WALPOLE'S LEGACY: A STUDY OF MODERN,

POPULAR GOTHIC NOVELS

by

BEVERLY SIX CASE, B.A,

A THESIS

IN

ENGLISH

Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in

Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Approved

December, 1976

P ' ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

There have been many who have aided and encouraged me in my quest

for gothic definition. I would like to thank Dr. J. Wilkes Berry for

his encouragement, careful reading, and conscientious criticism. In

particular I would like to thank Dr. Jack D. Wages who, in two years

of work with me, has been unceasingly supportive and constructively

critical throughout. His unfailing patience has made this thesis

possible.

n

1^

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii

I. INTRODUCTION 1

II. HISTORY AND DEFINITION OF GOTHIC 8

Walpole's Legacy 8

Gothic Devices 20

III. THE BRITONS 27

Victoria Holt 27

Dorothy Eden 44

IV. THE AMERICANS 54

Jane Aiken Hodge 54

Phyllis Whitney 69

V. CONCLUSION 83

ENDNOTES 87

LIST OF SOURCES 94

APPENDICES 98

A. AUTHORS AND WORKS LINKED WITH THE GOTHIC TRADITION 99

B. SYNOPSES OF NOVELS UNDER CONSIDERATION 103

Victoria Holt 103

Dorothy Eden 115

Jane Aiken Hodge 120

Phyllis Whitney 128

m

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this thesis is to study the novels of four contempo­

rary authors--Victoria Holt, Dorothy Eden, Jane Aiken Hodge, and Phyllis

Whitney--in order to ascertain to what extent these four authors have

utilized in their novels those patterns of plot and characterization

that have become the gothic tradition. In the pursuit of this purpose

one must of necessity also become involved in the discovery of the

changes each author has made in the gothic tradition in order to adapt

gothic patterns of style to her own literary needs.

In order to pursue the purpose of this thesis one must follow sev­

eral steps. The first step is investigation of the gothic tradition it­

self in order to establish what aspects of the gothic tradition will be

sought in the novels of the four authors under consideration. The second

step will be evaluation of the works of each novelist in turn in order to

find examples of gothic techniques and to relate those techniques to the

gothic tradition. The third step will be the goal, the conclusions drawn

from the evidence cited in steps one and two. This thesis will follow

these three steps.

Before following the steps that will lead the reader to the conclu­

sions drawn about the relationship between the novels under consideration

and other novels in the gothic tradition, one must first establish that

the novels under consideration are of literary merit. When Horace Walpole

1

and his eighteenth-century contemporaries produced gothic novels, the

novels were popular in both literary and social circles. In fact, the

novels of Walpole and his contemporaries are accepted as literature

today. Somewhere in the two-hundred-year interval between Walpole and

the modern gothic writers, however, the contemporary gothic novel lost

its place in literature. Today the gothic novel is forced into the

realm of "women's reading," a denigrated area of the written word that

lumps together the gothic novel, movie magazines, confession magazines,

nurse novels, and the like, as if modern women read nothing else.

In fact, it is true that contemporary gothic novels do not suit

the literary needs of everyone, and Appendix B of this thesis, which

contains brief synopses of the novels under consideration, is mute

acknowledgement of the fact that many readers of this thesis may be un­

familiar with the works of Holt, Eden, Hodge, and Whitney. One cannot,

however, dismiss the novels of these four authors as having no literary

merit after only cursory investigation. It was more than cursory inves­

tigation of the earliest gothic novels, listed in Appendix A, that gave

them a place in literature, for the titles alone (The Hag of the Moun­

tains, or Mysterious Memoirs of the Marquis de la Terra and His Supposed

Friend the Count di Suza, Including Those of Lucetta and Vittoria, The

Lovely Daughters of a Vintager, at Montmelian, in Savoy, for example) are

not convincing as indicators of literary masterpieces. These'early nov­

els do have an established place in literature under the aegis of the

gothic tradition, as do contemporary gothic novels, despite the depreca­

tory gestures of the literarily astute.

/ ^ X

1 ^

y Actually, it is not that modern gothic novels, i.e., those gothics

written today, are so much despised by the literarily astute as ignored.

It is rare today to find literary discussions of modern gothic novels.

One exception to this rule of silence is Joanna Russ, and her approach

to the modern gothic not only reflects the usual approach to the gothic

tradition but also reflects the almost universally accepted "literary"

approach today.

In an article titled "Somebody's Trying to Kill Me and I Think It's

My Husband: The Modern Gothic," Ms. Russ begins with the question, "What

fiction do American women read?" and the answer, "God knows." Ms. Russ

establishes that the fiction read exclusively by women includes the mod­

ern gothic, and then she states her thesis: "If you look inside the

covers [of the modern gothic] you will find that the stories bear no

resemblance to the literary definition of 'Gothic' They are not related

to the works of Monk Lewis or Mrs. Radcliffe, whose real descendants are

known today as Horror Stories." Ms. Russ goes on to say that "Modern

Gothics . . . are read by middle-class women or women with middle-class

aspirations,"^ leaving the general impression that the gothic novel, as

well as the middle-class, carries some terrible, non-literary stigma.

Ms. Russ follows her thesis carefully in a well-written article, and,

with a somewhat feminist flourish, concludes that the popularity of the

modern gothic among women readers is not a compliment to the general

intelligence of that sex.

Ms. Russ is not alone in her assessment of the gothic novel and its

readers, nor will she or anyone else ever find a dearth of ill-written,

ill-conceived contemporary gothics to use as examples. The purpose of

this study, however, is not refutation, but investigation. Such comments

as those expressed in Ms. Russ's article are not new in the two-hundred-

year history of the gothic tradition, for the gothic has never been as

popular with critics as other literary genres. One must therefore set

such comments aside and begin with the modern writers under considera-

ti on.

An exhaustive study of every contemporary gothic writer would, in­

deed, be exhausting; so, for the purpose of reasonable investigation,

this study has been narrowed to four of the better gothic writers in

terms of literary ability and popularity with the reading public. The

works chosen for this study meet the following criteria: 1) they all

have nineteenth- or early-twentieth-century settings, 2) they have been

published and sold as gothic novels, 3) they are all considered to be

"popular" fiction, and 4) they are contemporary, having all been written

and published no earlier than 1950.

One facet of this study must be the evaluation of the effects of

the American way of life on the gothic tradition in America. Of course,

the reader will, with Richard Chase, recognize "... the difficulty of

making accurate judgments about what is specially American in American

novels . . .,"̂ but, nonetheless, the possibility of differences between

gothics written by Americans and gothics written by Europeans must be

investigated. Despite the focus on American authors, however, one cannot

undertake a discussion of representative contemporary gothic novelists

today without beginning with a Briton, Victoria Holt.

Ms. Holt (Eleanor Burford Hibbert), the most prominent and possibly

most prolific contemporary gothic writer of the twentieth century, has

written romances under the names Elbur Ford, Kathleen Kellow, Ellalice

Tate and Eleanor Burford, and historical novels under the names Jean

Plaidy, Eleanor Hibbert, and, most recently, Philippa Carr. As Victoria

Holt, Ms. Hibbert is universally recognized as the "Mistress of the turn-

of-the-century Gothic." With Lord Of The Far Island, Victoria Holt pro­

duced her thirteenth, consecutive, international, best-selling gothic

romance.^ She has perhaps the largest reading audience of any gothic

novelist today, she commands an impressive monetary remuneration for

each book, she frequently heads book club best-seller lists with her new

publications, and she is rarely, if ever, read or studied for her gothic

techniques.

Being ignored by literary critics does not bother this Mistress of

the Gothic, however, for she says, "I don't care about the critics. I

write for the public. It's nicer to be read than to get nice reviews."

Victoria Holt j ^ read, and the praise "In the best tradition of Victoria

Holt" is very nearly a guarantee of success for aspiring young gothic

writers today.

Twelve of Ms. Holt's gothics are set in the nineteenth century, and

she deals primarily with British backgrounds or characters. Another

well-known British writer, Dorothy Eden, provides a transition between

the Britons and the Americans in this study because she sometimes uses

an American setting or heroine, and she utilizes the gothic framework

for non-gothic purposes, as do the American writers under consideration.

She writes historical romances as well as gothic romances, but only five

of her novels fit the criteria for this study. The five novels consid­

ered here show both tradition and innovation within the gothic framework.

The two American authors under consideration in this study, like

Ms. Eden, use traditional gothic techniques in their novels, and, at the

same time, incorporate innovative twists to the traditional gothic plots.

Jane Aiken Hodge, the daughter of American poet Conrad Aiken, uses both

American and European settings for her gothics. She has written eight

novels, but only seven of these can be classified as gothic romances and

should be considered in this study.

With Ms. Hodge, as with many American gothic writers, one finds that

the gothic framework frequently, perhaps necessarily, carries other, non-

gothic themes. In speaking of her work, Ms. Hodge says, "What I am do­

ing, I suppose, is using the Gothic paraphernalia, along with the histor­

ical background, to hide behind, so that I can write freely what I want

to say." In saying what she wants to say about history or such physical

problems as stammering or autism, Ms. Hodge uses gothic techniques to

advantage, even though she admits that "Frankly, some of my books are

much less Gothic than others . . . but publishers have been taking advan­

tage of the vogue and dressing them all up with the inevitable castle o

and fleeing heroine." It will be the purpose of this study to investi­

gate Ms. Hodge's use of the gothic and the extent of her reliance on

original gothic techniques, as well as her reluctance to use American

settings in her gothic novels.

While Ms. Hodge often uses non-American settings in her gothics,

the other American novelist in this study, Phyllis Whitney, uses American

settings entirely. Ms. Whitney, born of American parents in Japan, makes

her home in America and finds her gothic atmosphere in America's past.

Since Ms. Whitney uses both contemporary and nineteenth-century settings

in her novels, only six, tho$e novels that fit the criteria, can be in­

cluded in this study. Her novels will be studied for traditional gothic

techniques, as well as for her adaptation of the gothic framework to

accommodate her American settings.

Before one can search for the presence of traditional gothic tech­

niques in modern-gothic novels, one must first know what those techniques

include. Therefore, a brief look at the two-hundred-year-old history of

the gothic novel, as well as a listing of gothic devices, is important

here.

CHAPTER II

HISTORY AND DEFINITION OF GOTHIC

Walpole's Legacy

Horace Walpole is generally credited with first presenting the

gothic novel as a form of popular literature, despite Devendra Varma's

assertion that "... the Gothic romance did not spring fully grown and

armed, like Minerva, from The Castle of Otranto. Walpole merely out­

stripped a gradual accumulation of influences which would all have

eventually brought about the birth of something resembling Gothic lit­

erature. He provided a tradition, a legacy." A far more prevalent

opinion among critics is that of Edith Birkhead, who said that "to Horace

Walpole, whose Castle of Otranto was published on Christmas Eve, 1764,

must be assigned the honour of having introduced the Gothic romance and

2

of having made it fashionable." In explanation of the fashionable ap­

peal of The Castle of Otranto, Birkhead says that the novel "... satis-

fled a real craving for the romantic and marvellous." In a hard look at

the actual construction and content of the first gothic novel, Birkhead

notes that "The Castle of Otranto is significant not because of its in­

trinsic merit, but because of its power in shaping the destiny of the

novel." In truth, as Varma says, "Otranto opened the flood-gate of

5

'Gothic' tales," and many of these gothic tales mirror Otranto so close­

ly that Birkhead's comment that "the characters [in Otranto] are mere

puppets, yet we meet the same types again and again in later Gothic

8

romances,"" encompasses both the influence of Otranto and the appeal of

Walpole's literary style. Later in her study of the novel of terror,

Birkhead discovered that although "the word 'Gothic' in the early eigh­

teenth century was used as a term of reproach,"^ the influence of Walpole

was such that "when the nineteenth century is reached the epithet has

lost all tinge of blame, and has become entirely one of praise." What,

then, is the nature of this literary form, the "Gothic" novel, that can

elicit at once such caustic criticism about its character development

and such unstinting praise of its popularity and influence on literature?

The Gothic novel has been much maligned by literary critics, but

that same novel has at times been equally acclaimed by its ardent follow­

ers. In The Gothic Flame, Varma says that

. . . some critics are prepared to agree with Mrs. Barbauld who, in On the Origin and Progress of Novel Writing . . ., says, 'books of this description are condemned by the grave, and despised by the fastidious; but their leaves are seldom found unopened, and they occupy the parlour and the dressing-room while productions of higher name are often gathering dust upon the shelf. It might not perhaps be difficult to show that this species of composition is entitled to a higher rank than has been generally assigned it.'9

This, then, is an appropriate definition of the popularity of the gothic

novel, that step-child of literature, from Walpole's day to the present.

The gothic novel has undergone many changes and not a few additions and

refinements, but it has rarely been given the serious evaluation it-de­

serves. Varma's cry that "the Gothic novel is definitely of intrinsic

merit" echoes hollowly along the empty passageways linking popular

gothic fiction to the mainstream of literature. Perhaps some of the

lack of recognition that the popular gothic novel suffers at the hands

10

of literary critics is the result of unfamiliarity with this particular

form of literary expression.''

Before one can become cognizant of the modern gothic tradition,

therefore, he must become familiar with the two-hundred-year-old history

of the gothic form. Such a study, however, can easily become gargantuan,

for a detailed description of the gothic novel, from its birth (or syn­

thesis, as one may prefer) in Horace Walpole's day to the countless paper­

backs populating bookstands today, must cover an overwhelming amount of

description of style, listing of "gothic devices," and evaluation of

those authors who have made use of the gothic tradition. Since one facet

of this particular study is to discover whether modern gothic novelists

have inherited Walpole's legacy, such a detailed historical survey is

not practical. No discussion of the gothic novel can commence, however,

without a glimpse of that novel's history and the contribution of its

father, Horace Walpole.

Obsessed with gothic architecture to the point of emulation, Walpole

penned his gothic, Otranto, from Strawberry Hill, whose turrets and cham­

bers were hauntingly evocative of those atmospheric elements so necessary

to the gothic mood: clanking chains, haunting sounds, locked and myster­

ious rooms, hidden vaults, subterranean passages, dungeons, bloodstained

battlements, and dark galleries hung with portraits of ancestors long

called up for their dark and devious deeds. Walpole's influence on later

gothic writers can be found in the re-creation of his characters. Such

notable characters as the usurping tyrant, the "noble peasant" hero, the

persecuted heroine, monks, and garrulous, ghost-ridden servants are prac­

tically prerequisites for the gothic novel. Walpole's plot in Otranto,

1 ^

11

the restoration to hereditary rights of a defrauded heir by supernatural

means, can also be found in many later gothics.^^ These gothic stock

properties have become part of the essence of the gothic novel itself;"

one does not write a gothic novel today without starting with a skeletal

frame of the gothic "stock properties" Walpole first used.

Walpole initiated other gothic properties necessary to the success

of the gothic novel, some of which include the tolling of a midnight

bell, blasts of whistling wind, the moon emerging from clouds to dis­

close new horrors, thunder and lightning, a significant, time-yellowed

scroll, a Southern setting, usually in Italy, and haunting music issuing

from deserted ruins. To the literary world, "Walpole gave the first

sketch of the dark, handsome, melancholy, passionate, and mysterious

13 hero of [later] Byronic poems." To complement his Byronic Manfred,

Walpole gave to posterity the lovely Lady Isabella who, her chastity

and perhaps her very life threatened by Manfred, can say to Theodore,

her rescuer, "Though all your actions are noble, though your sentiments

speak the purity of your soul, is it fitting that I should accompany you

alone in these perplexed retreats? Should we be found together, what

would a censorious world think of my conduct?"!^

A censorious world obviously applauded Lady Isabella and her senti­

ments, for Otranto was immensely popular. Indeed, almost every gothic

novel of the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries was popular.'^

Jane Austen intended to mock the gothic intensity she found in such

novels as Walpole's Otranto and Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho

with her Northanger Abbey, but she also gives an accurate picture of the

popularity of the gothic romances when she has Catherine say, of Udolpho.

