Gothic Auntie

Literature, folklore, and history

recent posts

  • 3 M. R. James Stories (and tea pairings) for a Victorian Christmas Eve

    One of my favourite Victorian Christmas traditions is the telling of ghost stories on Christmas Eve, and M. R. James is the undisputed master of it. A prolific author of short horror stories, much of his work was written for the specific purpose of reading aloud at his annual Christmas Eve party, where select staff and students were invited to his rooms to be scared witless by candlelight.

    I was first introduced to this during undergrad by one of my best friends who was determined to bring this tradition back to life; and for a few years, just before we all headed home to our families, we’d gather to read a couple of his stories to each other. At some point this slipped by the wayside, and now the two of us live on opposite sides of the Atlantic, but I’m finding myself drawn back to it this year now I’ve begun this gothic side project and I wanted to share some suggestions with you. I’ve also included some tea pairings because I really do think that the right tea (or hot chocolate, wine, etc) enhances the experience and helps make it more immersive.

    “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad”

    Technically even a Christmas story, in that the events of “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” take place around Christmas, this is the James story I always recommend to new readers. It’s one of the most frightening, if not the most frightening in his canon, and may leave you struggling to sleep alone that night.

    Named after the Robbie Burns poem of the same name, Whistle is the tale of a professor holidaying at the seaside who makes the mistake of first removing a small bronze whistle from an archaeological site, and then of blowing into it back at his rooms. The events that follow distort the normal world and mundane objects in ways that are deeply unsettling, especially if you were the sort of child who was afraid of what might appear in empty spaces, in the dark or when you weren’t looking.

    “Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” can be read here for free on Project Gutenberg, but if you want a physical copy (and to support both me and a small, queer bookshop, you can buy the anthology its part of here).

    To drink I recommend a green tea and mint blend. Green tea and mint are both stimulants, leaving the drinker feeling more alert, like someone watching for apparitions out of the corner of their eye, while the cooling effect of the mint will also leave you feeling chilled even as the tea warms you through. Both Twinnings and Whittards do a nice blend, but I’m pretty sure there’ll be some supermarket own brand and other cheaper options out there too.

    “The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral”

    Another Christmassy(ish) story because it takes place in and around a Cathedral (alright I’m reaching), “The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral” is an epistolary tale that presents a man haunted — but by what? Following the rise and death of Dr. Haynes, “The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral” unveils greed, ambition, and finally a supernatural judgement rendered for sins he’d kept hidden from mortal eyes. The world building lore in this story is fascinating and there’s an element of wish fulfilment to it as well, of justice meted out by a supernatural hand when human society misses.

    I recommend a Christmas spiced tea for this one because a childhood full of singing in Church of England carol services (despite my ostensibly Methodist, somewhat pagan upbringing) has led me to associate churches in winter with the smell of mulling spices. I have my own spice blend I make at home, but if you can’t be doing with that then any mix containing cinnamon and orange peel would be good I think.

    Mulled wine or punch is also an excellent accompaniment for this story, and I’m planning on pairing it with a deceptively alcoholic fruit punch that we got at the Christmas market.

    You can read this story for free here, or purchase your own copy (supporting me etc) from this link.

    “A Neighbour’s Landmark”

    One of James’ less popular stories, I really like “A Neighbour’s Landmark” because it’s both creepy and interesting from a social history perspective. Named after a passage in Deuteronomy, “A Neighbour’s Landmark” is another fantasy about supernatural justice for mortal deeds, with the added gothic tragedy of a curse that can’t be lifted because of mundane changes to the mortal world. It’s got haunted woods, a curious librarian, and the lingering discomfort of knowing there’s only so much human beings can do against supernatural forces.

    My tea pairing for this story is Blue Lady, but specifically one of the Blue Lady varieties that includes cornflowers because it seems that every company has their own take on this tea. This was a difficult story to match to a tea blend, and in the end the credit goes to my friend for his suggestion of Blue Lady, because of it’s Victorian vibes and sense of formality and restraint; matching the impression the British land owning classes had of themselves, and therefore the aesthetic of this story.

    “A Neighbour’s Landmark” can be read here for free.

  • Hans Trapp, Christmas’ Cannibal Scarecrow

    A black and white illustration of a group of children cowering in a corner as a terrifying, bearded man with a stick climbs through the window. In front of him is a robed, androgynous figure with candles on their head and two children look up at this figure instead of cowering.
    The Christ Child and Hans Trapp in Alsace (1863 illustration)

    Santa has some scary friends. We all know about Krampus by now, the hairy goat-demon from the Alps, but it turns out he’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Father Christmas’ European enforcers. Meet Hans Trapp, the undead cannibal scarecrow who terrorises children in Alsace, France.

    Surprisingly, of all Santa’s terrifying henchman, Hans Trapp is the one genuinely based on a real person. Hans von Trotha was a German knight, awarded control of two castles in 1480 by the Prince Elector of the Palatinate while Alsace was part of the Germanic Holy Roman Empire. The only problem was that Berwartstein Castle, which von Troth had made his primary seat, had previously belonged to the local Abbey, and it’s annexation thirty years later was a matter for dispute.

    Already furious that what he saw as the Abbey’s rightful property had been given to a foreigner, the final straw for the Abbot came when von Troth demanded they hand over the estate traditionally attached to the castle too. The Abbot appealed to the local Elector for help, only for the Elector to decided in von Troth’s favour, awarding him a higher rank as well as the rest of the castle’s estate (for a reasonable price of course). This wasn’t the end of it however, and the dispute between the monks and von Troth only escalated, with von Troth resorting to levels of truly cartoonish villainy in an attempt to get his way.

