “The literal vipers in my bosom have taken ill. I shall be dead within the week. Not even the sacrifice of an infant–flammable or otherwise–could save me now.”

      2. celery +15

        It has been a very nerve-wracking day, but as I was getting ready for bed, I remembered the line “Not even the sacrifice of an infant–flammable or otherwise–could save me now” and started giggling uncontrollably. And now I feel much better.

        So thank you.

    2. lawrence +22

      This is the only literal snake I can find for you (kind of not a viper): “He tells the real story… about an anaconda that trapped his employer, Mr. Seafield, in a summer pavilion. Brooks at last devised a scheme for stupifying the snake by letting it eat a cow, and then killing it. The stratagem came too late for Seafield who soon died from the suffocating effects of the anaconda’s offensive breath.” — Ann Tracy’s summary of ROMANTIC TALES.

  7. BellaG +41

    Blood: as noble adornment on scarf.

    “I love that scarf! Where did you get it?”
    “Oh, I made it myself. The fabric is merino wool, and the design is something I painted myself in my ex-boyfriend’s blood.”

    2. lawrence +19

      I have no further details on the scarf, but from the same novel: “One stormy night Osbright is stranded in the forest and enters a hut, where he finds his little brother’s finger boiling in a cauldron. Observing that “there seems to be something improper going on here,” he elicits from the young lady who tends the cauldron the information that Jocelyn died defending himself from a wolf with his dagger.” — Ann Tracy’s summary of ROMANTIC TALES.

        1. lawrenceevalyn +11

          Wikipedia claims that Jocelyn is a unisex name (except in France, where it’s male only, and the female name is Jocelyne) but post-1880 usage data suggests that it’s been a long time since that was the case. It must still have been unisex in the 1790s, though!

  8. Either_Ada +43

    Favorite student conversation re Gothic novels:

    Student 1: “I don’t understand why all the men keep getting stabbed by swords.”

    Student 2: “Even the good guys! Especially the good guys!”

    Student 1: “It’s, like, every other page.”

    Me: “Think basic Freud.”

    Students: “OHHHHHH.”

    Me: “Wait until we get to all the mothers in caves.”

    Student 1: “Wait…. I don’t get it.”

    Me: [Evil laughter]

    1. lawrence +17

      Actually, one of my most interesting results from the legitimate research I did with this index is that subterranean passages and caves are mostly a dude thing! Like pirates and incest. So, the men might have put some mothers in the caves, but I think mostly they had Illuminati in them. Ann Radcliffe is the major exception: she is responsible for 6 of the 15 subterannean passages written about by women, and I think she hid mothers in all of them.

      I’m with you on the swords, though.

      (You can see my actual research here, if you are so inclined.)

  9. projectbeks +23

    2 Questions: 1) How does one attend a funeral accidentally? 2) What does a hairy ghost look like, other than a werewolf and/or mountain man?

    1. maccrocodile +50

      “Pardon me,” I implored of the group, “Is this the Wearing-All-Black Picnic Club?”

      As the group gathered around what I had assumed was a picnic table turned to me, revealing their tear-streaked visages, I blanched with embarrassment. I had accidentally attended a funeral, and with a covered dish, no less! Oh! What I would have given for a flaming infant to divert their attention so I and my casserole could make our escape!

    2. winterbymorning +23

      Maybe you think it’s going to be a wedding, but the wedding is aborted prior to ceremony and becomes a funeral instead.

    3. lawrence +26

      1) “Ethelia, having fortuitously reunited Mrs. Montague with an old beggar woman who is her long-lost mother, goes home herself at last, coincidentally arriving just in time for her own mother’s funeral.” — Ann Tracy’s summary of THE WOODLAND FAMILY, OR, THE SONS OF ERROR AND DAUGHTERS OF SIMPLICITY. A DOMESTIC TALE.