12

"I am delighted with the book! I should like to spend my whole life in

reading it."^° It is not inconceivable that when Isabella replies that

"when you have finished Udolpho, we will read the Italian together; and

I have made out a list of ten or twelve more of the same kind for you,"^^

she accurately reflects the fervor with which young ladies read gothic

novels in the nineteenth century.

Each gothic writer who followed Walpole drew from his legacy and

sometimes added a new dimension to the gothic tradition. Varma feels

that ". . . since Clara Reeve's time no Gothic castle is complete without

its 'deserted wing.' She also introduces presaging dreams, groans, clank­

ing chains, and such other Gothic machinery as she thinks comes within

18 the range of probability." ,*? In the hands of Ann Radcliffe, the range

of probability is enlarged to include a mysterious veil, haunting whis­

tles on the wind, walking apparitions, and bloodied corpses, all seem­

ingly supernatural phenomena that are prosaically explained later as

natural occurrences exaggerated by unnatural circumstances or by tautly-

strung sensibilities. Birkhead feels that "from the very first [Ann

19 Radcliffe] explained away her marvels by natural means,"'^ but Radcliffe's

Innovative explanations point to the diverse development of the gothic

novel when it left Walpole's hands. A harbinger of a trend later devel­

oped by American writers, Radcliffe dabbles in the psychology of terror.

Again Birkhead says that "Mrs. Radcliffe's psychology is neither subtle

nor profound, but the fact that psychology is there in the most rudi-

20 mentary form is a sign of her progress in the art of fiction."

Another sign of development, if not progress, in the art of gothic

fiction is The Monk, the 1796 brainchild of Matthew Gregory Lewis. A

13

true father of the line of gothic fictions known as the "horror gothic,"

Lewis eschews the romantic sentimentality of such gothic novelists as

Ann Radcliffe and capitalizes on the dark and menacing side of the goth­

ic: dabblings in necromancy, Faustian dealing with devils, descriptive

charnel-house horrors, rape, murder, incest, and torture. Although Varma

contends that "it is a commonplace of criticism to presume that the

horror-romantic phase of Gothic fiction was initiated by Lewis's story.

The Monk (1795), . . . [despite the fact that] there are one or two

interesting precursers of this work,"^! wery few of these "precursers"

remain as popular or as horrifying today as does The Monk. After naming

William Godwin as a terror-gothic precurser of Lewis and after calling

Beckford's Vathek (1786) a "wild fantasy"^^ gothic, Varma goes on to say

that, "of all the tales of horror. The Monk (1796) is probably the most

extravagant. . . . The Monk remains a romance of extraordinary fascina­

tion and power."^^

The development of the Gothic horror-novel does not stop with the

introduction of The Monk, however. It is refined and scientifically

endowed with futuristic horror by Mary Shelley, whose Frankenstein has

become the prototype for gothic monster-terror novels and, perhaps, the

precursor of much of the terror of science fiction.^^ In Frankenstein,

the result of the agreement among Shelley, Mary Shelley, Byron and Dr.

Polidori to write ghost stories, Mary Shelley's inspiration was the

popularity of the gothic; her genius was the incorporation of science

into the novel of terror. She is not alone in innovative technique among

the ghost-story group, however. Dr. John Polidori's The Vampyre: A Tale

(1819) opens up new vistas for the gothic writers: a world populated by

14

supernatural and superhuman beings. Montague Summers says that "'until

we come to Polidori's novel . . . nowhere do we meet with the Vampire

in the realm of Gothic fancy.'"^^ Readers of gothics have met with many

Vampires since Polidori's tale, to be sure, since "Polidori's tale . . .

set a fashion for vampire stories."^^ One must agree with Varma, however,

that "the prince of vampires is Bram Stoker's Dracula, round whom centres

probably the greatest horror tale of modern times."^^

One might well ask where the phrase "modern times" leaves the his­

torian of the gothic literary tradition. In Great Britain the legacy

of Walpole has split into two main schools of writing: the gothic ro­

mance novel and the gothic terror novel. One other division of the orig­

inal gothic formula has made its way via Sir Walter Scott to the shores

of America to be incorporated into an American gothic tradition: histor­

ical gothic. It is strange that a country that has just now accumulated

two hundred years of written history should have turned in the nineteenth

century to the historical branch of gothic fiction rather than taking a

direct legacy from Walpole or Radcliffe. Leslie Fiedler in Love And

Death In The American Novel makes some explanation when he says, "...

behind the gothic lies a theory of history, a particular sense of the

past."^^ As a matter of fact, American novelists recognized that a sense

of history or of the past, although not necessarily the historical past,

is vital for the traditional gothic writer.

For Walpole and his followers, the past became the symbol for cor­

ruption and the means of evoking horror. When Fiedler says that "the

[gothic] tale of terror is a kind of historical novel which existed

before the historical novel . . . came into being,"^^ he is recognizing

15

the gothic writer's tendency to use the past as the source of his goth-

icism. What is at least a century beyond the contemporary reader's

recall is the perfect setting for the terror of the unknown, the mystery

of vague definition, and the romance of a selective view of only one facet

of history. From the beginning of the gothic novel, writers were quick

to realize that a description of contemporary life is in itself rarely

believably mysterious; consequently, they incorporated into the tradi­

tional gothic framework an obsession with the past.

Of course, the revelation that "the gothic felt for the first time

the pastness of the past . . ."^^ is not a new revelation, nor does it

apply solely to American gothic novelists. Every gothic novelist who

traced his heritage to Walpole's Otranto knew that the Middle Ages,

mythically transformed by gothic imagination, was the fertile ground

from which all "good" gothics should spring, in actual form or in evoca­

tive mood. Nevertheless, the historical gothic in the hands of American

writers undergoes a subtle transformation, a transformation wrought of

the coalescence and refinement of the terror-gothic, the gothic-romance,

and the historical gothic. Charles Brockden Brown, the acknowledged

"Father of American Gothic" adapted the European gothic mode to American

thought and "... determined, through his influence on Poe and Hawthorne,

the future of the gothic novel in America."^! Alexander Cowie acknowl­

edges the difficulties American novelists faced when he says, "Moral,

technical, and chronological difficulties . . . tended to hamper the

growth of American Gothic, and even Charles Brockden Brown did not

wholly surmount its difficulties."^^

16

Fiedler catalogues the difficulties of adapting the gothic tradition

to an American setting when he says that "... the gothic mode proved

difficult to adapt to the demands of the American audience and the deeper

meanings of American experience, for the generation of Jefferson was

pledged to be done with ghosts and shadows. . . ."•^•^ Fiedler further

discusses the task confronting the American gothic novelist when he says,

. . . it was not hard to provide the American equiva­lents of the moors, hills, and forests through which the bedeviled maidens of the gothic romances were accustomed to flee. But what of the haunted castle, the ruined abbey, the dungeons of the Inquisition? In America, such crumbling piles, architecturally and symbolically so satisfying to the eighteen-century reader and writer, are more than a little improbable. Yet on them, not only the atmosphere, but [also] an important part of the meaning of the tale of terror depen­ded. 34

Thus, the American author must substitute his frontier reality for ages

of European history.

In doing so. Brown borrows Radcliffe's rational explanations and

produces a ventriloquist for a ghost, a psychologically-disturbed reli­

gious fanatic for a thorough villain. Edgar Allan Poe, falling heir to

Brown's psychological mantle, pens tales of terror shot through with

the horrors of a psychological mania manifest in incest and dark, ances­

tral curses. Hawthorne, burdened with the heritage of Puritan guilt and

primal sin, evokes guilty forays into the consciousness in his efforts

to create a gothic terror. Melville takes to the sea to find the

Faustian Ahab, obsessed and damned, yet as unforgettable as any Manfred

or "Monk" Ambrosio who ever pursued a maiden instead of a whale. The

resulting horror is akin to the gothicism created by Walpole and his con­

temporaries; the difference in gothicism between Walpole and the Ameri­

cans is the means by which the author evokes terror.

17

Since basic gothic devices are present in varying forms in American

gothic, one must evaluate American gothic with a new eye. For the castle,

one must see a shuttered Puritan house or a death-haunted ship; the gothic

villain becomes the mysterious Indian or the hated Negro; the hero merges

with the shadows and the darkness to plumb psychological depths of de­

spair; the traditional heroine virtually disappears. The traditional

gothic becomes, in the American psychological gothic novel, the New Ameri­

can Gothic explained by Irving Mai in. Rather than viewing the New Ameri-

can Gothic as a new literary form, Mai in views it as something of a mut­

ant heir when he says, "in old gothic we encounter the haunted castle,

the voyage into the forest, and the reflection. Walpole, Monk Lewis,

and Mrs. Radcliffe do not use these images in any psychologically acute

way: they remain mere props. But the inheritors of old Gothic regard

35 these images as 'objective correlatives' of the psyche."

Thus one has the "modern" gothic in America, a rich, albeit trans­

formed, inheritance composed of three traditions: historical gothic,

terror gothic, romantic gothic. The American, twentieth-century histor­

ical gothic is found in the Southern gothic writings of William Faulkner,

Flannery O'Connor, Eudora Welty and others. In this Southern gothic

form one finds subtle blendings of Walpole and the other gothicists who

relied upon the past. Using sometimes an historical South, sometimes a

grotesque South, these modern Southern writers exemplify Mai in's objec­

tive correlatives in American Gothic. Again, one finds slight changes

in the gothic tradition. Instead of Radcliffe's Italian castle set on

a hillside, one finds Faulkner's mouldering mansion draped in Spanish

moss and deathly silence; instead of Walpole's Isabella fleeing super-

18

natural and sexual terrors, one finds O'Connor's Tarwater fleeing redemp­

tion and psychological committment.

The terror gothic in American literature follows much the same pat­

tern of transformation as does the historical gothic. The terror in

"Monk" Lewis's Faustian devil-dealings turns in America to the Black

Sabbath. Instead of Lewis's burial-vault necromancy, one finds Thomas

Tryon's present-day. New England cults or Ira Levin's Black Masses.

It is primarily the emphasis on Black Magic and devil worship in these

modern gothics that links them with Lewis's terror gothic tradition and,

at the same time, prevents their degeneration into mere ghost stories.

The reader must not assume that he will never encounter a ghost in

modern, popular gothic novels, however. The third gothic division, that

of the romantic gothic, depends often upon ghostly visitations to create

the gothic effect necessary to forward the plot. It is this form of the

gothic that comes most directly from Walpole's tradition, less battered

and less transformed than either historical or terror gothic. It is

this particular type of literature that still carries the unmistakable

stamp of the early gothics, with no vampires, no science fiction, and

no Mephistophelean intervention. When the author feels a need for more

depth, he may add an historical context, but, on the whole, the romantic

gothic novel has withstood the transformation of time and the ravages of

criticism to emerge today in the widely-popular gothic romances that

flood the bookstores and grace the Best Seller lists for months at a

time. For every Harvest Home or Rosemary's Baby one finds a multitude

of gothic romances, written sometimes by a multitude of aspiring novel­

ists, sometimes by one, multi-named, more accomplished novelist. In

3 i

/ ^ X

19

evaluating only a small portion of these many gothic romances, choosing

only the more well-constructed novels, one can find many similarities

of theme and characterization between the first gothic romances and the

popular, modern gothic romances, similarities necessary to the very

essence of the gothic tradition itself.

In order that the reader may more easily discover these similarities

and understand the connection between Walpole and modern, popular gothic

writers, he must first understand the gothic vocabulary that will be

used in this discussion. It is necessary, therefore, at this point,

to describe in detail those gothic terms and devices that are the most

important in an evaluation of Walpole's legacy and the influence of the

gothic tradition upon the popular gothic romance.

Gothic Devices

There are many gothic devices that are necessary to the wery exis­

tence of a gothic tone in a novel. Going back to Walpole and the other

early gothic writers, one finds countless gothic props, each an import­

ant thread in the weave of the gothic fabric. For the sake of clarity,

however, these gothic devices are easily divided into two primary parts:

atmosphere and characterization. It is to be expected that the devices

that produce a gothic effect in each division may sometimes overlap,

but, theoretically, at least, the terms may be divided for ease of dis­

cussion. In a discussion of atmosphere, this study will concentrate

mainly upon explainable phenomena. The important atmospheric techniques

include

(1) the Haunted Castle. Railo says of the importance of the

haunted castle in the gothic romance that "... this 'haunted castle'

plays ... so important ... [a part] that were it eliminated the

whole fabric of romance would be bereft of its foundation and would

37 lose its predominant atmosphere." -> In the older gothic romances, the

haunted castle was stock property; in contemporary gothic romances, the

haunted castle can appear as an old, family house, the coveted manor

house, an old abbey, or simply a place from the past. To the haunted

castle, however portrayed, falls the duty of atmospheric control, pro­

viding a background of haunted, disassembled abbeys, dark passages,

ghostly rooms left as a monument to the dead, dank dungeons, echoing

vaults, decaying tapestries, oppressive silence, premonicive clocks,

20

21

hidden diaries, and the like. In or around the haunted castle one can

usually find

(2) the Haunted Physical World. This world consists of those

particular atmospheric conditions, usually connected with the haunted

castle, that contribute to a general feeling of terror in gothic romances.

The haunted physical world contains such elements as the whistling mid­

night wind, mysterious, flickering lights in the forest, the full moon

at midnight, secret meetings, and an historically-provable background

of ancient curses, tense conflicts, mysterious deaths, or pisky-mazed

madmen. In early gothics, ghosts appeared, either bleeding or clanking

their chains; in modern gothics, the ghost is explained as an evil person

Intending a ghostly effect, with explainable physical props. Less easily

explained are those techniques involving

(3) the Haunted Psychological World. In the haunted psychological

world, the character finds himself wondering about his sanity, imbuing

those he loves with motives to murder him, searching for the end of a

recurring nightmare, enduring the agonies of self-doubt, or falling

heir to the superstition the servants use to explain mysteries. The

haunted psychological world is part of the atmosphere because it some­

times creates a gothic atmosphere where none actually exists. In suc­

cumbing to the terrors of his own imagination, the character brings his

own psychological perspective to a situation which, no matter how ripe

for mysterious interpretation, in reality contains no mystery and no

lurking ghost of one long dead. This category of atmosphere is, of

course, closely related to characterization, the second classification

of evaluative criteria for the gothic romance.

22

The characters in a gothic romance are, by and large, types rather

than distinctive individuals. Rarely are more than the main characters

drawn in depth; more often than not, characters in a gothic romance are

sketched in one of several categories of character-types, the first of

which is

(1) the Pursued Heroine. Originally conceived by Walpole as a

character-type necessary to the gothic romance, the pursued heroine is,

of course, the character in modern gothic romances whose life is in

danger. She is the one seeking secrets, the one digging up past crimes

and rattling skeletons long laid to rest in family closets. It is she

who discovers the moldering manuscript, the hidden diaries. She is

pursued by would-be murderers through dangerous situations; she is run­

ning from doubts born and nurtured in her own mind; she is, in either

case, daringly and narrowly rescued, not only because she is the heroine,

but also because she is and always has been pursued unjustly. In Wal­

pole's or Ann Radcliffe's day, the heroine was weak and maidenly, in­

clined to fainting at crucial moments. When she was good, she was, like

Lady Isabella, very, very good, and when she was bad, her worst fault

was curiosity. To some extent this character type has been carried over

to modern gothics, with a few revisions to suit the tone of a modern

world's demands. No matter in what century she appears, however, the

pursued heroine is almost always rescued by the hero. Her rescuer is

usually

(2) the Byronic Hero. The heroes created by Walpole, Radcliffe,

or Clara Reeve were perfect complements to their heroines—excessively

polite, unduly conscious of convention, strong-armed to fight villains.