    The most egregious of von Troth’s verified evil acts (we’ll get to the unverified ones in a moment) was when he decided to dam up the local river, flooding the Abbot’s lands and cutting off the water supply for the nearby town in the process. When the monks pleaded with him to restore the town’s water to them it apparently gave von Trotha ideas. Instead of removing the dam in a safe, controlled fashion he decided to just rip it out quickly, violently flooding Wissembourg and dealing immense damage that the inhabitants would take years to recover from.

    Hans got away with this behaviour for eight years because, though the Abbot sent regular appeals to the Holy Roman Emperor, his imperial majesty didn’t feel especially moved to do anything about it. Finally the Abbot decided to go over his head and write to the pope for help, at which point von Trotha finally made a mistake.

    Rather than attending the papal summons, which was, after all, all the way down in Rome and very inconvenient to get to, Hans decided to send the pope a letter instead. A rude letter. One in which he accused the pope — accurately, though that’s beside the point — of immorality. Hans likely thought the power of the Holy Roman Empire and his position within it would continue to shield him from any consequences. Instead he found himself excommunicated, and subject to an Imperial Ban that forced him to take up a diplomatic role at the royal court in France.

    Despite his excommunication and exile von Trotha retained possession of his lands and castles, and was even able to return there in order die at Berwartstein Castle in 1503. Absence did not make the peoples’ hearts grow fonder however, and the legend of his iniquities began to grow with each retelling until he became something of a local cryptid, with very little in common with his original self.

    Renamed Hans Trapp, from the word trappen, to walk loudly in order to scare off ghosts and spirits, Hans was now said to have entered into a pact with the devil. Far from spending his exile in a cushy role at the French court he was now believed to have spent it roaming the Alsatian countryside in search of victims. Filled with an insatiable lust for human flesh he disguised himself as a scarecrow in order to lure children close enough to grab, only to drag them off into the dark forests around Castle Berwartstein so he could cook and eat them in peace.

    Eventually Trapp’s evil became so great that God wasn’t willing to tolerate it anymore and struck him dead with a bolt of lightning. This after he had killed and roasted a young shepherd boy over the fire but before he’d managed to eat him. The matter of God drawing the line at cannibalism rather than child murder is certainly an interesting one, but something something mysterious ways not for us to know.

    This lightning bolt wasn’t to be the end of Hans Trapp though, because, and the stories vary on this one, either St. Nicholas or Jesus Christ himself then chose to raise the man from the dead. There are so many theological questions raised by this story and absolutely zero answers.

    After being raised from the dead however Hans found his true vocation, as one of the companions of St. Nicholas, punishing bad behaviour among the children of Alsace as the saint rewards the good. Some accounts portray this as his having had a radical come to Jesus moment, with his participation in the Christmas prize and punishment sphere all about teaching children right from wrong. Others see it as a way for him to continue doing what he truly loved, marking out children to kill and eat over the coming year, with bad children going on the list.

    You can see Hans Trapp every year at the Night Parade of Hans Trapp and Christkindl in Wissembourg, where the villain parades through the town accompanied by fire eaters and a wheeled cage full of children begging for rescue. Eventually Christkindl arrives and Hans Trapp is frightened off by the light of God, fleeing back to his castle lair for another year according to local folklore. The spectacle takes place on the 4th Sunday in Advent, December 22nd this year, so if you want to really terrorise your children there’s still time to make it happen.

  • Gothic Heroine Lifestyle: Stocking Stuffers for your Gothic Heroine

    Sourced from Canva

    There’s little a certain sort of reader likes more than feeling like they’ve been drawn into their favourite genre, and Christmas is an ideal time to get them some little nick-nacks and luxuries that will let them feel like a tragic yet valiant gothic heroine. As a bonus everything on this list is either consumable or easily thrifted, minimising waste and our participation in the endless manufacturing to landfill pipeline.

    Candlestick/Candelabra

    Everyone knows a gothic heroine needs a good gothic candlestick, and while this sounds expensive it doesn’t have to be. I’ve found a selection of antique looking candlesticks, including a full five candle candelabra, from several different charity shops (thrift shops for American readers) over the years — and my perfectly stocking sized pair that I picked up last year cost £2.50 each, making them a surprisingly economical gift. While your chances on finding this kind of thing in a charity/thrift shop vary widely you can find similarly historic looking candlesticks on Vinted for not too much more than that.

    Candle Snuffer

    Similarly, there’s nothing to make you feel more like a put upon gothic heroine than using an actual candle snuffer to put your candles out, especially if you’ve turned off all the electric lights first. Mine also came from a charity shop, slipped into a Christmas stocking from a very thoughtful partner about a decade ago, but unlike the candlesticks its not something I’ve come across myself. Fortunately they’re quite easy to find online, including genuine vintage ones, for quite reasonable prices.

    Loose Leaf Tea

    A luxury essential for the 18th and 19th century lady, tea was very important if you were going to entertain other ladies to an appropriate Standard, but it was also very expensive. A nice package of loose leaf tea will allow your gothic heroine to maintain the appearance of respectability when visited by ruthless society ladies, for all that her family’s fortunes lay in ruins, ruins, and its also just a lovely thing to have when curling up with a book (bonus point if you match the blend to something on her tbr).

    Floral Bar Soap

    Bar soap used to be a pretty upscale purchase, especially if you lived somewhere without olive groves or another ready supply of vegetable oil. Even in the Regency, when technological advances finally allowed for the mass production of bar soaps, it was still an expensive luxury; especially if you wanted the nice kind with added scent and moisturising agents. Those who couldn’t afford it, including even less well off members of the gentry, were forced to rely on the often home made soft soap, a gelatinous brown substance that was quite harsh on the skin. 