      2) “Some time later he sleeps in an empty castle and has his hair and even his eyebrows shaved off by a whiskery ghost. As the ghost apparently wishes to be shaved too, Francis cooperates. The ghost is thus freed from a curse and thanks his benefactor by giving him clues to hidden treasure.” — Ann Tracy’s summary of TALES OF THE DEAD.

      1. Abanthis +27

        …Wha- I just- GHOST SHAVING BUDDIES? That’s horrible and adorable at once. It should be a charming hand-drawn children’s cartoon that creeps out their parents.

    4. Lily +20

      As someone who spends a lot of time visiting churches because I am a stained glass aficionado, I have accidentally attended SEVERAL funerals. See also: weddings and church services. Nothing like going to see a window and having a mass start and feeling too guilty to leave, so you sit through it even though you don’t even understand the language in which it is being held.

      (Also, my primary research is in death ritual and I have attended MANY funerals on purpose of people that I never met. Kind of the opposite of accidental funeral attendance. Purposeful and emotionally unaffected funeral attendance.)

  10. deleted7410012 +14

    i am curious about the statue with the secret button. almost as much as i am intrigued by the rat in the skull.

    1. lawrence +13

      1) “It struck him, that so particular an injunction was not given without cause, not to touch the arm of the Image. He again ascended the Pedestal; He examined the object of his attention, and discovered a small knob of iron concealed between the Saint’s shoulder and what was supposed to have been the hand of the Robber. This observation delighted him. He applied his fingers to the knob, and pressed it down forcibly. Immediately a rumbling noise was heard within the Statue, as if a chain tightly stretched was flying back. Startled at the sound the timid Nuns started away, prepared to hasten from the Vault at the first appearance of danger.” — from The Monk, by Matthew Lewis.

      2) “On another occasion she is locked in a vault with open coffins and sees a skeleton with glowing eyes shake itself. (Uncanny phenomena are explained at the end; e.g., there was a rat inside the skull.)” — Ann Tracy’s summary of THE ABBEY OF SAINT ASAPH. A NOVEL.

        1. lawrence +21

          They flutter about like little sparrows all through the whole scene!

          Then later they trample an abbess to death while the convent burns to the ground.

      2. celery +3

        I hoped it was The Monk!! That one class I took on romantic/gothic literature has *finally come in handy*

        (I genuinely enjoyed The Monk, although it had it’s fair share of terribleness.)

  11. littlehuntingcreek +8

    My favorite: novel reading, dangers of, 35, 37, 64, 111, 204.
    I didn’t see ” swords, poisoned blades” maybe in a later edition?

      1. littlehuntingcreek +13

        There are portions of the Good Book that are unsuitable for Ladies
        Perhaps a large portion of the Old Testament (sex, incest, sodomy, murder, infidelity, etc)

  12. headfullofhoney +23

    I haven’t even read this yet, but I leaned unnecessarily close to my screen and hissed “yyyyyyyeeeeeeessssss” at the title alone.

    1. kmfca +9

      My reaction precisely. I am now eating my dinner very slowly because I keep having to laugh around mouthfuls of stir fry at both the article and the comments.

  13. hurdyburdy +39

    These are so amazing. I can’t even pick a favorite. They are all my favorite. You are my favorite. Everything is my favorite. Just file me under gushing, unseemly, 127.

    1. maccrocodile +30

      There was a knock at the door. “Oh, but Cecily!” I cried, “Are not all of our expected guests here? Allow me to dispatch with our interloper.”

      Upon our doorstep was a statue made of whitest marble, her empty eyes staring deep into my soul, almost accusingly. The statue knew. She knew everything.

      “I’m sorry, but we have guests here, and we were just sitting down for dinner.”

      The statue only stared.

      “No, you weren’t invited,” I confessed, already quite peeved at the statues insistence, “You were not invited, and we were not expecting you. Good day, madam.”