23

and bolder in battle than in love. The perfect delineation between the

"good" hero and the "bad" villain was smudged by the Byronic tradition

to create a new type of hero, one who has a dark and brooding side to

his nature. Railo describes the Byronic hero as "'the man of loneliness

and mystery,' who is scarce seen to smile and seldom heard to sigh; in

38 his being there does not seem to be much worthy of admiration. . .,"

although the heroine finds something to love beyond the dark side of his

soul. Closely allied with the Byronic hero is

(3) the Villain. In order to sustain gothic suspense and mystery,

the gothic romance must have a villain to initiate terror, create danger

for the heroine, and threaten the romance. In early gothics the villain

was thoroughly wicked and irredeemable, having sometimes, like Ambrosio,

sold his soul to the devil. The Faustian villain has been transcribed

for skeptical modern readers and in most modern gothics is represented

by the weak man who, enslaved by ambition, can be driven to murder. At

times the villain, disguised until the end, and the hero, whose dark

side seems the only side to his nature, merge in the heroine's mind in

the modern gothic romance. This technique is not new but is instead the

result of the development of character types through the years. In a

discussion of the thoroughly wicked villains of early gothicists, Edith

Birkhead concludes that "among the direct progeny of these [early] grandi­

ose villains are to be included . . . the heroes of Scott and Byron. We

know them by their world-weariness, as well as by their piercing eyes and

passion-marked faces. . . ." It is often the "passion-marked" face of

the Byronic hero that attracts the heroine and makes him hard to distin­

guish from the darkly passionate villain. If the unwary reader or the

24

gothic novice early in his reading does not realize who will, as one

might say, "get the girl" at the end, he may well be fooled by these two

character types. A complement to the villain is

(4) the Villainess. In some gothic romances, the villainess may

actually be the villain, set apart from that particular character type

only by her sex and long skirts. Most often, however, the villainess

only appears evil. A descendant of the "fatal woman" of Romantic Poetry,

the villainess can be a beautiful woman whom the heroine thinks is an

attraction for the hero, the first, now-dead wife of the hero, or the

domineering, old family retainer. The villainess exhibits many faces;

she may actively express antagonism for the heroine; she may appear mad,

spouting Cassandra-like prophecies; she sometimes is actually mad, in

which case she frequently functions as the villain. She appears pri­

marily as a foil to the heroine or as a source of mystery and terror.

The mystery and terror are also evoked by

(5) the Comic Servants. Frequently the author of gothic romances,

taking a cue from the dramatists, includes the comic retainer, usually

a loquacious nurse, a garrulous gardener, or a superstitious housekeeper^

The comic servant functions primarily as comic relief, but may also fur­

ther the plot by inducing superstition or by echoing the heroine's suspi­

cions.

The modern gothic writer is indebted to every early gothic novelist

for such character types as the Byronic hero and the pursued maiden, as

well as such gothic themes as the dispossessed inheritor, the unknowingly

wealthy maiden in danger, and the kidnapped heroine. The gothic tradi­

tion has also absorbed several psychological gothic traits from the

r

25

American gothic school, however. Irving Malin discusses these in New

American Gothic, categorizing the following three American Gothic themes:

self-love of the hero or heroine, particular family types, and three

Images that may be literal or psychological--the haunted castle, the

voyage into the forest, and reflections or mirror images. A short anal­

ysis of Mai in's themes reveals several overlapping areas in the New

American Gothic themes and the traditional properties.

The self-love of the hero or heroine is often manifested, not in

self-pride, but in a narcissistic selfishness, a retreat from the world

or turning inward. The most common family type in New American Gothic

is the ineffectual or evil parent, the alienated child seeking love, and

a general lack of communication between family members. The heroine in

popular gothic romances is most often the bridge between the unapproach­

able parent and the untouchable child. The images described by Malin

function in a psychological milieu as definitions for modern rebels.

According to Malin, the castle represents authoritarianism, the flight

to the forest represents a flight from authoritarianism, and the reflec­

tion imagery represents the two-sidedness of motives.

The popular gothic romances have incorporated these images where

necessary to produce the rebellious heroine who resorts to vituperative

speech instead of delicate sighs and the hero/villain whose motives may

be In question throughout the book. Sometimes even the heroine's motives

are in question, a device that modern authors utilize to avoid the two-

dimensional characters of early gothic writers. Given such versatility

of portrayal as well as the rich heritage of two hundred years of gothic

popularity, the modern popular-gothic writer finds the gothic romance

26

genre an overwritten, uniquely popular field. The four modern gothic

writers included in this study are all important contributors to the

gothic tradition. A careful analysis of their works reveals a debt to

previous contributors to the gothic tradition as well as some necessary

adaptations of gothic techniques.

CHAPTER III

THE BRITONS

Victoria Holt

)

Just as one cannot commence a study of the gothic tradition wUhout

mentioning Horace Walpole, so one cannot study modern, popular gothic

writers without first acknowledging the contribution of Victoria Holt.

Like Walpole, Victoria Holt is automatically associated with the gothic

novel and is, of the writers under consideration, the most closely re­

lated to early gothicists. Like Walpole, Ms. Holt relies on the mystery

and romance evoked by the past to enhance her gothic novels. All of the

twelve Holt gothics under consideration have nineteenth-century settings.

Like earlier gothic writers, Ms. Holt relies on the atmosphere readily

produced by an earlier-century setting to gain some gothic effects al­

most naturally. In doing so, she has followed the gothic tradition,

for the superstitions, legends, tales, ghosts, castles, and mysteries

so necessary to that tradition lend themselves more easily to the roman­

tic, flickering-firelight world of the 1800's than to the prevalent

pragmatism of the twentieth century. It is this romantic, nineteenth-

century world that creates much of the gothic atmosphere so successfully

evoked in Holt gothics.^

The haunted castle that was stock property in the early gothics is

stock property in a Holt romance, and in Holt gothics it rarely takes

other forms. It may take many names--Lovatt Stacy (Shivering Sands),

27

28

Keverall Court (Curse of the Kings), or Chateau Gaillard (King of the

Castle), to name only a few--but the atmospheric control exercised by

the castle/manor house in each Holt novel varies little. Holt heroines

consistently encounter subterranean passages, haunted chambers, dank

dungeons, walled-up skeletons, crumbling balconies, torture chambers

and oubliettes, or sliding panels that conceal passageways.

As they were in the early gothics, these props in the Holt gothics

are important to plot as they create atmosphere: the heroine, at some

point in the plot, is always locked, lost, concealed, or trapped in the

dungeon, vault, whatever, that is always mysterious, dank, and dark.

Her danger in such a terrifying atmosphere is important to the plot be­

cause it gives the villain/hero a chance to rescue the heroine (as with-

Walpole's Isabella and Theodore), or it proves that someone is trying to

frighten/kill her to keep her from finding out the Truth about the mys­

teries surrounding the inhabitants of the castle. As in Radcliffe and

Walpole, in Victoria Holt it is primarily the haunted castle and the

eerie atmosphere that the castle produces that creates plot when the

heroine has to unravel the tangled relationships of those around her.

In solving the mystery of the haunted castle, the Holt heroine must

search for clues in the haunted castle, and it is often the haunted phyS'

ical world that creates some of the mystery and terror of the haunted

castle. The importance of the interaction between the haunted castle

and the haunted physical world in Holt novels is traceable to the first

gothic novels. It is only after the heroine arrives at the haunted

castle that she becomes aware of the secret vaults, whispered stories

about the house and its inhabitants, the obvious fear of the servants,

29

and the mysterious cloak of silence about both past and present deeds.

In Victoria Holt the heroine always encounters a haunted physical world

in and around the castle as she looks for clues to the mystery she has

found. Ellen (Lord of the Far Island) discovers diaries and drawings in

the haunted castle; Anna (The Secret Woman) discovers in Chantel's diary

the answer to the threats and mysterious deaths connected with Carrement

House. Dallas (King of the Castle) satisfies her curiosity about the

Comtesse's death with Francoise's diaries and solves the mystery of the

emeralds by braving the dangers of the haunted dungeons and oubliettes.

It is such physical terror evoked by the haunted chambers of the

castle that link the haunted physical world with the castle. In the

gothic tradition, Ms. Holt uses such physical props as moving tapestries,

ghostly deserted passages, and haunted legends of the castle to provide

gothic terror. In fact, one finds that the haunted-physical-world prop

that concerns ancient legends and curses is Ms. Holt's most common phys­

ical means of producing a gothic atmosphere. Only one example of Ms.

Holt's use of this physical prop, representative of numerous examples,

is in Menfreya In The Morning. Having heard as a child the legend of

the Menfrey who kept his mistress, the former governess of the house, in

the tower of Menfreya, Harriet applies the story to her own situation as

mistress of Menfreya. Already suspicious about the relationship between

her husband and Jessica, the governess, Harriet silently questions

Jessica's choice of dress at a ball. Thinking, "Why did she come here

as a governess? Was she trying to draw some parallel? Was she saying:

It is happening now as it happened then,"^ Harriet is at the mercy of

her Imagined mysteries and fears. She creates horrors and suspects the

30

wrong person because she identifies herself with the heroine of a leg­

end.

Like the early-gothic heroines, the Holt heroine often finds her­

self unwittingly, if somewhat prophetically, reliving the terrifying

legend she has heard. In Kirkland Revels Catherine faces a hooded monk

instead of a bleeding nun, but the atmospheric effect of terror is the

same. Kerensa of The Legend Of The Seventh Virgin is most terrifyingly

walled up alive like the legendary virgin, but she is being punished for

her own form of fornication, the sin of marrying ambitiously, without

love.

The listing of examples of the haunted castle and haunted-physical-

world techniques found in Ms. Holt's gothics could go on almost intermin­

ably, if one were prepared for repetition. In speaking of the importance

of these two atmospheric elements in Holt gothics, however, note must be

made of one, consistent, important phenomenon: each supernatural terror

must be explained logically and naturally at the end of the book. In

fact, like Radcliffe, Holt goes to some trouble to explain her ghosts.

Thus, the reader discovers in The Shivering Sands that the ghostly lights

in the burned-out chapel are the tricks of terrified schoolgirls. In

Mistress Of Mellyn the ghostly shadows on the curtains in Alice's room

are made by a very corporeal Celestine; in Kirkland Revels the monk-ghost

who terrifies Catherine is really the maniacal family doctor who wants

the house. Even in accommodating a skeptical, twentieth-century audi­

ence, Ms. Holt has followed faithfully one tenet of gothic tradition:

tie up the dangling, supernatural ends with physical explanations. The

means by which Ms. Holt explains the supernatural vary little from book

31

to book. Usually, the essentially practical heroine, whose lapse of

sense into sensibility was warranted in the face of the gothic atmos­

phere, is relieved to discover that her terrors have a tangible origin.

Her fears about her sanity are explained; she is proven sane; black has

become white, or at least a less-murky gray; and the Byronic hero, whom

she loved despite all, has become pure hero at last.

It is this conflict between what the heroine wants the Byronic hero

to be and what he seems to be that provides the basis for Ms. Holt's use

of the third prop in creating atmosphere, the haunted psychological

world. Again, one finds linkage between the physical props and the psy­

chological props in the gothic atmosphere. The haunted psychological

world seems to be more of a modern gothic innovation and is more closely

related to the American gothic evolution than to the early gothics. The

closest link to psychological gothic among the early writers is probably

The Monk, in which Ambrosio's mental struggles create much of the horror

in the novel. In Victoria Holt's gothics the haunted psychological world

is most frequently expressed in the relationship between the heroine and

her dark-browed, Byronic hero. In Holt gothics, the heroine's fears and

psychological terrors most frequently stem from two doubts about the

hero: the fear that he murdered his former wife, whom he married for

money, or the fear that he wants to murder the heroine, whom he may or

may not love and whom he marries for reasons she cannot fathom. It is

the heroine's fear of love and commitment, coupled with her anxiety about

being loved in return, that causes the distortions in her psychological

world. These distortions, in turn, cause a terror-stricken, gothic at­

mosphere as the reader sees the heroine wondering about her sanity.

32

Imbuing those she loves with motives to kill her, searching for the end

of a recurring nightmare, or falling prey to the superstitions of the

minor characters.

As would be expected in a study of twelve, so-closely-similar nov­

els, the list of passages illustrating Ms, Holt's use of a distorted,

psychological world is quite long. The following illustrations are

representative of the fears Holt heroines face. For example:

I wished I had not inherited a fortune. Then I could have been assured that I had been married for myself.4

It was inevitable that night that I should dream the dream.5

I believed that one of those people who were drinking my health might at that very moment be planning to kill me. ... 6

I had made my will. If I died Joliffe would be in control. Whichever way I looked it came back to Joliffe.7

I am going mad.^

. . . the news was already over the neighborhood. The clock stoppedl It means one of the Menfreys is threat­ened (Menfreya, p. 230).

With her fearful conjectures and imagined dangers, the Holt heroine

creates suspense, reinforces the traditional gothic dispossessed-

inheritor theme, and presents an important gothic character-type di­

rectly traceable to the Walpole tradition: the pursued heroine.

Each Holt heroine is pursued. Even the reasons for her imminent

danger are reasons that can be easily found in almost any eighteenth-

century gothic romance: she has inherited a fortune, she has discov­

ered a secret, she is going to marry the hero and/or become mistress

of the haunted castle, or she refuses to marry the villain. The gothic

heroine as originally conceived suffered through no fault of her own.

33

Radcliffe's Adeline (Romance of the Forest) and Walpole's Isabella

(Otranto) brought evil upon themselves inadvertently by inheriting a

fortune, and Lewis's Antonia (The Monk) innocently aroused the lust of

Ambrosio. The early gothic pattern required that the heroine be pursued j

unjustly. In Victoria Holt's gothic novels the pursued heroine is not

always blameless.

By making her heroines more recognizably human than most eighteenth-

century heroines, Ms. Holt adds twentieth-century believability to her

gothic novels and sometimes moves her heroines well beyond the tradi­

tional gothic framework in characterization. The most striking examples

of the questionable morality of Holt heroines are in The Legend of the

Seventh Virgin and in The Shadow of the Lynx. In the former, the pur­

sued heroine, Kerensa, marries for money instead of love, lies about a

murder, schemes to get and to keep the haunted castle, and sacrifices

others for her ambition. In Lynx, the heroine, Nora, marries the father

of the man she loves and attempts to destroy innocent people's lives in

order to carry out her dead husband's plan of revenge. In each case of

devious heroine in Ms. Holt's novels one can see vestiges of the original

gothic formula, for good triumphs over evil, the heroine is thwarted in

love, and a secondary character marries the hero.

These examples of shamelessly devious Holt heroines are excepttons,

however, for Ms. Holt more commonly blends modern believability and

traditional characterization to find a heroine recognizable as a character-

type and acceptable as a character-person. Therefore, even though a hero­

ine may be pursued for her inheritance or her innocent relationship to

another, she still has many traits to be deliberately construed by the

34

reader as human failings. Many Holt heroines could easily be castigated

for coveting other women's husbands; eyery Holt heroine can be blamed

for prying shamelessly into the lives of others, tricking gullible ser­

vants into revelations, relentlessly interrogating senile old aunts for

information, or listening at doors, reading personal diaries, and gos­

siping with lonely children.

In each case of deviousness on the part of the heroine, the expla­

nation is always the same: the end justifies the means. If the hero­

ine is righting some past wrong, she may use any means at her disposal.