    A vintage style soap, the kind that comes wrapped in paper and smells of roses or lilies, is exactly the thing to get your heroine into the gothic mindset; whether its as an ingenue, thoughtlessly enjoying the time in which such things are plentiful, or a seasoned victim in the depths of her persecution arc, receiving the kind gift of a wealthy stranger, the scent of which brings her back to happier times.

    An Orange

    A classic Christmas stocking gift, oranges are in season during the winter. That, combined with the expense of importing them, made them an expensive treat most people far North of the equator would only see around Christmas. While it’s unclear when the tradition of putting an orange in the toe of a Christmas stocking started (possibly Victorian, possibly the Great Depression, or any time in between), it definitely has the vibe of something a gothic heroine might treasure among her gifts.

    Leather or Suede Gloves

    Showing your naked hands used to be quite an intimate thing, especially for women. Even into the twentieth century no “respectable” woman, (read those who could afford it), would be seen in public without a pair of gloves covering her hands. Nineteenth century ladies would have worn leather gloves, either dyed to match their outfits or in a neutral shade such as white or tan, when outside during the day, and lace, mesh, or a similar light material indoors, often with the fingers cut out to preserve dexterity. 

    Though the indoor gloves are unlikely to get much mileage unless you’re purchasing for a cosplayer, re-enactor, or someone with a very specific sense of style (it’s me, I’m someone), a nice leather or suede pair are a lovely and practical gift; especially if, like me, your giftee lives somewhere absolutely freezing for most of the year. I advise wrapping them in tissue paper and then placing them in a thin rectangular cardboard box tied with ribbon to really capture the feeling of a historic gift.

    A Folding Fan

    These are easily picked up from charity shops and there are also artists who make beautiful hand made ones online. Every gothic heroine needs a nice folding fan, and with global warming they’ve recently become a practical present again even up here in Scotland.

  • Christmas is Gothic

    Sarah Clegg’s The Dead of Winter

    I was inspired to write this post at the beginning of November, watching the post Halloween despair sweep it’s way across my social media feeds. Christmas creep has come for us, and now everything is covered in twinkly lights, unsettling nutcracker statues, and exhortations to shop your way to happiness the moment the ghosts and skeletons come down on November 1st. I genuinely, unironically love Christmas, although I do find the hyper-capitalist aspects of it nauseating, but the advent of the season of sparkly, consumerist happiness doesn’t have to mean the end of spooky season. In fact, if we’re taking a traditionalist approach to this time of year, the bleak midwinter is actually when spooky season reaches it’s zenith. It’s time to explore the gothic history of Yule time horror, and the terrifying spirits of Christmas past.

    Gothic Christmas has less to do with Christmas itself and everything to do with the time of year we celebrate it. There’s a reason most cultures have winter festivals featuring fire and light, and its because up until very very recently winter itself was the biggest monster humans had to face. Even amidst all the technological advantages of the industrial revolution the cold weather, influx of diseases, and reduced access to nutritious food were major killers every year — still are, in fact, in more extreme climate zones and areas impacted by poverty. There’s a reason Halloween falls on 30th October, the end of the harvest up in the North, and the beginning of the season of death; it’s not the end of the spooky times but the beginning. All Hallow’s Eve is just the opening act for the litany of ghosts and monsters that lurk outside in the dead of winter.

    At this point we’re all familiar with Krampus, the stick to Santa’s carrot, who punishes naughty children either by whipping them or, in something of an escalation, putting them in his sack and carting them off to hell. But he’s not the only sinister accomplice to St. Nick; Père Fouettard, the Belsnickle, Hans Trapp, and a host of other unsavoury characters all bring a wide range of violence, mayhem, and murder to the annual present giving experience. Then there are their even less overtly Christmassy cousins, Perchta, Frau Holde, and the like, whose origins lay at least partly in the pre-Christian religion of the Alps, and do both Santa and Krampus’ jobs for them on one or more of the holy days.

    Beyond gift giving, numerous monsters roam the streets, and skies, during the midwinter period. In Wales we have the mari llewyd, a horse’s skull on a stick that so dearly wants to come inside your house and drink all your beer that you’ll have to engage in a Welsh language rap battle to keep her and her retinue outside. Lussi, dark twin to St. Lucia, rides through the skies over Sweden with her train of ghosts and trolls on 13th December, followed by other Wild Hunts all across Europe until the onset of spring. Underground imps in South-Eastern Europe and Anatolia breach the surface world to cause chaos and stuff themselves full of sweets and sausages, and of course Iceland’s cast of Christmas horror’s are so terrifying their parliament once attempted to ban parents from telling their children about them. It’s spooky out there.

    The Victorians took these traditions of Midwinter terror and gave them literary form, with authors like Charles Dickens, Henry James, and the true master of the art, the prodigious M. R. James, creating the genre of the Christmas ghost story. Sharing ghost stories had long been a Christmas Eve tradition and these writers built on that, creating iconic works of terror and social commentary that are still impactful today even as we’ve largely exorcised the fear out of Christmas. Dickens’ ghosts may be more friendly than frightening in modern adaptations of A Christmas Carol but it’s allowed them to be the last ghosts standing as people who have forgotten the frightening history of the season still return to it as a beloved classic year after year.

    I have prepared a helpful reading list for those of you interested in learning more about Gothic Christmas, and if you choose to go through my Bookshop.org link provided then you’ll be helping to support both me and a radical, independent bookshop. If you can’t blow money on books right now then don’t worry, many of the classics listed will be available via Project Gutenberg and the others can likely be requested from your local library. Merry spooky Christmas, I’ll be back with more seasonal terror soon.