    2. hurdyburdy +52

      “Don’t move,” he whispered, staring at the white marble statue. “Don’t even blink.”
      “Oh, Cecily,” she said dismissively, “don’t you know that reference is overplayed? You never know when to stop beating,” she pulled an anachronistic pair of sunglasses from her pocket and slowly put them on, “…a dead horse.“

    3. lawrence +23

      1) I can’t find anything about the equestrian corpse, but from the same novel: “He gives a dinner with the devil (a particularly interesting Satan, with molten insides) in attendance and gets Tam to sell his soul for three years’ fat bacon.” — Ann Tracy’s summary of THE THREE PERILS OF MAN, OR, WAR, WOMEN, AND WITCHCRAFT. A BORDER ROMANCE

      2) No details on the unexpected statues either, but from the same novel: “…she acquires a shepherd’s costume and vows never to reveal her sex until the mystery of her pregnancy is solved. Twice she stays with families, under different aliases, but is forced to move on when impressionable young ladies are smitten with her beauty and press for marriage.” — Ann Tracy’s summary of SANTA-MARIA, OR, THE MYSTERIOUS PREGNANCY. A ROMANCE

      1. SarcasticFringehead +18

        Is three years’ worth a lot of fat bacon? I mean, there’s a certain amount of fat bacon for which I would sell a soul (particularly someone else’s), but I don’t know if three years’ worth is gonna do it.

  16. threatqualitypress +15

    Okay can someone explain to me why daggers dipped in a bowl of a blood is under “blood: bowls of, daggers dipping in” and not “blood: daggers dipping in bowls of”?

    Why is the BOWL the important part of that entry, and not the DAGGER? (Obviously the blood is the most important part of the entry, I don’t think we need to even question that.)

    1. AddieJoy +31

      A dagger’s ordinary form is to be covered in blood. But a _bowl_ full of blood is novel, and certainly not what one would expect with breakfast.

      1. Abanthis +10

        Black pudding is a perfectly respectable breakfast component. Unprocessed blood, however, is not at all the done thing.

    2. lawrence +23

      “When he escapes he discovers a secret assembly of men… who are dipping daggers into a bowl of blood. He is told that he must join their assembly or die by torture.” — Ann Tracy’s summary of THE MIDNIGHT GROAN, OR, THE SPECTRE OF THE CHAPEL

      So it seems that Horatio just stumbled into a room with twenty men sitting around a giant table covered in bowls of blood, and the dagger-dipping was just a way to pass the time.

      (The end of this tale, by the way: “…after some resolution of family mix-ups, Horatio and Miranda, not siblings after all, marry each other.”)

      1. threatqualitypress +23

        Oh, yeah, I guess that makes sense.  If you’ve got a big bowl of blood, and some guys show up with daggers, like, what are you going to do?  NOT dip them in it?

  17. threatqualitypress +50

    Monk, unusually mysterious

    (UNUSUALLY mysterious)

    and

    Wedding, by specter clergyman

    God, what a dull and pointless life I’ve led up until now.

  18. threatqualitypress +44

    hahahahaa oh man I just saw “hermit’s narrative, prevented by muteness of hermit” and now I don’t even know about anything in this world anymore

    1. winterbymorning +34

      I thought that said hotness of hermit and assumed he was too busy fighting off unwanted advances to proceed with his narrative. “This is why I became a hermit in the first place!”

      1. threatqualitypress +30

        “Curse this wild beard and my rugged, manly features!  How will I tell you this tale that figuratively flirts with incest, while constantly subject to unwanted sexual advances!?!?”

  20. celery +23

    There’s no overlap between “guest: perfidious” and “guest: uninvited and sinister.” Do all the uninvited and sinister guests turn out to be decent folks?

  21. gallimaufry_ +29

    This is a haunted establishment of quality, madam. We’ll have no lower-class ghosts here, thank you.

  22. PierrePoutine +20

    All this talk of corpses has me thinking it’s time for The Toast to offer a Gothic reimagining of Weekend at Bernie’s.