For example, Anna in The Secret Woman reminded herself that she was

"Guilty . . . Guilty of loving another woman's husband,"^ and Dallas,

reading the dead Comtesse's diaries, says, "As I read I could not rid

myself of the feeling that I was spying into the mind and heart of a

dead woman. But he [the Comte] was concerned in this. . . . I must read

on. With every day I spent in the chateau it was becoming more and more

important for me to know the truth." Spying for love is acceptable in

a Holt gothic.

Examples from other Holt novels read in much the same way. The

heroine feels she really should not be spying, prying, or investigating,

but she must. Thus the heroine becomes involved in a ghastly gothic

nightmare, sometimes for love of position, power or money, but usually

for love of the unloved child and that child's father or guardian. As

a modern-gothic character-type, she is the catalyst for action or the

instigator of plot.

In speaking of the heroine as a character-type, one can catalogue

several Holt-heroine characteristics. Like the early gothic heroines,

'1

^*i%

35

she is an orphan (with no strong male relation to befriend her), impul­

sive, romantic, in danger, inquisitive, desirable, and sensitive. Unlike

the early gothic heroines, the Holt heroine is well past her teens, inde­

pendent, proud, clever, talented, capable, daring, and defiant. It is

the heroine's more "modern" qualities that link her more closely with

Mai in's later gothic themes. Because the Holt heroine is not only sen­

sitive but also wise, capable and daring, she often fights her battles

or instigates her investigations for the sake of the unloved, wild, yet

appealing, child or children at the haunted castle. If there is no child,

the heroine may just as often take action on the part of a weaker, more

vulnerable female.

The Holt heroine is not without her own vulnerability, however. If

the early gothic heroine was vulnerable physically, the Holt heroine is

most often, aside from the physical danger necessary for the gothic at­

mosphere, vulnerable psychologically. It is Ms. Holt's habit of using

first-person narrative that makes the reader uncomfortably aware of the

heroine's psychological traumas and dilemmas. With such passages as

"Then I realized what a fool I had been, for I had been harboring

thoughts which I would not dare express, even to myself,"'' "I knew

now that I loved him" (Moon, p. 61), and "This is the complete happiness,

I thought" (Lanterns, p. 80), the reader is kept constantly in the mind

of the heroine. Since suspense in a gothic is necessary for the action,

the heroine's thoughts guide the reader through the various stages of

fear and danger, love and distrust. In the true gothic tradition, the

object of the heroine's love as well as her distrust is the Byronic

hero.

36

Although the first gothic heroes were pure heroes, untainted by any

dishonor, lack of gentility, or dark, suspicious past, the pure hero has

today evolved into the brooding, suspicious, Byronic hero. The modern

gothic hero still fulfills the traditional heroic function, however,

especially when he rescues the persecuted heroine. In eight of the

twelve Holt novels under consideration, the Byronic hero rescues the

heroine at the last moment from a sure death from poison, suffocation,

quicksand, or drowning. In each of these eight novels the rescue pre­

cipitates disclosure of the villain and the marriage of the principal

characters.

When the Byronic hero appears in Holt novels, he exhibits tradi­

tional characters for Byronic heroes. As a character-type he is moody,

secretive, autocratic, lonely, mysterious, and feared by all. The hero­

ine is at times afraid of him, but she is more often concerned that the

dark secrets of his past have infringed on his present happiness. As a

Byronic, or brooding, hero, however, he gives the heroine good reason to

fear him and to doubt his trustworthiness. Some illustrative passages

attesting to Ms. Holt's use of the Byronic hero character-type include

the following:

How frightened I was, and he sensed my fear I was sure. It amused him. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the curl of his lips, the glitter of his eyes (Island, p. 77).

He was smiling and I caught the gleam of his teeth.1^

He stood still, looking at me. . . . Tall, lean, legs apart, bellicose, arrogant. ... His nose was long, slightly prom­inent; his mouth too thin, as though he were sneering at the world (Sands, p. 46).

He gave an impression of both strength and cruelty (Mellyn, p. 34).

37

As a character-type, Ms. Holt's dark hero has much in common with

the legendary Byronic hero. It is precisely because of his mysterious,

cruel and scornful nature that the hero in modern gothics is so closely

allied with the villain so as to be sometimes indistinguishable, both

In the heroine's and the reader's minds.

In early gothics, roles were carefully assigned, and characters

were readily distinguishable as good or evil. In the process of liter­

ary evolution the hero became smudged and the villain became more seem­

ingly pure until the result was another of Ms. Holt's character-types:

the whitewashed villain. Radcliffe's Montoni was a thorough villain,

consistently superior, consistently cruel, and consistently frightening.

The modern gothic villain must first masquerade as a hero so that the

heroine may turn from her fears of the Byronic hero to the false safety

of the villain's arms. Again the examples of Holt's use of this char­

acter-type are legion. At the moment of final danger the heroine dis­

covers her mistake, usually with lines similar to the following: "There

was something unreal even about him--something which was different. He

was not the godlike creature I had seen when we were young. . . . There

was something different about Rollo" (Island, p. 268), and "He seemed

sane, an ordinary merchant. . ." (Kings, p. 297).

In The Legend of the Seventh Virgin the villainous character who is

revealed at the end of the novel is a seemingly guileless idiot boy.

Although the idiot plays little part in the story except to threaten the

heroine at the end of the book, he still fulfills the role of villain.

There are few deviations from the villain character-type in gothic novels.

38

but Holt gothics frequently contain another, closely-allied character-

type, that of the villainess.

The villainess in Holt gothics may take one of two forms. If she

plays the same role as the villain, ultimately endangering the heroine's

life, she is classified with the villain. In The Secret Woman, Mistress

of Mellyn, The Shivering Sands, Menfreya in the Morning, and The Shadow

of the Lynx one finds, in each novel, a villainess instead of a villain.

The villainesses follow the same criteria that the villain does, mas­

querading as the faithful servant, the concerned friend, the loving

stepmother, or the innocent child. In each case the Holt villainess is

not only ambitious but also insanely possessive.

In Holt gothics the second division of villainess, the character

descended from the "fatal woman" in literature, is represented by the

mad wife, the deceased wife, the unfaithful wife, the jealous mistress,

the former nurse, or any varying combination of these types. Since the

Holt heroine is always unsure of her beauty or of her relationship with

the Byronic hero, the villainess in this category represents the posi­

tion, beauty, poise, grace, or knowledge the heroine wants to acquire.

Although this character-type would, for lack of an exact, early counter­

part, have to be classified in original gothics with the villain, she

does not suffer the same evil stigma in Holt gothics. Usually the Holt

villainess in this category is merely the victim of circumstance: in

King of the Castle Francoise rejects her. husband because she fears pass­

ing on inherited insanity; in The Shivering Sands Edith, in love with

the curate, stands between Napier and Caroline only because she is forced

Into a loveless marriage with Napier. As a true villainess, this character

39

In Holt does not live up to her name. The evil she does falls short of

murder and springs primarily from her fear of losing her husband/lover

or, in the case of the old nurse, from her need to protect her former

nursery charge. She appears as a villainess only because she is juxta­

posed beside the heroine.

In using the gothic character-types so necessary to the gothic

romance, Ms. Holt sometimes resorts to comic characters, frequently as

mysteriously cloaked as the villain or hero, to maintain suspense. In

Ms. Holt's novels the comic character is often the garrulous housekeeper,

the talkative old family retainer, or some older eccentric member of the

family. Frequently Ms. Holt uses comic descriptions of these characters

rather than conversation between the characters themselves to create

humor. For example, a description of the housekeeper's room in Mistress

of Mellyn includes notation of "antimacassars on the chairs; ... a

whatnot . . . filled with china ornaments including a glass slipper, a

gold pig, and a cup with 'a present from Weston' inscribed on it. . . .

[and] the mantelpiece [where] Dresden shepherdesses seemed to jostle

with marble angels for a place" (Mellyn, p. 17). After describing the

room, the heroine adds that, "It showed Mrs. Pol grey to me as a woman

of strong conventions . . ." (Mellyn, p. 17), and Mrs. Polgrey thereafter

consistently lives up to her commonplace conventions.

Most often the comic characters in Holt novels serve some purpose

besides humor. In The Legend of the Seventh Virgin, the comic descrip­

tions of the servants give one the necessary setting for the informative

gossip the heroine hears in the lower quarters. When Ms. Holt describes

"Mrs. Rolt, the housekeeper, self-styled widow but very likely using

40

Mrs. as a courtesy title, hoping that one day Mr. Haggety would put the

question and Mrs. be hers by right," and her nudging Mr. Haggety, the

Butler, with his "little piggy eyes, lips inclined to slackness at the

sight of a succulent dish or female,"^3 under the table, the reader

expects stereotyped behavior from stereotyped characters.

These stereotyped comic characters serve another function in addi­

tion to humor when they are not only lower-class and common but also

representative of a stereotyped, lower-class superstition that creates

suspense and feeds suspicions already nurtured by the heroine's fertile

imagination. In The Night of the Seventh Moon, legends of the "pseudo-

bride" who threw herself out a window seem to merge with the heroine's

dangerous encounters. In Kirkland Revels the servants' superstitions

about the "suicide balcony" and the dispossessed monks serve as explana­

tions for mysterious events.

In nearly every Victoria Holt gothic the comic retainers or super­

stitious servants carry much of the responsibility for reinforcing terror

and suspense. One can trace this technique to the early gothics, when

legends and comic servants provided humor and fear. In Lewis one finds

the Bleeding Nun (Monk); in Holt the reader finds Loke, the god of mis­

chief (Moon) or the seventh virgin legend (Virgin). For Radcliffe's

simple-minded Annette (Udolpho) or her cowardly Peter (Forest), one may

substitute Holt's Mary-Jane (Revels) or Billy Trehay (Mellyn). In an

effort at the modernization of the gothic formula. Holt has put less

emphasis on comic relief than did the early writers. Even if one wonders

how much comic relief the early gothic writers actually intended and how

41

much of the comedy in their works only seems humorous to a twentieth-

century reader, he must acknowledge that the comic characters in either

Radcliffe or Holt are effective.

In using so effectively the techniques set forth in the early goth­

ics, Ms. Holt has not neglected those later-gothic techniques described

by Malin. Some of them, to be sure, have been discussed in the perusal

of Ms. Holt's novels from an early-gothic viewpoint. This deliberate

combination of early-gothic and New American Gothic is instrumental in

retaining a traditional gothic flavor while at the same time making the

Holt gothic palatable to the twentieth-century reader.

Ms. Holt's most-frequently-used, new-gothic technique is the alien­

ated child. In any Holt gothic in which the heroine is not a mother

herself, she is the champion of the child who is neglected either for

having been fathered by the wrong person, having caused her mother's

death, or having been born as the result of some family scandal. As

with other examples from Holt novels, the list of such neglected chil­

dren is seemingly endless. In a selected few examples one may find

the following, all spoken by the heroine: "I saw the stubborn fear

return to her eyes, and felt a new burst of resentment toward that arro­

gant man who could be so careless of the feelings of a child" (Mellyn.

p. 48), "... I had dared summon him [the Comte] to his own library to

criticize his treatment of his daughter" (Castle, p. 107), and "I was

ready to fight for Fritz as I had not been to fight for myself" (noon.

p. 213). In each case, the heroine wins her battle for the child and

assures him of happiness. In doing so, the heroine bridges the gap

between the forlorn child and his unapproachable parent.

42

It is usually this unapproachable parent, if he is the hero, who

exemplifies Malin's narcissistic gothic character-type who retreats from

the world. In bridging between the world and the retreating individual,

the heroine reunites families, gains the love of the hero, and provides

the romance in the book. There are examples of this frequent occurrence

In Holt gothics in the following illustrations, spoken by the various

heroes:

There was one woman in the world who could make me change my mind [about marriage]. I didn't even know she exis­ted .. . (Castle, p. 258).

. . . you changed me, Marty dear. Your coming changed the whole household (Mellyn, p. 179).

Perhaps there is one person who could force me to do that [banish the past] . . . one person in the world (Sands, p. 274).

The conclusion that each Holt heroine is unusual is obvious from

the preceding examples. The modern gothic heroine j£ unusual when viewed

from the traditional gothic formula, for she is not as helpless and prone

to fainting as early gothic heroines. Whereas the early gothic heroine

was more apt, like Adeline or Isabella, to weep copiously at any sign

of danger or distress, the Holt heroine is more apt to say, "I had always

been adventurous and never one to take the safe road ..." (Island,

p. 252), "I was no longer afraid of Johnny. In fact I was rather eager

for more encounters with him" (Virgin, p. 135), or "I won't be dominated,

I told n\yself. . . ."1^ In such passages the reader sees not only the

heroine of a modern gothic romance, but also a meticulous blending of

old gothic and twentieth-century self-sufficiency calculated to appeal

to today's reader.

43

In Ms. Holt's gothics the original gothic formula is as easily

Identified as those qualities she uses to snare a modern audience. The

techniques of a gothic terror, a haunting atmosphere, and the lingering

presence of revived ghosts and legends, all directly traceable to the

early gothics, are combined with a psychologically sound, sometimes

pragmatic, approach to terrifying situations that makes Ms. Holt's novels

not only probably the most popular gothic romances written today, but

also the most effective blend of original gothic formula and twentieth-

century ideas of personal freedom and independent spirit. Other modern

gothic writers do not conform so precisely to the original gothic formula,

but they, too, blend early-gothic techniques with modern ideas of free­

dom and independence.

Dorothy Eden

It is the modern ideal of independent spirit that most markedly

distinguishes Dorothy Eden's gothics from those of Victoria Holt. Ms.

Eden, like Ms. Holt, is the author of historical novels as well as goth­

ic novels. Of her thirty-four novels, only five, a selected few which

follow this study's criteria of possessing deliberate gothic elements

and a nineteenth-century setting, will be used. In these five gothic

romances one can identify the characteristics of atmosphere and human

stereotypes found in both the early gothics and in Malin's new gothic.

In Lady of Mallow, the earliest-written of these five novels, several

standard, early-gothic techniques stand out.

In the first paragraph of Mallow one glimpses the gothic atmosphere

that will prevail throughout the book as he reads, "Sarah shivered and

drew her cloak more closely about her. The summerhouse had broken panes

of glass in the windows, and the wind blew through in a cold stream. It

was rapidly growing dark. Because the trees were leafless, it was possi­

ble to see the house." Further into the first chapter the reader

finds: "The wind was rising and rags of thunder cloud, blacker than the

approaching night, drifted across the sky. Sarah looked apprehensively

into the darkness, and at last heard footsteps approaching" (Mallow,

p. 9). The reader has, in seven paragraphs, learned that the heroine

finds the haunted castle mysterious, that there is an unhappy marriage

Involved in the mystery, and that the child Titus is neglected and fear­

ful, three gothic elements that are reinforced by the symbolic gothic

44

45

atmosphere containing wind, darkness, storms, and danger. The one re­

maining gothic necessity, the Byronic hero, appears with the approach­

ing footsteps, and "Already he was deeply suspicious of her [the hero­

ine]" (Mallow, p. 9).