  • Tea for Too Many; Drink Pairings for “The Moth Diaries” and it’s Leads

    Tea for Too Many; Drink Pairings for “The Moth Diaries” and it’s Leads

    Teenagers make ideal gothic protagonists. The intense emotions and confusing desires of adolescence align so well with the genres’ themes that the narrative practically drives itself, something Rachel Klein uses to full effect in her epistolary vampire novel The Moth Diaries.

    Set in a girls boarding school, dealing with issues from class to abuses of power, and providing the audience with a reading list that’s woven into the plot, The Moth Diaries was dark academia before we’d even defined the genre; and it remains a mystery to me that it’s not held up as one of it’s foundational texts. Because I love this book I’ve decided to create some hot drink pairings that attempt capture the experience of reading it, and hopefully encourage more people to give it a try.

    The Novel Herself — Medium Roast Black Coffee

    Told through journal entries, The Moth Diaries follows a 16 year old girl at an elite boarding school, grieving and preyed upon, as she watches her beloved room mate get sicker and sicker. Lucy’s illness develops as she draws away from the protagonist and closer to their mysterious new classmate, someone our unnamed diarist should be drawn to as a friend but sees as a rival in every sense. The insular world the girls inhabit is a repressive one, homosocial yet homophobic, with the misogyny and disregard for mental health typical of the 1970’s setting. All of this combines to lead the protagonist and her friends into a very dark, dangerous place that leaves everyone, reader included, questioning reality in the aftermath.

    Most of the girls, including our protagonist, idealise the literature and cigarettes lifestyle associated with countercultural thinkers and French literary circles, making black coffee the obvious choice. Beyond character aesthetics black coffee also aligns well with the experience of reading the novel; dark, rich, stimulating but bitter, enjoyable but not exactly pleasant. There’s no joy or comfort in this book, but that’s also not why you’ve chosen to read it.

    The Diarist — Strong, Dark Roast Black Coffee

    The diarist’s drink is also black coffee, partly because she’s fully committed to that intellectual aesthetic and partly because it reflects her emotional state. The diarist is deeply depressed, to the point that she’s internalised that depression as part of her personality, and the bitterness of the dark roast coffee uncut by cream or sugar reflects that. The jittery feeling very strong coffee can induce mirrors the sleeplessness and anxiety she’s feeling as the events unfold in a safely muted form that enhances immersion as you’re reading.

    Lucy — Vanilla and Chamomile with Honey

    Unlike most of her friends Lucy isn’t particularly interested in emulating 19th century French authors and philosophers, she’s much more rooted in the now, in interpersonal relationships and life outside of academia. She’s also a warm, comforting presence in the diarist’s life until she loses her, a person who feels like golden sunlight and ease until it all goes wrong. Her tea is a caffeine free vanilla and chamomile with some honey added for sweetness, both because sweetness, relaxation, and pleasure are qualities tied to her and because chamomile is a sleep aid, reflecting her fate as the novel progresses.

    Ernessa — Early Grey, Black, no Sugar

    The diarist’s foil, Lucy’s love, possible vampire. Ernessa has a classic, elegant, timeless quality that Earl Grey embodies. The faint bitterness of it drunk black, the caffeine boost from the black tea leaves, and the perfumed edge from the citrus peel, something that can feel unsettling when unfamiliar, all capture her essence, the feel of her presence in the diarist’s world. It’s a type of historic elegance and poise the diarist envies, while uncomfortable and unsettled by it at the same time, and the more delicate effects of the tea compared to the protagonists coffee reflects her sense of inadequacy when compared to Ernessa.

  • Gothic Heroines as College Roommates

    Gothic Heroines as College Roommates

    Most gothic heroines would have a much better time of it in the present, but whether they’d have a similarly positive effect on the people around them is another matter entirely.

    Catherine Earnshaw

    You can’t tell if that boy’s her brother or her lover, troublingly you’re starting to suspect that the answer might be both, but whatever this toxic drama is that’s playing out between them you’re a little worried that somebody’s going to wind up dead before the end of semester.

    On the other hand you did hear that if a student dies all their classmates automatically pass the year, so maybe you’re starting to root for it. It’s certainly hard enough to get any studying done when you’re constantly being sexiled by these two, and if you hear him screaming her name under the window one more time at night you’re going to drop a brick on his head.

    Christine Daaé

    At first you thought rooming with another music student would be nice. You could practice together, help each other prep for auditions, have someone around who’d get it instead of asking you how you thought you were ever going to get a real job with a degree like that. Sure she was always talking about angels, but you just thought she was religious, and that maybe there was a bit of a language barrier which was why it always sounded kind of weird (you don’t know what she was trying to say but there’s no way she meant that her guardian angel was literally in the walls).

    Then you got cast as the lead in the summer musical and she ended up as your understudy. She wasn’t even mean about it! She genuinely seemed excited for you, right up until the freak accident with the stage light that broke your leg. You can’t prove that it was her, and her look of shocked terror when the incident happened proves she’s a significantly better actress than you’d thought, but still, you’re definitely transferring across the country next year.

    Jane Eyre

    Possibly the perfect room mate, at least on paper, Jane is hard working, helpful, and always keeps her half of the room neat. Very neat. Extremely neat. You suspect she’s about ten seconds away from going postal, or handing the RA a neatly handwritten little book containing all the infractions you and your floor mates have gotten away with so far. Maybe that’s unfair, as far as you know she hasn’t snitched on anyone yet (and to be fair, there’s a lot she could snitch on), but her fiery eyed speeches on morality are down right unsettling and absolutely kill the vibe. You’d rather have her as a friend than an enemy, you saw how she winged that frat boy with a biology textbook the other day, but you didn’t go all the way across the country for college to have to sneak past a smaller, scarier version of your mother just to have some fun.