  23. prost +23

    Awesome. I’m hoping that the plot summaries are one per page, such that for instance, there is a story on page 33 that involves
    baby swapping, a bosom (lover’s severed heart placed on), corpses (burnt; physical contact with fresh; plural, in piles; and thrown over precipice), ghosts (fiery and of victim, appearing to murderer), incest (literary flirtation with) and a villain, gauche (dagger caught in cloak).

    Whereas the infant: nonflammable story on p 101 would also feature a ghost (lower-class), a monk (unusually mysterious), a novice or nun (debauched), Satan and/or lesser demons and a wedding (forced).

    1. lawrence +23

      Actually, the numbers represent novel-numbers, not page numbers, so: Yes! Book 33, THE WATCH TOWER, OR, THE SONS OF ULTHONA. AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE, contains all those these! Heartbreakingly, it is one of only 40 works that I have been unable to locate in digital form!! Number 101, TALES OF TERROR. WITH AN INTRODUCTORY DIALOGUE, is another of those 40. 🙁 🙁 🙁

      We’ll just have to write new versions ourselves!

  24. keristars +6

    This makes me REALLY want to reared THE MONK, my absolute favorite Gothic Novel if you don’t count the CASTLE OF OTRANTO which i’ve reread enough that I don’t really need to reread it again (OR DO I???)

    these novels make me think of the flare of Silent and Pre-Code movies, tbh, but I don’t know what the novel-equivalent of the Hollywood Production Code would have been. Maybe Samuel Johnson or whosit and Austen and Hardy and perhaps Dickens?

    1. lawrence +25

      THE VICTORIANS, obviously. They suck ALL THE FUN out of literature SO EFFECTIVELY that for the next hundred and fifty years college undergraduates enter their first-year writing courses believing that nobody in Olden Times has ever told a dick joke, even once.

      1. keristars +12

        #NOTALLVICTORIANS

        I mean that’s what I was going to say but THEN i remembered Dracula and the Sensationalists and that Johnson fellow sure did suck a lot of fun out of novels with his whole schtick about how they should be uplifting and MORAL and people actually listened to him. so i didn’t want to generalize too much.

        (no but seriously i was one of those firsties! it was sad and unfortunate but then i met my first Gothic novel in my 2nd year and my life was changed)

    1. Unreadaethel +6

      What if the funeral is tastefully decorated with portraits of the deceased, with matching ghosts?

  26. DoubtfulGuest +15

    Perhaps the pulp, bloody, formerly baby is related to the infant, nonflammable? They couldn’t burn the stubborn thing, so they had to resort to bludgeoning?

  28. lawrence +11

    Selected quotes from Ann Tracy’s summaries of these novels may be perused (where else?) on my tumblr.

    (Shamless plug alert: my actual research may be perused (in its preliminary form) here.)

    2. lawrence +12

      (Also, if you want more-accurate, still-mostly-hilarious data, my spreadsheet of the 70 motifs which appear in at least 20 novels is available here.)

  31. Household_Opera +6

    “blood, overflowing room, dream about, 137”

    So THAT’S where that elevator scene in The Shining came from.

  34. Hththe1st +15

    Not gonna lie, I am adopting this wholesale as a checklist of Things to Write About Before I Die.

  35. Meghan +4

    I love this! I’m an actual, real live indexer, too! I never get to make fun entries like this (maybe I should start slipping them in and see if anyone notices. Yeah? Ok).

    incest: literary flirtations with could also totally be in an index to YA motifs.

  37. lawrence

    Wikipedia claims that Jocelyn is a unisex name (except in France, where it's male only, and the female name is Jocelyne) but post-1880 usage data suggests that it's been a long time since that was the case. It must still have been unisex in the 1790s, though!

  38. vorsoisson

    Hooray! I love how many people at The Toast can recognize it, there is definitely an unusually high number of Bujold readers here (i.e., people with excellent taste!).

  40. katesonnet

    "Satan and lesser demons" was my personal favorite. I don't know why but any reference to "lesser demons" or even the phrase itself just tickles my fancy.