The avid gothic-romance reader is correct in his assessment of the

first chapter, for the gothic elements continue throughout the book:

Sarah befriends the frightened, unloved child, staying for his sake in

the face of both physical and emotional danger; Blane Mallow's right to

the Mallow title is in question; Lady Mallow is the villainess who not

only stands between heroine and hero but also proves to be the ambitious

murderer who creates danger for the characters. Ms. Eden makes use of

several of these gothic devices to create danger and suspense. Although

not held at Mallow against her will, Sarah makes use of her presence in

the house to discover secrets that will, in her case, unmask the impos-

ter Lord Mallow. In describing Sarah's investigation, Eden reminds one

vividly of early gothic writers. For her passages "Sarah set her supper

tray on one side and tiptoed to the door of the room to open it a crack

and listen ..." (Mallow, p. 58), "It took only a moment to tiptoe quick­

ly down the passage ..." (Mallow, p. 59), "She had to descend the

stairs and actually pass the dining-room door. . . . she could not resist

stopping to listen a moment" (Mallow, p. 60), or "Sarah stiffened as she

heard approaching footsteps" (Mallow, p. 61), one might easily substi­

tute Radcliffe's words: "With extended arms, she crept along the gal­

lery, still hearing the voices of persons below, who seemed to stop in

conversation at the foot of the staircase . . .'° Emily .. . seemed

Inspired with new strength, the moment she heard the sound of their

46

steps, and ran along the gallery . . .17 Emily often stole to the stair­

case door, to listen if any step approached. . . .1^ ... she quitted

her chamber and passed with cautious steps down the winding staircase,"^^

or "Footsteps pursued her. . . ."̂ ^ Ms. Eden uses such traditional goth­

ic atmosphere and description to create the ghosts and spectres that are,

like Radcliffe's ghosts and spectres, explained at the end as recogniz­

able physical phenomenon.

There is no need to explain the characters, however, nor to excuse

their behavior, for they are gothic types. The heroine tiptoes around

the house, "stumbling on the wrong secrets" (Mallow, p. 76). The hero,

who must both hide and escape from his past, has "The haughty black

brows, the moody eyes, the thin cheeks scored with lines [that] showed

signs of intolerance and an exceptionally strong will" (Mallow, p. 40).

Despite her distrust, Sarah is inevitably drawn to this strong-willed

man, but not before her doubts and suspicions about him are reinforced

by Lady Malvina.

Lady Malvina, the garrulous, old mother of the imposter, serves the

function of the comic servant. Unlike early gothic comic servants, she

is neither servant nor overtly humorous. She is, however, made to be a

figure of ridicule, and she presents a sad yet comic character with her

unreasonable vanity and her "grizzly bear" games with her frightened

grandson.

It is, of course, Titus the child who serves as the catalyst for

the mystery. As is often the case with modern, popular gothics, it is

not so much the heroine as the child who is in danger. She is in danger

of exposure and of falling in love with the wrong man; the child is under

47

the threat of death. He narrowly escapes death at the hands of his de­

mented mother, the novel's villainess, and he is the center of the mys­

tery in the book. Unloved by his mother and the man pretending to be

his father, he is Malin's alienated child. In befriending him, the

heroine discovers that she is actually working with the hero to fulfill

another, traditional gothic goal: the restoration of Titus's title and

hereditary rights.

The heroine's discovery that the hero's imposture is justified and

even somewhat noble follows the modern gothic pattern. Other aspects of

their relationship do not. Contrary to the demands of the modern, gothic

romance, Sarah and Blane do not inherit the castle now exorcised of its

ghosts. Instead, they disappear together. Ms. Eden prepares her reader

somewhat for this conclusion in her description of Sarah, a gothic stock

character strikingly like Ms. Holt's modern-day heroines. Sarah, from

the beginning, finds the adventure "stimulating and perhaps a little

dangerous" (Mallow, p. 20). She enjoys being "able to pit her wits

against that impudent, black-browed imposter [Blane]" (Mallow, p. 20)

because "she had inherited her father's gambling spirit" (Mallow, p. 21).

As with Ms. Holt's heroines, Sarah fulfills the demands of the early-

gothic heroine in the center of a mystery as well as the demands of

modern-gothic readers for a daring heroine.

In Winterwood one finds another daring heroine, one who takes

clothes and jewelry from her cousin to wear to the opera, where, of

course, she meets the hero and his family. As one finds in Holt goth­

ics, so one finds in Eden gothics that the heroine is excused her bad

48

behavior because Cousin Marion is mean, spiteful, and selfish, and the

heroine, basically, is not.

In Winterwood the traditional gothic pattern is a little changed,

but the plot is much the same as the plot in Mallow. This time the child

in danger is a girl. Flora, and she is doubly cursed with a large fortune

as well as a psychosomatic injury that confines her to a wheelchair. The

child in physical danger as a substitute in the original gothic pattern

for the heroine in danger, the same method utilized by Holt, is one of

the popular methods also utilized by Ms. Eden. In Winterwood the method

retains the gothic flavor in the book while allowing the heroine the

advantages of escaping personal injury and, at the same time, appealing

to the reader's instinctively protective attitude toward children. Ms.

Eden uses the same plot in both Winterwood and in another of her goth­

ics, Darkwater.

Despite her updating the gothic formula to provide variation, Ms.

Eden faithfully conforms to many of the gothic devices initiated by

Walpole and Radcliffe. In both Winterwood and Darkwater, there are

exotic undertones that add to the gothic atmosphere. In Winterwood the

reader first meets the characters in Italy, where the Venetian funeral

?l is "outlandish and barbarous," ' and Aunt Tameson's house is quiet with

a silence "unbearably oppressive" (Winterwood, p. 44), peopled with a

dying, old woman and "shrouded furniture and trunks that could have been

coffins" (Winterwood, p. 45). Winterwood, the characters' English abode.

Is just as menacing as the Venetian palace, primarily because ghosts of

the Venetian past come to haunt the inhabitants. As in most modern

49

gothics, the ghosts of Winterwood are proven to be very-much-alive humans

Impersonating the dead, but the effect is traditionally gothic.

Darkwater is set entirely in England, but such exotic elements as a

Chinese amah and oriental treasures are introduced that remind one of the

early gothics with their penchant for the South of Europe or the Far

East. Again, it is primarily the children who are in danger, even though

one is let to know that the danger could as easily extend to Fanny her­

self. The legend about the bird in the chimney whose presence presages

death, the mansion itself that "had turned treacherously into ... [a]

haunted state,"^^ and the mist-shrouded Chinese pavilion near the lake

are all gothic props that might just as easily have been found in goth­

ics of two centuries ago.

In Darkwater and Winterwood the heroines are not likely to have

stepped from an early gothic, for, despite their untouchable beauty,

they are too bold, too daring. For example, one would not expect to

find in Walpole a heroine of whom a servant said, ". . . no one could

meekly make Miss Fanny take second place, or marry a man whom she de­

tested. She would rather proudly remain alone all her life" Darkwater,

p. 142); yet one finds this passage in Eden. This tendency for authors

to make their heroines more modern is not unusual in modern gothics, but

one element of the old formula must remain the same in a gothic romance:

the heroine must finally become involved with the hero. In each of

these two books the modern gothic formula is evident when the heroine

goes through some moments of distrusting the hero before the relation­

ships in the book are untangled and the mysteries solved.

TEXAS TECH LIBRARY

50

In both Winterwood and Darkwater the heroes contribute to the mys­

tery, but they are not so unrepentantly Byronic as some of Ms. Holt's

heroes. Adam Marsh (Darkwater) has eyes that one "could get out of her

depth in" (Darkwater, p. 102), while Daniel Meryon (Winterwood) looks,

"with his faint melancholy, like a portrait . . ." (Winterwood, p. 23).

At times, however, it seems that their greatest faults lie in their love

for the wrong person or in wanting money to restore the manor house. In

fact, they are each rather closely related to the early-gothic, stereo­

typed hero.

Other, early-gothic stereotypes are present also. Daniel's wife,

"self-indulgent, vain, clinging, and unfairly using her frailty as a

weapon" (Winterwood, p. 25) is the villainess of Winterwood. Darkwater's

villain is the seemingly benevolent Uncle Edgar, and Fanny's childhood

is overshadowed with fear of old Lady Arabella, with her enticing sugar

plums, with whom "as a child Fanny had felt as if she had been on a

nerve-wracking journey when she had had to visit ..." (Darkwater,

p. 22). In several of Ms. Eden's novels, however, the reader can sense,

amid all the traditional gothic trappings, a new trend in the author's

work: the incorporation into the traditional gothic framework of not

only traditional gothic techniques but also more progressive causes and

crusades.

Ravenscroft is the Eden gothic that contains what might be consid­

ered a progressive cause. The presence of many of the previously-

mentioned gothic elements makes Ravenscroft a "gothic romance." To

prove the novel's right to the title "gothic" one finds substantiation

In the Isolated country manor house, the brooding figures of Noah and

51

Aunt Aggie, the near-death encounters of Bella and her unstable sister

Lally, and the hero with the "high-browed face, . . . lazy blue eyes

that could turn to steel, and . . . cool hard mouth . . . [who] could

be unforgivably rude and deliberately shocking."^^ Under the title

"Romance" one finds substantiation in Bella's constant struggles to

make Guy forget Caroline and in her realization that "She loved him

terribly and forlornly and forever" (Ravenscroft, p. 154). Bella's

rival, the Other Woman, is "soft-voiced, clever . . .; she didn't ob­

trude, speaking only when spoken to and then with impeccable politeness.

. . . Yet . . . there was something, a subtle confidence, almost a veiled

amusement" (Ravenscroft, p. 164) that rouses suspicion. The astute read­

er knows, though, despite seeming evidence to the contrary, that it is

Bella and Guy who constitute the main figures in the romance.

Ravenscroft, gothic and romantic though it may be, has another

theme, however. In what may have been an attempt to give depth to the

work, Ms. Eden has added another facet: a diatribe on the evils that

lurked in nineteenth-century London (and, doubtless, elsewhere as well).

Bella and Lally fall into Aunt Aggie's white slavery scheme because they

are penniless orphans. Guy Raven, stung to a show of conscience by a

friend, champions the two girls in a bid for a cause on which to formu­

late a campaign platform. Ms. Eden's crusade is not meant as historical

fact, but the crusade against evil does make a moral point that not only

deepens the impact of the book but also adds to the gothic atmosphere

necessary for plot. The white slavery theme gives sinister import to

characterization and gives depth to a plot borrowed from the traditional

techniques of early gothic novelists.

52

One of Ms. Eden's later books. The Millionaire's Daughter, utilizes

another theme that would not have been considered in early gothics:

homosexuality. The Millionaire's Daughter gives the reader the suspense

and romance he expects from a modern gothic and preserves a nineteenth-

century setting to make crumbling mansions and fearful plots plausible.

The haunted castle is Monkshood, and Chrissie describes her first sight

of it in gothic terms: "The day . . . had lost its brightness. Rags of

cloud moved across the sky and made shadows on the lake. The jackdaws

were flying restlessly in and out of the old ruin, crying harshly. The

house, without the pearly glow of sunlight on it, had a shadowy, deserted

look. Not a single window shone with light."^^

There is more than just a gothic atmosphere to link The Million­

aire's Daughter to traditional gothic, however. The Byronic-hero image

is nowhere else in Ms. Eden's books more prevalent nor more blatant than

in Daughter. In fact, there is a direct reference to Lord Byron for the

reader who has not yet recognized Lord Monkshood's homosexuality. When

Percival wants his bride Chrissie to have her hair cut short, she says,

"Like Lady Caroline Lamb? I hope you haven't got my Uncle Boy's obses­

sion for Lord Byron" (Daughter, p. 273). Her husband's obsession is,

ironically enough, not for Byron but for younger males, but the unmis­

takable parallel in unacceptable sexual habits is evident.

Other descriptions of Percival that point to him as a Byronic hero

Include descriptions of his sad face and melancholy eyes, "with their

hint of world-weariness and sadness ..." (Daughter, p. 201). Accord­

ing to modern gothic tradition. Lord Monkshood should first elicit sym­

pathy for his being misjudged and then be vindicated in order to become

53

the pure hero. Ms. Eden deviates again from the customary gothic formu­

la, however, when she provides another sympathetic hero, Matthew Smith.

Lord Monkshood, the victim of his unnatural desires, receives only the

reader's sympathy while Matthew Smith, ultimately, will "get the girl."

In this way Ms. Eden uses a primary gothic framework but deviates from

the formula to produce a short study of those at the mercy of their

sexual desires. By deviating from the gothic formula, she also completes

her romance.

The Millionaire's Daughter, although admittedly not conforming

entirely to the usual modern gothic-romance demands, cannot be dismissed.

It contains enough gothic devices to be evaluated as a gothic, but its

innovative approach to characterization as well as to plot serves as a

linkage between modern British authors and modern American gothic writ­

ers. The combination of Ms. Eden's use of an American-born heroine and

her use of the gothic framework to carry other, possibly more important,

themes of reform and tolerance reflect the American approach to the

gothic romance.

CHAPTER IV

THE AMERICANS

Jane Aiken Hodge

Of the two American writers considered in this study, Jane Aiken

Hodge is the one less dependent upon her American heritage for her goth­

ic romances. She uses the gothic framework, but gothicism is not the

main purpose of her writing. In speaking of her own writing, Jane Aiken

Hodge says, ". . . I do tend to have a private theme to make the book

extra interesting to me. . . . The autistic child . . . the stammer

. . ., and so on. . . ."' It is not only this private theme, however,

that sets Ms. Hodge's books apart from those modern gothic writers con­

sidered earlier in this paper. One finds also that Ms. Hodge frequently

uses the gothic framework when she writes carefully researched histori­

cal romances.

Ms. Hodge's use of carefully researched historical accuracy is

neither accidental nor restrictive. In fact, Ms. Hodge finds her his­

torical settings advantageous, for she says, "A great advantage of the

historical novel is that people tend not to point at a character and 2

say, 'That's me.' It gives one a much freer hand." In using her

"freer hand" to create a pleasing combination of historical and fic­

tional characters, as well as plots redolent of gothic devices, Ms.

Hodge relies on her Yankee ingenuity to take the best of both worlds.

She pleases herself with her historic research and special theme; she

54

55

pleases her publishers, concerned with sales, with her use of gothic

devices. Ms. Hodge's publishers' tendency to dress her novels "up with

that inevitable castle and fleeing heroine"^ is no futile attempt at

deception, however. In each of Ms. Hodge's seven books advertised as

gothics one can easily find gothic devices worthy of Walpole himself.

In searching for a medium for her themes, Ms. Hodge chose the goth­

ic. In searching for a setting for her "gothic" tales, Ms. Hodge found

America disappointing. Leslie Fiedler noted the American writer's prob­

lems with the adaptation of the gothic to the American shores when he

asked, "what was to be done about the social status of . . . hero-

villains? With what native classes or groups could they be identified?

Traditionally aristocrats, monks, servants of the Inquisition, members

of secret societies . . ., how could they be convincingly introduced

on the American scene?" "Similarly, it was not hard [for early American

gothicists] to provide the American equivalents of the moors, hills, and

forests through v/hich the bedeviled maidens of the gothic romances were

accustomed to flee. But what of the haunted castle, the ruined abbey,

the dungeons of the Inquisition?"^

Faced with the fact that haunted abbeys, ghostly dungeons, and

centuries-old legends are traditionally necessary to produce gothicism,

the American writer is forced to create gothic atmospheres that are

peculiarly American. Ms. Hodge chooses to skirt the issue in five of

the seven books considered. One of these five. Watch The Wall, My

Darling, is set in England, albeit with an American heroine. The other

four have foreign, war-ravaged settings. In Marry In Haste and The

Winding Stair, the setting is Portugal; in Shadow Of A Lady and Greek

56

Wedding It is Greece. In each of these five the gothic atmosphere of

terror and suspense is created primarily by the war situation and the

resulting secret societies, spying, political intrigue, and betrayal.

Mention of the war as the "Napoleonic Wars" or the "Greek War for Inde­

pendence" sets the time historically; mention of the danger of advanc­

ing forces or the inevitable death awaiting spies is the terror that

brings the reader's attention back to gothicism.