    Laura

    You desperately need her to notice that she and Carmilla are dating. Or for Carmilla to say something about it other than increasingly obvious poetry that’s still somehow going over Laura’s head. “I live in your warm life,” Carmilla says, only for Laura to ask you later if you think Carmilla’s in love with some guy while trying her hardest not to sound jealous. The whole thing has become a Sapphic comedy of errors of Shakespearean proportions and you’re really trying to focus on midterms here.

    Also you’re pretty sure she’s suffering from sleep paralysis or something, because the other night she woke up shouting about a giant black cat in the room. She should maybe talk to someone about that. Maybe you’ll get a single next year.

    Lucy Westenra

    You really need her to stop opening the window after you’ve gone to sleep. It can’t be helping that serious case of fresher’s flu she’s come down with, and now its starting to look like she’s passed it on to you as well. Hell, maybe its mono? You’ve been so tired lately, and you’ve certainly never had a sore throat like this before.

    Maxim’s girlfriend

    Look that sounds terrible but she genuinely hasn’t told you her name and at this point it would be weird to ask. You do know her boyfriend though, because he’s the TA for the English Literature class you’re taking together. Weird and inappropriate? Yes, but he’s also always buying the two of you beer and food that’s significantly nicer than the cafeteria plan, and apparently his family own a mansion upstate so maybe she’s on to something there.

    You’re also way too familiar with his ex girlfriend’s name. Boy does your roomie talk about Rebecca a lot for someone whose never even met her. The other night you caught her Instagram stalking the girl all the way back to 2020 with a Vinted tab open beside it. In fairness she didn’t have to go back that far to get there because it seems to be an old account, and the two of you can’t find the one she’s using now no matter how hard you look. (You know you shouldn’t be encouraging this but at this point you’re invested in the drama). It makes sense though, because if you were Rebecca you too would have locked down your social media too and vanished off the face of the earth.

    Mina Harker

    Actually the perfect roommate, Mina is kind, tidy, and helpful, without any of the terrifying repressed rage Jane has burning in her eyes. If you’re struggling with a subject she’ll tutor you, if your life falls apart at 2am she’ll be there with spreadsheets and a cup of tea to sort it all out again. Even her boyfriend’s completely unobjectionable, which is saying something at this university full of brooding wind swept men. At this rate you might even join them when they go railroading around Eastern Europe this summer (she loves trains that one), it’ll be the adventure of a life time!

  • Return to “A Mirror of the Graces” as I Count Backward from Ten

    Return to “A Mirror of the Graces” as I Count Backward from Ten

    Part two! Are you excited? I’m excited. I’m starting to find it funny now that I’m sharing it with you. We’re heading into the chapter entitled “On the Female Form” and just like Hildegard of Bingen I’m wondering if our dear Lady has some repressed feelings going with the way she’s cataloguing types of female beauty. There’s also a lot of classical allusions going on. A lot.

    “In one youthful figure, we see the lineaments of a wood-nymph; a form slight and elastic in all its parts. The shape,

    “Small by degrees, and beautifully less,
    From the soft bosom to the tender waist!”

    A foot light as that of her whose flying step scarcely brushed the “unbending corn;” and limbs, whose agile grace moved in gay harmony with the turns of her swan-like neck and sparkling eyes.

    Another fair one appears with the chastened dignity of a vestal. Her proportions are of a less aërial outline. As she draws near, we perceive that the contour of her figure is on a broader and less flexible scale than that of her more ethereal sister. Euphrosyne speaks in the one, Melpomene in the other.”

    She goes on like this for a while.

    “The general characteristics of youth, are meek dignity, chastened sportiveness, and gentle seriousness. Middle age has the privilege of preserving, unaltered, the graceful majesty and tender gravity which may have marked its earlier years. But the gay manners of the comic muse must, in the advance of life, be discreetly softened down into little more than cheerful amenity. Time marches on, and another change takes place. Amiable as the former characteristics may be, they must give way to the sober, the venerable aspect with which age, experience, and “a soul commercing with the skies,” ought to adorn the silver hairs of the Christian matron.”

    Shan’t.

    I mean aside from the utter pretentiousness it’s not any different from the things people say about dressing your age even now. But you can pry my glitter eye shadow from my wizened crone hands.

    “Virgin, bridal Beauty, when she arrays herself with taste, obeys an end of her creation — that of increasing her charms in the eyes of some virtuous lover, or the husband of her bosom. She is approved. But when the wrinkled fair, the hoary-headed matron, attempts to equip herself for conquest, to awaken sentiments which, when the bloom on her cheek has disappeared, her rouge can never recall; and, despite of all her efforts, we can perceive “memento mori” written on her face, then we cannot but deride her folly, or, in pity, counsel her rather to seek for charms, the mental graces of Madame de Sevigné, than the meretricious arts of Ninon de l’Enclos.”

    Repulsive. Culturally normative, obviously, but repulsive all the same.

    John William Waterhouse, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

    “A strange kind of art, a sort of sorcery, is prescribed by tradition, and in books, in the form of cosmetics, &c., to preserve female charms in perpetual youth. But I fear that, until these composts can be concocted in Medea’s caldron, they will never have any better effect than exercising the faith and patience of the credulous dupes, who expect to find the elixir vitæ in any mixture under heaven.”

