122 – A History of Gothic Horror, with Professor Roger Luckhurst

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Are you ready for some learnin’?

This week rather than focusing on any single book, or any single author – I thought we’d have a little look at … y’know … the entire friggin’ history of Horror and Gothic across the centuries. After all, what’s a Christmas break from podcasting if you aren’t doubling the length of your episodes and making the scope infinite? 

Thankfully, I’m joined by a bona fide expert. Professor Roger Luckhurst, from Birkbeck College, London comes with me to talk about the history of dark culture. We use his great new book, Gothic: An Illustrated History as a guide. 

We cover everything we can in a couple of hours – from the birth of the genre in the 1700s, through Shelley and Stoker and all the way across the Atlantic to pick up with Poe and Lovecraft and Jackson. And as we get into the modern era we see the genre split and fracture in fascinating ways. 

I hope you enjoy this immensely. Prof Rog is the best guide an eager Goth or horror nerd could hope for.

**Note – this episode was originally released on Talking Scared Patreon as a series of 3 shorter episodes. 

Gothic: An Illustrated is out now from Palgrave.

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