In bringing the reader's attention to gothicism in The Master Of

Penrose (originally Here Comes A Candle) and Savannah Purchase, Ms. Hodge

must resort to external sources of fear that adapt themselves to American

settings. For Penrose Ms. Hodge chooses the advance of the British on

Washington, D.C. in the War of 1812. When the epigraph of Penrose opens

with the question, "What Horror Haunted Penrose?"^, the reader may well

wonder; for Penrose can hardly be one hundred years old. Ms. Hodge must

create gothicism through kidnappings and murders, just as earlier Ameri­

cans devised terrors to create gothicism for America, an atmosphere natu­

rally devoid of gothic horrors. Charles Brockden Brown evoked gothic

horror with murders, Indian uprisings, kidnappings, ventriloquism, and

mental imbalance. Poe's gothicism hinged upon his evocation of terror

through the atmosphere produced by mysteriously haunted mansions, incest,

walking dead, doomed families, and murder. The gothic atmosphere in

Hodge's Penrose is represented by the screaming * or of Sarah, the

autistic child. Ms. Hodge further evokes horror ih the later kidnap­

ping and planned murder of Sarah by her own mother.

Casting about for another convincing American setting that could

give a gothic atmosphere (short of another murder attempt on a child)

57

to Savannah Purchase. Ms. Hodge, like so many other American authors,

chooses the South. Modeled on the aristocratic tradition of England,

the Southern mansion of Purchase provides ample gothicism, as does the

aristocratic mansion of Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" or the

decaying plantation house of Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!. In Purchase,

the plantation home is cold with an atmosphere of mourning and impend­

ing death; the Southern fear of Negro revolt lends suspicion and uneasi­

ness. Purchis of Savannah is a name to be reckoned with, and the desert­

ed plantation home that is refuge for the heroine at once evokes both

lonely terror and the picture of haunted, deserted abbeys and castles.

The haunted castle of the early gothicists is easily found in Pur­

chase. Again, the South provides ready gothicism. Ms. Hodge describes

Juliet's first glimpse of Winchelsea, the Purchis plantation, thus:

"Mild December sunlight filtered through the narrow, dark green leaves,

and a light breeze stirred the strange grey drapery that hung, like cur­

tains, like the backcloth of a theatre, but quivering in the cool sun­

shine so as to turn the long drive into something from a fairy tale, the

road to the enchanted palace." The following description of the haunted

castle in Penrose, with its New England setting, is more disappointing:

"She was aware ... of the looming bulk of a big three-story house, its

shape defined against the sky by a scattering of illuminated windows"

(Penrose, p. 41).

In the descriptions of the haunted castles in Ms. Hodge's other

books, the effect is gratifyingly gothic. In The Winding Stair one

reads, "And, ahead, above them, stood the castle itself, sharply sil­

houetted against the western sky, a place of dream or even, maybe, of

58

nightmare, with its strange mixture of spire and minaret, of Christian

and Moorish architecture. It had been at different times in its history

a Moorish citadel against the Christian invader, a pirate's base, and,

briefly, an English stronghold when Richard Coeur de Lion's crusaders o

stormed it on their way to the Holy Land." Even the Tretteign mansion

in Watch The Wall, My Darling or the Greek castle in Greek Wedding,

"silhouetted against the light: medieval turrets . . . a square Maniote 0

tower. . . ." cannot equal the sense of centuries-old retribution and

wrongs that the gothic castle of Stair evokes. In each of Ms. Hodge's

books, however, the gothic terror utilized by the author depends far

less upon physical setting than on circumstance and characterization.

Ms. Hodge's circumstances vary, but her intent when presenting

adverse circumstances for her heroines is predictably gothic and amaz­

ingly reminiscent of Victoria Holt as well as of Walpole or Radcliffe.

In each of her gothics Ms. Hodge must at some point leave her heroine

alone and defenseless in order that the hero might rescue her. There­

fore, one finds circumstance largely linked with characterization in

Ms. Hodge's romances. No matter how brave, how American, how unique,

or how indomitable the heroine, she must at one point at least be left

homeless, penniless, without male protectors (or with protectors who

are absent or negligible), or, perhaps, all three.

Whenever the Hodge heroine is, either for the sake of accurate

historic portrayal of woman's lot or for the purposes of gothic devices,

at the mercy of circumstance, she is still a little more self-reliant

than the traditional gothic heroines. With few exceptions, the Hodge

heroines are exceptionally tall, and, although Ms. Hodge says, "It

59

hadn't occurred to me that my heroines were tall. . . . I think that's

accident," she also must add, "What they mostly are is as feminist as

one can get away with in the period."^^

Given the statement that Hodge heroines are feminists, one might

well wonder how they can be gothic heroines as well. The words "in the

period" are the key. Ms. Hodge has acknowledged the necessity for an

earlier-century setting for her gothics, and that setting provides a

tradition that lends itself to gothic devices. Helen Telfair, of Shadow,

trapped by a clause in her inheritance, must marry because she is preg­

nant. She realizes that "after all those plans for a free and indepen­

dent life, she must mortgage her own future to protect her child. She

12 must marry, and since there was no one else, marry Lord Merritt."

She also realizes later that "She had been mad to hope . . . that she

should control her own fortune instead of its passing automatically

into her husband's hands" (Shadow, p. 175).

Of course, some of Ms. Hodge's heroines are fortunate enough to

find themselves sole heirs to their fathers, and this technique of the

heroine's receiving an inheritance is as old as the gothic itself. In

Stair, Wedding and Wall, the heroines are rich heiresses, but each must

conceal or lose her fortune until she has secured the love of the hero.

In each of these three books, however, the fortune of the heroine pro­

vides a perfect gothic touch. In true gothic tradition, the heroine is

kidnapped, courted, threatened or held captive by the villain who hopes

to take possession of her fortune. Phyllida Vannick, of Wedding, sums

up these Hodge heroines' individual situations when she says, ". . .he

[the villain] had thought he might get her and her fortune as well, and

j ^

60

had held his hand. When she refused him, he had begun to plot again

. . ." (Wedding, p. 224). In typical Hodge fashion, however, even this

gothic device has a unique twist in some of her novels.

Juana Brett, in The Winding Stair, not only holds the inheritance

of the Castle on the Rock as lure for the villain, but she also remains

the only legitimate heir to the throne which the illegitimate villain,

Vasco, wants to regain. Therefore, she is necessary to his plan not

only for her inheritance but also for her parentage. The unique Hodge

twist in Watch The Wall, My Darling is that Christina is necessary to

the hero's plans as the heir to the manor house he needs as his spying

and smuggling base. Again in Wall one finds that war, this time the

Napoleonic Wars, is the circumstance that defines the book's gothic

qualities. The actual threat to Christina's life comes because she has

information about her cousin's spying operation, not because of her

inheritance.

Regardless of her claim to or her need for an inheritance, however,

the Hodge heroine displays at times another uniquely Hodge trait for a

gothic heroine: she is, to her contemporaries, a shocking "bluestock­

ing." Perhaps as a result of Ms. Hodge's twentieth-century predilection

for feminism, the Hodge heroine shows little resemblance to the early

gothic heroine in personal qualities. The Hodge heroine may share the

early gothic heroine's curiosity, but she does not share her timidity.

In the face of danger and, possibly, death, for example, Juana gambles

on adventure when she realizes that "If she killed them both, she would

never know what she might have achieved by staying alive and taking her

chance at the meeting" (Stair, p. 279).

61

The heroines of all Ms. Hodge's works, like Juana, show an unusual

amount of independence and intelligence. This is a phenomenon that

proves Ms. Hodge's claim that she injects as much feminism as possible

into her gothic novels, serves as a means of characterization, and

affects the relationship between the heroine and the hero. The Hodge

heroine is ingenious, witty, brave, and sensible. A series of quota­

tions from the seven books in question characterize the Hodge heroine

with the following words:

Josephine to Juliet: "You've never lost your head to that dry-as-dust husband of mine! . . . what a pity . . . You'd suit him much better than I do. The two of you could talk education and politics and the rights of man till the cot­ton was picked" (Purchase, p. 104).

Ross to^Christina: "You showed a man's courage then. II13

• • •

Alex to Phyllida: "'So, you're human after all, kyria. . . . I confess, I'd wondered. I'm glad it's a woman I'm to marry, not a goddess . . .'"(Wedding, p. 226).

Juana, about Vasco: "Riding with him, learning it was best to let him beat her at chess, . . . it had been easy to forget how time was ebbing away ..." (Stair, p. 108).

Merritt of Helen: "... charming ladies. . . . And ladies . . . most unusual . . . who think" (Shadow, p. 48).

Countless examples from each book would say much the same thing: Ms.

Hodge's heroines are feminist in orientation and outlook.

It is this feminism that most often colours the relationship between

the heroine and the men in the book. In Ms. Hodge's novels the heroine

is not only a bluestocking, but she is also smarter than the villain. In

many passages in Ms. Hodge's works the men are duped by the heroine, but

at least Ms. Hodge makes the unwary males the villains, not the heroes.

62

One can see the effect Ms. Hodge's feminism has on her heroines in the

following representative examples:

. . . she . . . congratulated herself that Price must think her negligible as an adversary. There were, after all, some advantages about being a woman. Men tended to dismiss you as a fool (Shadow, p. 212).

That was her only weapon, she knew, against Vasco--the fact that he thought of her almost as a thing, not for a moment as an equal (Stair, p. 274).

He took this, she saw with pleasure, as merely another proof of her expected stupidity (Stair, p. 275).

But there was no time for anxiety; she was too busy con­cealing it, laughing with Dom Fernando and showing her­self the kind of giddy wife to whom no man in his senses would think of giving precise information.l^

At times the Hodge heroine even teaches some of her feminism to the other

female characters. In Wedding, for example, Phyllida encourages Oenone,

Alex's fiancee, to assert herself intellectually, something no nineteenth-

century Greek woman would have done. Phyllida comments on this unusual

transformation when she says, "The sight of Oenone suddenly using her

excellent brain suggested [Frankenstein], and Phyllida thought . . . what

a surprise she would be to Alex as a wife" (Wedding, p. 247).

The Hodge heroine is not a totally feminist creation, however, for

she inevitably gets herself into dangers she cannot charm or trick her

way out of. In the gothic tradition, therefore, Ms. Hodge has provided

several heroes to rescue her heroines in their moments of greatest dan­

ger.

The Hodge hero as a gothic hero is neither pure beauty (as was

Walpole's Theodore) nor Byronic devil (as was Lewis's Monk). As a whole,

the Hodge hero is brave and wise until he deals with women or, more

63

particularly, with the heroine. It is the hero's distrust of women that

appears most frequently in the relationship of hero to heroine. Against

his will the hero finds himself loving the heroine, but he first makes

known to her his feelings about women. The following lines illustrate

this point:

I thought he [the hero] didn't much like women (Wedding, p. 25). ^

Then, to begin with, as I think I told you before, I do not like women. Anyone will tell you that. I do not under­stand them, I do not appreciate them, I do not want them. ... I know nothing about them, and I do not wish to learn (Haste, p. 22).

You're the only woman I've ever respected (Wall, p. 199).

Even thinking the worst of women, or more specifically, of the heroine,

however, the hero still rescues her when she cannot save herself and, in

true romantic gothic tradition, the two marry.

Hyde Purchis of Savannah Purchase is the only Hodge hero in the

seven novels considered who seemingly has no faults and therefore is

like the early gothic heroes. He guesses early in the book that

Josephine and Juliet have changed places; he calmly fights an inevitable

duel; he smooths over Juliet's mistakes as mistress of Winchelsea; and

he adeptly handles the scandal when Josephine's attempts to rescue

Napoleon are disclosed. The rest of Ms. Hodge's heroes have much in

common with both the romantic hero and the Byronic hero, displaying such

heroic traits as courage, ingenuity, intelligence, gentlemanliness,

strength, and tenderness.

The descriptions of Hodge heroes fit many of the criteria for both

the romantic and the Byronic heroes, and a few representative lines indi­

cate the prevalence of these criteria.

64

He looked years older than the frivolous young man who had turned so suddenly serious that sunny, far-off day in Wimbledon. Fair hair, bleached almost white, set off the deep tan of a face that bore the marks of hard service, both in the fine wrinkles that criss-crossed cheeks and brow, and in one savage scar, livid from hairline to chin on the left side (Shadow, p. 87).

. . . his broad shoulders and great height combined with this martial outfit to present an odd contrast to his dandy's voice and manner. His thick dark hair was cut short and curled irrepressibly around a face tanned al­most as dark as an Indian's. His gaze, at once languid and piercing, had now taken her in . . . (Wall, p. 19).

. . . he was formidably handsome. His dark hair curled shortly round a high forehead and his large and piercing eyes gave a romantic impression to his face which was somewhat contradicted by a straight nose and small, firm mouth (Haste, p. 14).

He was immaculately neat as always, but the efforts he had made to look as usual merely accentuated his ghastly pallor, the nervous twitch under one eye, and worst of all, the path of dried blood across the top of his head that he had tried so hard to hide by a rearrangement of his Byronic curls (Wedding, p. 168).

In contrast to the Hodge hero, the Hodge villain is swarthy where

the hero is handsome, short where the hero is tall, and, of course,

cruel where the hero is kind. Following the gothic tradition, Ms. Hodge

uses the proven formula of villain pursuing heiress to create suspense

in her novels. Ms. Hodge's descriptions of her villains more than any­

thing point out her debt to early gothic writers. When one reads such

lines as "He loomed over her, dark, bewhiskered, sallow-complexioned,

furious" (Purchase, p. 65), "His eyes glittered in the torchlight . . .

this was a scene straight out of Sir Walter Scott" (Wedding, p. 223),

and "She . . . knew how right she had been to be afraid of him. . . . a

mad, frightening genius" (Stair, p. 269), it is evident that Ms. Hodge's

heroines are capable of experiencing any gothic horror.

65

With a treacherous single-mindedness, the Hodge villain has no

qualms about rape, kidnapping, murder, lying, treason, extortion, or

adultery. Every Hodge villain in the seven books considered is thorough

and unrepentant. Ms. Hodge's feminism allows for degrees of evil, though,

and the one Hodge villainess, in Master of Penrose, is allowed a moment

of redemptive remorse before her death when she sacrifices herself for

her child.

As in Victoria Holt, so in Jane Aiken Hodge one can find another

theme so popular with modern gothic writers, the theme of danger to a

child. The idea of a child's being in danger, with such excellent gothic

connotations, is part of Ms. Hodge's technique in two of the novels con-

si dered--SFia^ow_of_a_Lady^, and The Master of Penrose. In each of these

two novels the hero or heroine is compelled at least once to stand be­

tween a child and the threat of death. With words strikingly reminis­

cent of Victoria Holt, the Hodge heroine of Penrose says, "She ought to

go, anywhere, anyhow. . . . She could not go. . . . Sarah needed her.

Nothing else mattered but that" (Penrose, p. 95), or, in Shadow, "What

she could do to safeguard herself and the child, she had done. . . .

how strange that she v/ould go through fire and water for Trenche's child.

The child who had wrecked her life" (Shadow, p. 181). Unlike Malin's

totally unloved child, however, the child in a Hodge novel is merely

rejected by one parent. Nonetheless, it is still the heroine who becomes

the stable influence in the child's life and who risks much and seemingly

lets her life be determined by a primary concern for the child's welfare.

As can easily be seen by this cursory glance at the seven novels

under consideration, Ms. Hodge owes far less than some other writers to

66

the unrevised gothic formula that the reading public and some publishers

demand. It is a measure of Ms. Hodge's skill, however, that she so ad­

mirably joins the gothic formula with historical fact, feminism, and a

measure of that brashness and independence of spirit often associated

with Americans. To say that Ms. Hodge's romances are purely gothic

would be to insult the intelligence of the reader. The promise of goth­

icism in the epigraph, such as: "HER IMPULSIVE MARRIAGE TO THE HANDSOME

STRANGER PROMISED TO BE A REFUGE FOR CAMILLA—UNTIL SHE LEARNED THE TRUTH

ABOUT HER HUSBAND ... AND THE SECRET THAT THREATENED TO DESTROY THEM

BOTH ..." (Haste, p. i), is not always fulfilled in the book.