    Genuinely hilarious phrasing even if it is horrible. It’s not that she’s entirely wrong; most of the anti-ageing products available in her era were actively poisonous, leaving their users with everything from horrible rashes to neurological damage and death. Just the sheer contempt for women trying to preserve the thing they’re primarily valued for, that they’ve been indoctrinated from birth to fixate on. It’s entirely on brand for her, though I’ve heard she changed her mind on makeup et al once she started ageing herself.

    “The secret of preserving beauty lies in three things, — temperance, exercise, and cleanliness. — From these few heads, I hope much good instruction may be deduced. Temperance includes moderation at table, and in the enjoyment of what the world calls pleasure. A young beauty, were she fair as Hebe, and elegant as the Goddess of Love herself, would soon lose these charms by a course of inordinate eating, drinking, and late hours.”

    This sounds harmless enough but she’s about to dive into disordered eating 101. It’s mostly orthorexia but there’s also aspects of restriction in there too, it’s very nineties and oughts diet culture at it’s worst with elements of pleasure is sin and sin makes you ugly mixed in.

    “But, when I speak of inordinate eating, &c., I do not mean feasting like a glutton, or drinking to intoxication. My objection is not more against the quantity than the quality of the dishes which constitute the usual repast of women of fashion. Their breakfasts not only set forth tea and coffee, but chocolate, and hot bread and butter.”

    Not hot bread. Imagine eating an actual food for breakfast instead of just liquid caffeine. The horror. She then goes on to make a good point about how skipping lunch is a bad idea but walks back the only common sense she’s shown by scolding women for eating rich, flavoursome food and drinking anything other than plain water. That and staying up late and attending social functions will make you ugly.

    “Young Ladies at Home”, Henry Moses 1823

    “This delightful and delicate Oriental fashion is now, I am happy to say, prevalent almost all over the continent.”

    Bathing. She’s talking about bathing regularly. I cannot express how embarrassed I am on behalf of my ancestors. Culturally appropriating basic hygiene. Good gods. Bad enough we weren’t doing it ourselves to begin with, now we’ve got to be weird about the people who modelled it.

    “Every house of every nobleman or gentleman, in every nation under the sun, excepting Britain, possesses one of those genial friends to cleanliness and comfort. The generality of English ladies seem to be ignorant of the use of any bath larger than a wash-hand basin.”

    Absolute embarrassment. For once I’m with the Lady. Rinse them ma’am. Possibly literally.

    “It may be remarked, en passant, that rubbing of the skin in the bath is an excellent substitute for exercise, when that is impracticable out-of-doors.”

    And we’re back to our regularly scheduled nonsense.

    “I beseech you, therefore, as you value the preservation of your charms, to resist the dominion of this rude despoiler, to foster and encourage the feelings of kindliness and good-humor, and to repress every emotion of a contrary character.”

    Emotions make you ugly folks. Sorry, emotions that aren’t convenient for other people, mostly men, are inconvenient. God forbid a woman experience anger, “The first emotions of anger are apparent to the most superficial observer. Every indulgence in its paroxysms, both adds strength to its authority, and engraves its history in deeper relief on the forehead of its votaries.”

    Alright that’s the end of “On the Female Form.” I’m going to leave you here, with just one chapter for this instalment, because I think that’s quite enough for now. It is interesting how many modern parallels there are in her work to modern, misogynistic women’s magazine articles. Some of the things in this book read like paraphrased entries from the glossy magazines of my own oughts adolescence. Anyway until next time, when we dive into “The same subject, of female beauty, more explicitly considered.” She’s definitely going to be normal about this. Cannot wait.

  • Where to Read the Complete Works of the Brontë Sisters for Free

    The Brontë sisters made an indelible mark on the gothic genre, creating a small library’s worth of work’s between them. While Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are ubiquitous, Ann Brontë’s and much of Charlotte’s work are significantly more obscure and harder to find – and physical copies can be expensive as a result. However, as with much classic gothic fiction, the fact that their work is well out of copyright means that most of it can be found online for free, and so I’ve created this directory to help you locate and read them for yourselves.

    Though not everything the sisters wrote falls within the gothic genre I believe their other writing, including ephemera like personal correspondence, provides valuable context for their work that does and so I have included as much as possible of that here as well.

    While there are a lot of helpful sites publishing out of copyright works online sometimes these websites do get taken down, either by the creator themselves or because of external challenges to the website. If any of the links are broken please let me know and I’ll try and find a replacement. Similarly if there’s anything missing off this list and you know where it can be found online then I’d love to know so I can add it.

    Emily Brontë

    Emily only wrote one book and it’s one of the most iconic gothic novels. Wuthering Heights is a gothic romance, one of the few categories of romance that doesn’t require a happily ever after, and Emily delivered that absence with gusto. A book whose primary relationship has been lovingly summarised as “we can make each other worse” by countless tumblr users, Wuthering Heights explores all the ways love can be selfish and cruel instead of improving, as well as the oppressive and cruel social dynamics that lead to a people becoming that way.

    Wuthering Heights can be read here at Project Gutenberg or here on a dedicated website that also provides helpful notes about the novel. It can be listened to here.

    Charlotte Brontë

    The most prolific of the sisters, Charlotte wrote another of the iconic gothic romances, Jane Eyre, which is where most people’s knowledge of her corpus stops. However, Charlotte’s work spans genres, ranging from romance to the social novel.

    Novels

    Jane Eyre, the archetypal gothic governess, is a gothic romance with an ostensibly happy ending. I have questions about that myself (which you can read about here) but regardless; Jane Eyre balances supernatural elements with psychological horror with a whole heaping helping of social criticism layered in. It can be read here at Project Gutenberg, or here at standard ebooks, or listened to in audiobook form here.

