Gothic romance, type of novel that flourished in the late 18th and early 19th century in England. Gothic romances were mysteries, often involving the supernatural and heavily tinged with horror, and they were usually set against dark backgrounds of medieval ruins and haunted castles. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole was the forerunner of the type, which included the works of Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Gregory Lewis, and Charles R. Maturin, and the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey satirizes Gothic romances. The influence of the genre can be found in some works of Coleridge, Le Fanu, Poe, and the Brontës. During the 1960s and 1970's so-called Gothic novels once again became enormously popular in England and the United States. Popular practitioners of the genre during this revival were Dan Ross (aka Marilyn Ross, responsible for the series of Dark Shadows books), Mary Stewart, Victoria Holt, Catherine Cookson, Dorothy Eden, Joan Aiken, Phyllis A. Whitney, Clare Boylan, Anne McCaffrey, Pamela Hill, Virginia Coffman, Philippa Carr, Sara Hylton, Velda Johnston, Diana Tyrrel, Sarah Blake, Barbara Erskine, Jane Aiken Hodge, Isabelle Holland, Anne Maybury, Catherine Marchant, Madeline Brent, and Barbara Michaels. Seemingly modeled on Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, these modern novels usually concerned a spirited young woman, either a governess or new bride, who find's herself in some sort of peril, sometimes with a child to protect, she goes to a place she's never been before, usually has some involvement with a darkly handsome man with a mysterious past, she usually can't trust anyone, and it's often set in a spooky or otherwise isolated place, and can be modern day or a 19'th century setting. Sadly, True women's Gothic/ Suspense books are no longer being written anymore, as they are no longer the vogue.
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