Instead, Ms. Hodge adapts the terror and mystery associated with

such gothic techniques as haunted castles, ghost-ridden psyches, or

villains bent on revenge or gain to the tools she finds in her feminist,

American hands. Lacking the ability to portray the simpering Misses of

early gothics, she creates gothic situations that put her strongly self-

sufficient heroines at the mercy of a rescuer. She dispenses with comic

retainers and gives her Austen-like heroines the wit to create their own

humor. In doing so, however, she merely uses the gothic techniques to

advantage without losing the reader's credulity.

Using the gothic techniques primarily for her own purposes and,

perhaps, enjoyment, Ms. Hodge is free to adapt them at will. In doing

so she has followed the example of the American gothicists who have pre­

ceded her. Ms. Hodge draws on the gothic tradition to cast her charac­

ters in the required aristocratic mold. Lacking the innate, aristocratic

caste system found in Europe, America forged gothic writers, who, like

Hodge, have been forced either to create a uniquely American aristocracy

67

or to borrow from European aristocracy. Ms. Hodge does both. Frequently

her characters are titled English aristocrats, descendants of prestigious

families, members of the royal families of Greece, or sole heirs to vast,

American fortunes. Ms. Hodge's American heroes or heroines are usually

rich, but they, in comparison to European aristocracy, are nouveaux

riches.

In early New England the aristocracy gained its wealth from trade

or business. As a result, the American gothic writers have been forced

to find the aristocratic characters necessary in the gothic tradition in

such American families as shipbuilders, sailors, pioneers, landowners,

entrepreneurs, merchants, and mining or manufacturing giants. Lacking

titled families, the Americans created business barons; lacking Kings,

they created Captains of the sea trade. It is this particularly Ameri­

can heritage that Ms. Hodge draws upon for her American aristocrats in

her novels.

In one Hodge novel. Savannah Purchase, Ms. Hodge uses what most

closely resembles the European aristocratic tradition in America: the

South of the nineteenth century. In this she is following the example

of such earlier American writers as Edgar Allan Poe and William Faulkner.

Faulkner's most gothic novel, Absalom, Absalom! borrows the gothic qual­

ities associated with the pre-Civil War South to create atmosphere as

well as characterization. His gothic novel uses ghost-haunted, guilt-

ridden, aristocratic, slave-owning plantation owners to represent Ameri­

can aristocracy in literature. Ms. Hodge only uses the South, with its

natural gothicism and American aristocracy, in one of her novels, how­

ever, preferring more often to create gothic settings from non-American

68

settings. The second American author to be considered in this study,

Phyllis Whitney, chooses to use American settings in all of the Whitney

gothics under consideration. She, however, must also adapt the gothic

tradition for her purposes.

Phyllis Whitney

Phyllis Whitney feels that she is writing primarily for women and

that the gothic novel is the type of literature that women want to read.

Should one doubt this fact, he may find proof by simply reading all

Ms. Whitney's novels or by asking Ms. Whitney herself. Speaking in

Ms. Whitney's behalf, Patricia Schartle Myrer, publishing representative

for both Whitney and Holt, says, "It's rather obvious that women who

write for women are a little more inclined to know what women will enjoy

reading, and this is the simple reason so many of the best Gothic v/rit-

ers are women. I can assure you that total deliberation is given to

15 the use of Gothic devices." Having established Ms. Whitney's purpose

in using gothic techniques, Ms. Myrer goes on to say, "Phyllis Whitney

feels that America definitely doesn't have a Gothic tradition of its own

but that the Gothic elements she uses are human elements which are rele­

vant to any setting."

In the six Whitney gothics under study in this thesis, the setting

is always American, and in each of these six gothic romances the atmos­

phere is always gothic. It is obvious, however, that Ms. Myrer is cor­

rect in saying that Ms. Whitney uses gothic techniques merely as human

elements relevant to any setting. As with the other three authors dis­

cussed here, so with Ms. Whitney one finds that the romance is a more

dominant theme than the gothicism. In Ms. Whitney's gothic romances

one finds many gothic techniques, but the main thrust of the story is

more frequently concerned with resolving romance, effecting a change

69

70

in family members, or producing a bildungsroman for the heroine. Since

Ms. Whitney uses gothic devices, whether for pleasure, audience appeal,

or mysterious effect, it is appropriate to study the effectiveness of

the gothic in her American settings.

Railo feels that the haunted castle as the setting for gothic ro­

mances is vitally necessary for atmospheric effect. Faced with a com­

paratively young American nation when she utilizes nineteenth-century

settings, Ms. Whitney finds none of the centuries-old castles so abun­

dant in Europe. In America one has family homes, but they are genera­

tions-old, not centuries-old. Even these old, family homes are not

castles; having been through no religious upheavals, they have no peeps,

no priest's holes, no oubliettes, no dungeons. No old family houses in

America were built from the ghost-ridden stones of destroyed abbeys and

monasteries. Given this situation, Ms. Whitney has chosen to utilize

such settings as the Civil War, the San Francisco earthquake, post-Civil

War New Orleans, and tragedy in the families of what she, too, feels

passes as dynastic aristocracy in America--Captains and shipbuilders,

politicians, and pioneers. It is in the mansions of these families that

Ms. Whitney utilizes some of the gothic techniques she feels are so

appealing to her female audience.

Ms. Whitney's use of the haunted castle as a gothic technique is

necessarily limited by her American settings; therefore, f's. Whitney

most frequently creates a gothic atmosphere with one haunted room in

the old house in each novel. In Window On The Square the haunted room

is the untouched shrine to Dwight Reid and the actual scene of his mur­

der, supposedly at the hands of his own son. Since the house itself

71

has no other threatening ghosts, it is in this haunted room that the most

physically frightening scenes occur. In one scene in the room, Megan

feels that "... the sense of a presence that meant me harm was so acute

that I could not speak or move. . . . Fingers, chill and somehow deadly,

touched my face, my throat."^^ Early in the book the reader discovers

that Megan is trying to free the child Jeremy from the guilt that haunts

him, and the key to the source of that guilt is the haunted room.

In The Trembling Hills the room at the top of the house is haunted

because its former occupant was mad, not because its present occupant is

bent on evil. Still, there is much atmospheric control exercised by

that one room. As the former prison of the madwoman Callie and as the

present obsession of the sleepwalking Hester Varady, the room embodies

the core of evil that makes the house the source of the heroine's un­

explained nightmares. It is only when Sara has exorcised the ghosts in

the house by revealing family secrets and Hester Varady's guilty remorse

about her treatment of Callie that the room and the house lose their

threatening aspects.

As in each of the other Whitney gothics under consideration, so in

Hills one finds that the haunted house is haunted not by legend but by

the evil of its present inhabitants. The descriptions of the houses in

Whitney novels have just enough gothic elements to elicit a gothic atmos­

phere. In Hills the description of the haunted castle reads as follows:

"Hester Varady's house looked like something out of a fairy tale, with

its gloomy turrets and peaked roofs. Vines grew heavily over the front

windows as if the house wanted to hide its secrets from the street."^^

The description of the house in Thunder Heights echoes the description

X "

72

of the Varady house. Camilla describes the house as "... a conglomera­

tion of wooden towers and gingerbread curlicues, with sloping roofs from

which jutted gables and dormer windows. . . . Storms had weathered the

house to a dingy gray, . . . and the trees crowding about gave it the

look of a place uninhabited. It appeared enchanted, spellbound, there

on its remote heights. . . ., torn from the pages of fantasy."^^

In Sea Jade Ms. Whitney uses the same technique of mystery and

secretive evil, but the source is less the house, despite its haunted

room, than the abandoned ship at harbour. On board the ship Miranda

feels her first sense of danger and describes the experience thus:

"... there were creakings and whisperings and rustlings all about me.

. . ."2^ "Panic rose in me at the thought of being shut into this place,

with no one to know where I was, and the air growing closer every moment"

(Jade, p. 133). Such descriptions of the gothic atmosphere Whitney

creates both on land and aboard ship echo the gothic atmospheres created

by such other American writers as Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne

when one compares them to Melville's silent, dark, driven Pequod with its

evil Parsee and devilish Ahab and Hawthorne's sad, shadowed, shuttered

house of seven gables with its reclusive, blood-stained, guilt-ridden

inhabitants. Frequently the inhabitants of Whitney's haunted houses

are victims of a physical world that only seems haunted. Ms. Whitney's

haunted-world properties function merely as stock gothic devices when

they simply add to the atmosphere. In Sea Jade, for example, the large,

black dog, appropriately named Lucifer, howls for days. It is not pre­

science of danger that makes him howl, however; it is merely the absence

of his master. It is revealed somewhat ludicrously that the dog, Lucifer,

73

like his master, is not really evil and cruel but is merely lonely and

shy. In Window On The Square Megan is frightened of Miss Garth, who is

openly, malevolently hostile toward her, but Miss Garth is ultimately

revealed as a lonely, jealous woman. Although one can find similar

examples in all the Whitney books under consideration, they all are

relatively unobtrusive. In Ms. Whitney's gothics a much more important

technique for producing the gothic atmosphere is the author's use of

the haunted psychological world.

Ms. Whitney's use of the haunted psychological world is primarily

her adaptation of that technique to her heroine's emotional growth.

Unlike Ms. Holt's or Ms. Eden's heroines, Ms. Whitney's heroine is not

tempted to believe that the hero she loves is the person who is trying

to kill her. The Whitney servants do not whisper legends of mysterious

deaths; the heroine does not fall prey to so many suspicions that she

doubts her own sanity. True, in Skye Cameron the hero is falsely accused

of having murdered once, but the accusation is proved false and Skye

never fears for her own life at his hands. The moment of the hero's

being accused of murder in Window On The Square is so brief as to be

fleeting; again, the heroine never feels physically threatened by him.

The book that most clearly uses the haunted psychological world for

gothic effect is The Trembling Hills. In this Whitney gothic one of the

keys to the mystery is Sara's recurring nightmare. When Sara goes back

to the "haunted castle," she discovers that her unfinished nightmare is

the psychological block she put on the death scene of her father that

she witnessed as a child. Here the fear Sara feels is purely psycho­

logical; the greatest threat to Sara is the fear of not knowing how her

74

dream ends in real life. Sara's search for an end to the nightmares that

haunt her is a search for the father who deserted her as a child. It is

significant that Sara finds the answer to her nightmarish dreams when she

realizes her love for Nicholas Renwick, who functions as both father

Image and lover in the book. Once Sara forces her Aunt Hester to reveal

the secrets of the "haunted room" and confess her own guilt in the matter

of the death of Sara's father, Sara is able to finish her dream and re­

solve her search for a father in Nick.

One of the devices by which Ms. Whitney reinforces the gothicism of

the haunted psychological world in The Trembling Hills is her use of

mirror imagery. Mirror imagery as a technique of the new American gothic

discussed by Malin appears in Hills in Sara's fear of coming unsuspect-

edly upon mirrors. The flash of light that reveals the terrors of her

nightmares is reflected in various mirrors in Sara's dreams. She tips

her mirror back in order to avoid suddenly glimpsing images in the mirror

at night. " Any unexpected encounter with a mirror, as in the attic of

the Varady home, causes Sara to relive her recurring nightmare, the

childhood experience of watching her father fall to his death. Ms.

Whitney uses such mirror techniques both to reinforce the gothic feeling

of a haunted psychological world in The Trembling Hills and to reflect

the stages of psychological and emotional growth of her characters.' The

added lessons on character-building that are found in Whitney gothics

add another dimension to the author's characterization.

In her characterization of the heroine, Phyllis Whitney frequently

portrays the growth of her main character from a girl to a woman. At

times the author is almost painfully explicit in this bildungsroman.

75

much more so than Holt, Eden, or Hodge. In Hills one finds the follow­

ing descriptions of the heroine Sara: "She liked to weave make-believe

dreams about his [her father's] unexpected return. She couldn't help

building a fantasy in her mind, with an exciting figure that was her

father at its center" (Hills, p. 3). "You remind me of the first time

I saw you, Sara--kneeling there above the stairs. You have the same

look of a little girl this morning" (Hills, p. 123). When asked what

she wants from life, Sara answers, "I want more dresses than I can wear.

A fine house. A dozen taffeta petticoats" (Hills, p. 148), and after

she alienates Nicholas with her obsessive infatuation for Ritchie, Sara

realizes her immaturity. "In this unwelcome moment the truth she had

not seen flashed upon her. It was not Ritchie and a childhood love that

mattered to her. It was Nicholas Renwick. Nick--who held her only in

contempt" (Hills, p. 157). From this point the reader follows Sara

through the resolution of mystery as well as the revelation of the hero­

ine's maturity.

This pattern of maturation can be traced in others of Ms. Whitney's

novels. In Thunder Heights Camilla goes to the Judd house expecting

everyone to love her despite old family feuds; she discovers that she

has underestimated their hatred. From the first her inexperience, her

Immaturity, and her idealism are emphasized, but, again, the reader fol­

lows her maturation through the book, manifested, at the end, as usual,

by her mature love for the hero. In The Quicksilver Pool the heroine is

Introduced as a young girl cherishing a childhood romance. The domineer­

ing, older woman in the book points out her lack of maturity for the un­

wary reader when she says, "I suppose allowances must be made for the

76

fact that you are hardly more than a child." Lora, of course, moves from

child to mature and understanding woman, and the stages of her develop­

ment are duly catalogued. In Skye Cameron Skye learns to forget her

jealousy of her mother and, in the process, matures accordingly. The

charge that Ms. Whitney uses the maturation theme in her gothics can be

easily substantiated with excerpts from all six novels under considera­

tion. She is not the only one of the authors discussed here to use the

theme, but she is the one author of the four here to use it so blatantly,

perhaps because of her background as an author of juvenile fiction. In

Ms. Whitney's gothics the maturation theme is expressed explicitly, as

it is in Skye Cameron, with such lines as "... in those moments some­

thing in me had changed, had gained in perspective and proportion."^^

The explicitness of the theme in Whitney gothics is more noticeable than

in the gothics of the other authors under consideration, but the pres­

ence of the theme does not make the Whitney gothic heroine more three-

dimensional as a character. The Whitney heroine is still dependent upon

a gothic cast to her character development to carry the maturation theme.

Easily recognizable gothic techniques in the character-types of

Whitney heroines are abundant. Camilla (Thunder Heights) is the one

digging up past crimes and family secrets, and she is narrowly rescued

from danger and possible death by the hero, Ross. In Sea Jade Miranda

learns the truth about the death of Brock's father and the secret of her

own birth when she discovers Captain Obadiah's letter behind a sea chart;

Lora searches for clues to Wade's character in old copybooks and diaries

In The Quicksilver Pool. Ms. Whitney employs American gothic techniques

in her creation of an American aristocracy in America: the wealthy

77

family in Sea Jade is headed by Captain Bascomb; Thunder Heights focuses

on the family of building magnate Orrin Judd: Mother Tyler of The Quick­

silver Pool tries to interest her son in the banking business built up

by her father, who was of the prestigious Cowles family; Uncle Robert of

Skye Cameron rules his family with the firm, aristocratic hand of the

Creole. These techniques are not the only ties Whitney gothics have

with Holt or Eden gothics, however. Another important facet to the

Whitney heroine's character is her defense of the untouchable, alienated

child.