    Villette shares some of the base materials of Jane Eyre, a penniless young woman forced to make her way as an educator, coming up against social prejudices and the restrictions placed on women. It’s a more complex book, and one that leans more heavily on social issues than romance or the supernatural, but still has it’s own gothic thrills. It can be read here, or here, or listened to in audiobook form here.

    Shirley is a social novel dealing with the impact of the Napoleonic wars and Industrial Revolution on the Northern industrial towns as well as the familiar topics of gender roles, relationships, and the precarious positions they left women in. It can be read here, or here, or listened to in audiobook form here.

    The Professor is a romance novel inspired by Charlotte’s own time spent teaching in Brussels. It’s told from the perspective of a well educated but pennyless man who, despite poor treatment by wealthy family and employers, is eventually able to marry the woman he loves and build a comfortable life with her. The Professor has a lot of the same themes of classism, exploitation, and familial maltreatment as Jane Eyre, as well as some anti-Catholic sentiment, and was actually written earlier though it wasn’t published until after Charlotte’s death. It can be read here, or here, or listened to in audiobook form here.

    Emma is Charlotte’s last, unfinished novel, about a child who arrives at a boarding school under a false identity. Several authors have attempted to finish the novel, however Charlotte only left us twenty pages in two chapters. It can be read here or here, or listened to here.

    Short Stories and Novellas

    Charlotte wrote a number of short stories and novellas in multiple genres. Unfortunately I have note been able to track down all of them, and if you know of one that I’ve missed and where it can be read online please let me know so I can include it on the list.

    The Search After Happiness is an allegorical fantasy written for children, featuring two friends, discontent with their lives embarking onto a quest into the wilderness where they live in a cave. After one goes missing the other returns to society, where after a journey that allows him to reintegrate himself he finds his missing friend. It can be read here

    The Twelve Adventurers is a collection of short stories written during Charlotte’s childhood about a group of men questing through a magical land. It can be read here and here.

    The Green Dwarf, a short gothic fantasy in one of Brontë’s original second world settings, filled with classic gothic romance tropes against a political and military backdrop. It can be read here or here (thirty day free trial).

    The Spell is set in another of those fantasy kingdoms and follows the political intrigue surrounding the death of an heir. It can be read here.

    Tales of the Islanders saw Charlotte collect and collate into story form the adventures of her brother Bramwell’s twelve toy soldiers developed through play between the four of them.

    Tales of Angria is a collection of short stories about the aristocracy of Charlotte and Bramwell’s imaginary kingdom Angria. It can be read here (free thirty day trial).

    Mina Laury is an Angrian story exploring love and relationship dynamics through the relationship between a Duke and his mistress. It can be read here.

    The Secret contains six stories (one named The Secret) set in another of Charlotte’s fantasy cities. It can be read here.

    Stancliffe’s Hotel is one of the final Angrian stories, in which Charlotte rounds off a lot of the characters story arc. It can be read here.

    Anne Brontë

    The youngest of the sisters, Anne’s work was more sombre and less fantastical, producing social novels rather than gothic works.

    Novels

    Agnes Grey tells the story of a governess whose early life mirror’s Anne’s own. Considered an early feminist work Agnes Grey explores the precariousness position governesses and women in general found themselves in, as well as the abuse they often suffer as a result. It can be read here and here.

    The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is another early feminist work, this time dealing with marital abuse and the dangerous power imbalance that marriage imposed on women. Deeply shocking for the time as it featured a heroine breaking both law and social convention to support herself independently and protect her son from his father, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall resonated with suffragists and women’s right advocates. It can be read here and here.

    Poetry

    Published under the same male pseudonyms, Currer (Charlotte), Ellis (Emily), and Acton (Anne) Bell, as their early fiction the Brontë sisters wrote a collection of poetry, which can be read here or here, or listened to here.

    Richard Coeur de Lion and Blondel by Charlotte Brontë are a pair of poems from the perspective of the captive Richard and his faithful minstrel Blondel and can be read here.

    Ephemera

    Charlotte Brontë’s letters can be read here.

    Collected letters of the sisters and extracts from contemporary biographers can be read here.

    If you want to get yourself a physical copy of any of these I have put together a reading list on bookshop.org, so you’d be helping me and an independent bookshop if you chose to purchase from there.

    Similarly my Kofi is here if you found this list useful and want to feed my coffee habit.

  • Extracts from “The Mirror of the Graces” Very Much With Commentary

    Extracts from “The Mirror of the Graces” Very Much With Commentary

    I’ve been doing research into what the daily lives of historic gothic heroines might have looked like in those rare periods of stability when they weren’t running from castles or finding extra wives hidden in the attic. Part of this has involved reading “The Mirror of the Graces”, a 19th century guidebook on how to groom, dress, and conduct yourself like An Appropriate Young Lady tm, and let me tell you, it has been an experience. Originally I hadn’t planned on writing anything specific about this one book but in order to keep my sanity as I continue to wade through it I’ve decided to share some particular extracts with you. This may end up being a part one. We’ll see.

    God wants you to get dressed up. But not too much.

    Is this the correct amount of bonnet? Think carefully, your immortal soul depends on it.

    I’m only on the introduction. But it’s a long introduction. In which our Lady of Distinction references such luminaries as Dr. Knox (the famously woman hating Dr. Knox of Calvinist fame? Unclear) to justify her claim that God actually wants women specifically to be exactly the right amount of fashionable and pretty.

    “God created the body, not only for usefulness, but adorned it with loveliness; and what he has made so pleasing, shall we disesteem, and refuse to apply to its admirable destination? — The very approving and innocent complacency we all feel in the contemplation of beauty, whether it be that of a landscape or of a flower, is a sufficient witness that the pleasure which pervades our hearts at the sight of human charms, was planted there by the Divine Framer of all things, as a principle of delight and social attraction. To this end, then, I seek to turn your attention, my fair countrywomen, upon YOURSELVES! — not only to the cultivation of your minds, but to maintain in its intended station that inferior part of yourselves, which mistaken gravity would, on the one hand, lead you to neglect as altogether worthless; and vanity, on the other, incline you too much to cherish, and egregiously to over-value.”

    Really she’s doing everyone a public service by writing this book. She says so herself.

    “Mothers, perhaps, (those estimable mothers who value the souls as the better parts of their daughters,) may start at such a text. But I call them to recollect, that it is “good all things should be in order!” This is a period when absurdity, bad taste, shamelessness, and self-interest, in the shapes of tire-men and tire-women, have arranged themselves in close siege around the beauty, and even chastity, of your daughters; and to preserve these graces in their original purity, I, a woman of virtue and a Christian, do not think it beneath my dignity to lift my pen.”

    Women, and their clothing, are responsible for mens’ behaviour.

    It wasn’t an uncommon opinion for the time.

    “ Having been a traveller in my youth, whilst visiting foreign courts with my husband, on an errand connected with the general welfare of nations, I could not overlook the influence which the women of every country hold over the morals and happiness of the opposite sex in every rank and degree.

    Fine taste in apparel I have ever seen the companion of pure morals, whilst a licentious style of dress was as certainly the token of the like laxity in manners and conduct. To correct this dangerous fashion, ought to be the study and attempt of every mother — of every daughter — of every woman.”

    I’m still in the introduction. I am very tired.

    The author is an Ancient Greek-aboo

    To be fair she wasn’t the only one (image from Costume Parisien 1799)

    “But even at that period, when the east and south laid their decorating riches at the feet of woman, we see, by the sculpture yet remaining to us, that the dames of Greece (the then exemplars of the world) were true to the simple laws of just taste. The amply-folding robe, cast round the harmonious form; the modest clasp and zone on the bosom; the braided hair, or the veiled head; these were the fashions alike of the wife of a Phocion, and the mistress of an Alcibiades. A chastened taste ruled at their toilets; and from that hour to this, the forms and modes of Greece have been those of the poet, the sculptor, and the painter.”

    To be fair everyone in the West was something of a Classics-aboo at this point, but I do think she takes it a little far even compared to her peers. The entire second chapter is a mix of this and scathing diatribes about the ills of other eras’ and regions’ fashions.

    “Thence, by a natural descent, have we the iron boddice, stiff farthingale, and spiral coiffure, of the middle ages. The courts of Charlemagne, of our Edwards, Henries, and Elizabeth, all exhibit the figures of women as if in a state of siege. Such lines of circumvallation and outworks; such impregnable bulwarks of whale-bone, wood, and steel; such impassable mazes of gold, silver, silk, and furbelows, met a man’s view, that, before he had time to guess it was a woman that he saw, she had passed from his sight; and he only formed a vague wish on the subject, by hearing, from an interested father or brother, that the moving castle was one of the softer sex.”

    I don’t actually have a complaint about that section. I think it’s hilarious.

    “But it was not till the accession of the House of Brunswick, that it was finally exploded, and gave way by degrees to the ancient mode of female fortification, by introducing the hideous Parisian fashion of hoops, buckram stays, waists to the hips, screwed to the circumference of a wasp, brocaded silks stiff with gold, shoes with heels so high as to set the wearer on her toes; and heads, for quantity of false hair, either horse or human, and height to outweigh, and perhaps outreach, the Tower of Babel!”

    The anti-monarchist French satirists would have agreed. I suspect knowing this fact would have given her a heart attack.

    “The health-destroying boddice was laid aside; brocades and whale-bone disappeared; and the easy shape and flowing drapery again resumed the rights of nature and of grace.”

    This I find interesting because it’s anti-corset sentiment pre-dating the Victorian era and the various dress reform movements it spawned. There’s a perception that corset hatred is entirely a product of Victorian dress reform movements and modern Hollywood misrepresentation, but clearly it was a normative enough opinion in the Regency era that women like our dear Lady here felt confident publishing it for all to see.

    I think I’m going to stop here for now as this is getting long. I’ve only finished the second chapter though, so there’s definitely going to be a part two.

  • Where to find the Classic Gothic Vampire Novels Online for Free

    Did you know that a good deal of the classic gothic novels and short stories are now available for free on various parts of the internet? This is perfectly legal, they’re out of copyright now, and extremely convenient when you’re trying to get at the rarer ones. Back in my daaaaay in the oughts you had to order them from print on demand companies for stupid prices and sometimes wouldn’t be able to get hold of them even then. So if you’re looking to read your way through the canon without spending a whole lot of money I have you covered. Here I’ve collected together some of the early, genre defining vampire novels from the 19th century. If there’s anything you’d add to this list please feel free to tell me so I can update it.

    Dracula

    Obviously there’s the brilliant Dracula Daily, where they email you the chunk of the novel set on that date but if you want access to the whole novel at once Project Gutenberg have it available in various formats here; Dracula by Bram Stoker | Project Gutenberg

    Carmilla

    Project Gutenberg have you covered here too; https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10007/10007-h/10007-h.htm

    Polidori’s “The Vampyre”

    The short story that started it all can be read here, in multiple different formats; https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6087

    “Wake not the Dead” by Johan Ludwick Tien

    An early vampire tale that inspired Byron in his unfinished vampire story (that Polidori then adapted into a scathing critique of the man himself); https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0606821h.html

    Varney the Vampire

    Published in Penny Dreadful form, of uncertain authorship; https://gutenberg.org/files/14833/14833-h/14833-h.htm