The theme of the alienated child is discussed by Irving Malin as an

American innovation to the gothic novel. Ms. Whitney uses Malin's theme

of the alienated child in five of the novels under consideration, The

Trembling Hills, Window On The Square, Sea Jade, Skye Cameron, and The

Quicksilver Pool. In Thunder Heights the theme is used simply as back­

ground knowledge; the alienated child, not rescued soon enough by the

heroine, has grown up to be the unrepentant villain. In each of the

other five Whitney novels, however, the heroine, despite her dreamy

immaturity, is the champion of the misunderstood, unloved child of the

family she comes to live with.

Ms. Whitney's alienated children and their protectors closely re­

semble the children and governess of Henry James's The Turn Of The 'Screw.

The following passage from James's short story, "... something within

me said that by offering myself bravely as the sole subject of such

experience, by accepting, by inviting, by surmounting it all, I should

serve as an expiatory victim and guard the tranquility of my companions.

78

The children, in especial, I should thus fence about and absolutely

save,"23 is amazingly similar to the following passages from Whitney:

All that really mattered was Jeremy [the child], and there was still much I could do for him. It was for him that I must fight to remain in this house . . . (Square, p. 149).

I had begun to fancy myself in the light of Laurel's cham­pion—the defender of a mistreated child; someone to stand between her and a cruel parent (Jade, p. 78).

Even if the skies fell she must try to help Jemmy (Pool, p. 55).

In each instance the heroine not only brings love and security to the

child, but she also finds love for herself.

The hero of the Whitney gothic, so obviously destined for the hero­

ine by the decree of romance, is rarely confused with the villain. De­

spite the rare instances in which the heroine feels the hero is cruel

and unstable (as in Sea Jade, for example), there is always another

character in Whitney gothics more forcefully evil than the hero. Ms.

Whitney's physical descriptions of her heroes follow the traditional

gothic vein. The heroine admires him not only for his ". . . broad

strength of his shoulders [and] the clean length of his stride" (Heights,

p. 197), but also for his "... eyes so coldly gray and appraising"

(Square, p. 9) and the "depths . . . in which unknown emotions stirred,

seldom flashing to the surface" (Hills, p. 76).

The Whitney hero may wear many faces, but he is always recognizable

to the experienced gothic-romance aficionado. Sara describes her hero

with the words, "... how wise he was. And how kind, how gentle . . .

Nick was someone to trust and lean upon. He v;ould always be fair. She

could imagine him angry, but he would never be cruel" (Hills, p. 120),

79

While Skye describes her hero as "... a giant of a fellow. . . . His

chin, I thought, was made of iron, and there was a straight hard look

to his mouth . . ." (Skye, p. 52), and "There was violence in this man,

and rebellion and anger" (Skye, p. 105). Despite the rebellion, anger,

potential for murder and other cruel traits that the Whitney heroine may

see in the hero, however, she never feels physically threatened by him

as does the Holt heroine, for example. Indeed, despite her initial dis­

like, intense hatred, or distaste for the hero, the Whitney heroine is

frequently simultaneously drawn and repelled by her hero. For example,

Skye says of Justin that "... I looked up into eyes intensely blue and

felt in me a sudden sense of destiny. To love, or to hate--one or the

other. No woman could ever be indifferent to such a man" (Skye, p. 52),

while Miranda says, "I did not like what could happen to me with this

man. How could I hate him so thoroughly, and with such good reason, yet

be drawn to him so that in the midst of anger I was conscious of the

touch of him and wanted to be held close in his arms?" (Jade, p. 152).

The. hero is not the only man to whom the Whitney heroine feels

drawn; for she is also attracted to the villain. There is, however,

careful delineation between the attraction the Whitney heroine feels for

the hero and her attraction to the villain. Whereas one finds the Holt

heroine frequently charmed and physically attracted to the villain,-one

finds that the attraction the Whitney heroine feels toward the villain

lacks such sexual overtones. Indeed, in many instances the Whitney

heroine laments this lack of "spark," as does Megan when she says of

Andrew after he declares his love, "For a moment I could only stare--

perhaps not so much in surprise as in dismay. Had I not sensed the

80

direction in which he was moving and even wished at times that I could

respond?" (Square, p. 185). To her dismay, her response is to the seem­

ingly unattainable hero. The same pattern holds true in each of the

other Whitney books that contain villains.

The Whitney villain is not presented as the Walpole villain or

Radcliffe villain is; instead, the Whitney villain is to some degree a

sympathetic character. He is ambitious, true, but his ambition is no

greater than that of the hero. The Whitney villain is frequently pre­

sented as a kind, generous man driven by circumstance to murder, deceive,

and scheme. In Sea Jade, Ian personifies the Whitney villain when he

says, "... one desperate step led to another, and each forced me into

the next. There was never any turning back" (Jade, p. 218). There is

further indication of the distance between the Whitney villain and the

Lewis villain, for example, when Miranda, after lan's death, says, "That

there was good in Ian as well as evil, I know full well, and I grieve

for good so hideously wasted" (Jade, p. 224). Skye expresses the same

sorrow for the villain in Skye Cameron when she says, "When Uncle Robert

recovered, he might well be a broken man, but whether he was or not, I

could only pity him for the empty shell he had made of his life" (Skye,

p. 219).

Of course, in gothic novels, the villain must lose all or perish,

however good or evil he may be. In Thunder Heights Booth repents on his

deathbed, but he remains the primary source of evil in the novel nonethe­

less. In other Whitney gothics this primary source of evil may be divid­

ed between the villain and one or more other characters, most notably

the villainess.

81

Unremitting hatred is the primary indication of evil in Whitney

gothics. Sometimes this hatred causes the heroine to see villainesses

or villains where only guilt-ridden, self-destructive, malevolent people

exist, but the Whitney heroine may also encounter the villainess who is

not only capable of hate but also is capable of murder. In The Trem­

bling Hills such a villainess takes the role of villain. Sara's Aunt

Hester is filled with hatred for the man who scorned her and for the

woman he loved, and she is driven to murder by her desire to see that

Sara doesn't lose her own love. Despite her villainy, despite the fact

that she deliberately sends Geneva to her death, Hester Varady is at the

end a haunted, lonely woman. Such retributive justice is standard fare

in gothic romances. In Window On The Square Leslie Reid alienates her

husband, loses her children, and then kills herself rather than face the

justice about to be meted out to her.

Not all Whitney villains and villainesses are clearly identified,

exposed, and punished with death or a death-in-life existence. In

Whitney gothics there is a median character that is neither wholly vil-

lain/villainess nor clearly hero/heroine. Ms. Whitney frequently creates

characters that are primarily old, female, and cruel. These characters

exhibit explicit hatred for the heroine, create cruel and uncomfortable

scenes, appear fully capable of having instigated the evil the heroine

discovers, and, at the same time, appear as sympathetic characters to

the reader. Two of Ms. Whitney's "old women" characters are mothers of

the heroes; one is an aunt of the heroine. Despite her role, however,

this character must at some point in the book relent in her harsh judge­

ment and jealousy of the heroine and in the process removes some of the

82

hatred so prevalent in Whitney gothics. Aunt Hortense relents and sends

Ross to rescue Camilla (Thunder Heights); Mrs. McLean relents and accepts

Miranda as Brock's wife (Sea Jade).

All of the change that occurs in the Whitney gothic--the taming of

the unloved child, the softening of the old woman, the exposure of the

villain or villainess, the righting of old wrongs--takes place because

of the heroine. In The Quicksilver Pool, Wade acknowledges this fact

when he says to Lora, "You've done something for all of us in this house"

(Pool, p. 269). In this respect, then, a Whitney gothic set in New

Orleans differs very little from a Holt gothic set in Cornwall. Univer­

sally, the excitement of tension, catalyst, explosive action, and ensu­

ing calm is what the modern gothic romance is all about.

CHAPTER V

CONCLUSION

This thesis has studied the gothic novels of Victoria Holt, Dorothy

Eden, Jane Aiken Hodge, and Phyllis Whitney in order to discover what

use each of these authors has made of traditional gothic techniques that

have developed in the past two hundred years. One has only to read rep­

resentative novels of Holt, Eden, Hodge, and Whitney to realize that

each of these four authors uses gothic devices deliberately. This the­

sis contains ample evidence that the novels of these four authors con­

tain gothic stock properties in abundance. Careful reading of any of

the novels discussed reveals the pursued heroine, the hero, the villain,

the fatal woman, the unknowing heiress, the alienated child, the haunted

castle, or the strange and mysterious atmosphere associated with goth­

icism. ;

The evidence given in this thesis indicates that the gothic novels

of Holt, Eden, Hodge, and Whitney do, indeed, have a place in that sec­

tion of literature known as the gothic tradition. These four authors

have not been accorded the recognition they deserve as inheritors of

Walpole's legacy for the same reasons that assured Walpole himself a

place in the gothic tradition. Each of the four writers considered here

is popular with the reading public, prolific, proficient in several

areas of writing, and translated, sold, resold, and reprinted continu­

ously. Horace Walpole might well wish for so much popular acclaim today.

83

84

One must conclude, therefore, that any lack in the novels of Holt, Eden,

Hodge, or Whitney is the fault of the gothic tradition itself. When

Ms. Hodge says, "... I do think the term Gothic has been gravely over­

worked,"' she speaks for two hundred years of literature. Despite the

fact that these four contemporary authors might feel that the gothic

tradition has its weaknesses, however, each of the four takes that tradi­

tion seriously enough to research each book carefully, produce more nov­

els in the same gothic vein, and deliberately use those same overesti­

mated, overworked gothic techniques that bring them criticism in literary

circles.

In according the novels of Holt, Eden, Hodge and Whitney their place

in the gothic tradition, one must decide whether the Britons--Victoria

Holt and Dorothy Eden--are to be separated from the Americans--Jane Aiken

Hodge and Phyllis Whitney. The Britons and the Americans are similar in

their (1) deliberate use of the traditional gothic techniques listed in

Chapter II of this thesis, (2) development of a heroine more compatible

with twentieth-century needs for more self-sufficient, independent, or

righteously indignant female characters, (3) utilization of a humanistic

approach that portrays traditional "evil" sympathetically while at the

same time exposing traditional "good" realistically, without perfect de­

lineation of either, (4) incorporation of a moralistic or realistic theme

basically more important than the gothic theme, and (5) development of

unique styles of writing, approach, and theme easily identified as one

author's own.

Despite these similarities, however, one must realize that the goth­

ic tradition in literature has already been divided into two classes:

85

the European gothic and the American gothic. No matter what their orig­

inal intentions in using traditional gothic techniques, both Americans.

Jane Aiken Hodge and Phyllis Whitney, have been forced to alter their

use of the gothic techniques. Ms. Hodge and Ms. Whitney searched the

young shores of America and found that their concession to America's

comparative youth must be accommodation. The Americans could create

endangered American heiresses, ambitious villains, and gothic nightmares

of danger and suspicion, but they could not create the heritage of time

necessary for nurturing the legends, superstitions, and ghosts essential

to the gothic novel. Both Ms. Hodge and Ms. Whitney were forced to find

substitutes for these gothic elements so lacking in the American land­

scape. Walpole and his contemporaries created exotic settings in dis­

tant lands or ancient times. Ms. Hodge utilizes this gothic technique

in many of her gothic novels.

Ms. Hodge and Ms. Whitney are more closely associated with American

gothic writers that have preceded them than with Walpole in creation of

settings, however. Faced with the problems an American setting creates

for American gothic writers, Ms. Hodge and Ms. Whitney have made the

same accommodations that American authors have always made in the gothic

tradition. Like William Faulkner, Ms. Hodge finds American settings for

her gothics in the South. Like Edgar Allan Poe, Ms. Whitney has used

American settings for her gothics but has been forced to fill those set­

tings with enough psychological gothic techniques to create a dismal,

threatening, gothic atmosphere. Like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ms. Whitney

haunts her American castles with hatred, self-recrimination, and guilt

and makes her heroines the exorcists of those gothic elements.

86

The literary techniques of psychological fears, guilt, self-recrim­

ination and exorcism are not restricted to American literature, nor are

they restricted to gothic American literature. They are, however, sure

representatives of those changes that American writers have made in the

gothic tradition in the past two hundred years. As authors who utilize

these techniques to create gothicism in their novels, Jane Aiken Hodge

and Phyllis Whitney must be included in the American division of gothic

literature. As authors who do not incorporate the literary techniques

that adapt gothic novels to American settings, Victoria Holt and Dorothy

Eden must be included in the European division of gothic literature.

Whether Briton or American, however, Victoria Holt, Dorothy Eden, Jane

Aiken Hodge, and Phyllis Whitney have all proven through their use of

traditional gothic techniques that they are all worthy of places in

gothic literature as modern inheritors of Walpole's legacy.

ENDNOTES

Chapter I

Ijoanna Russ, "Somebody's Trying to Kill Me and I Think It's My Husband: The Modern Gothic," Journal of Popular Culture. 6 (1973), p. 666.

^Russ, p. 666.

3 R U S S , p. 667.

^Richard Chase, The American Novel and Its Tradition (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1957), p. xii.

5 ^The terms novel and romance will be used interchangeably in this

thesis. William Gilmore Simms, Richard Chase, Henry James, and count­less others have already attempted delineation of differences between novels and romances and have themselves encountered difficulties of definition. The reader is asked to note that Ann Radcliffe herself called her gothic works romances, that the novels under consideration here are currently referred to as either novels or romances, with no ^ distinction of terms, and that the gothic tradition has divided the genre of gothic literature into historical gothic, terror gothic and romantic gothic. The reader is therefore asked to view the works under consideration here as either novels or romances in the historical gothic or the romantic gothic vein. \

c J

^Contemporary Authors, 17/18 (1967), p. 223. i 'Jane Aiken Hodge, personal correspondence, June 1, 1976. o

"Hodge, correspondence, 1976.

Chapter II

1Devendra P. Varma, The Gothic Flame (New York: Russell and Russell, 1966), p. 41.

^Edith Birkhead, The Tale of Terror: A Study of the Gothic Romance (London: Constable and Company, 1921), p. 16.

3Birkhead, p. 19.

^Birkhead, p. 19.

87

88

^Varma, p. 13.

^Birkhead, p. 21.

^Birkhead, p. 16.

^Birkhead, p. 17.

9varma, p. 1.

l^Varma, p. 1.

11A selective list of authors linked with the gothic tradition in literature can be found in Appendix A.

l^Varma, p. 60.

^"^Varma, p. 60.

l^Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto in Three Eighteenth Century Romances (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1931), p. 77.

l^For an in-depth look at "popular" literature, see James David Hart, The Popular Book: A History of America's Literary Taste (New York: Oxford University Press, 1950).

l^Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey (New York: New American Library, 1965), p. 31.

l^Austen, p. 31.

^^Varma, p. 79.

l^Birkhead, p. 41.

20Birkhead, p. 41.

21varma, p. 132.

22varma, p. 132.

23varma, p. 140.

2^For bibliographies and studies on Science Fiction as literature, see Thomas Clareson, Science Fiction: An Annotated Checklist (Kent: Kent State University Press, 1972), H. Bruce Franklin, Future Perfect: American Science Fiction of the Nineteenth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966), Robert M. Philmus, Intothe Unknown: The Evo-lution of Science Fiction from Francis Godwin to H. G. Wells (Berkeley:

89

University of California Press, 1970), and Robert E. Briney and Edward J?^^! Science Fiction Bibliographies: An Annotated Bibliography of Bibliographical Works on Science Fiction and Fantasy Fiction (Chicaco: Advent, 1972). " ^

^^Varma, p. 159.

^^Varma, p. 160.

^^Varma, p. 160.

28 Leslie A. Fiedler, Love and Death in the American Novel (New York:

Stein and Day, 1966), p. }W. ~

^^Fiedler, p. 137.

Fiedler, p. 145.

^Viedler, p. 144. 32 ^'"Alexander Cowie, The American Novel (New York: American Book

Company, 1948), p. 22.

^^Fiedler, p. 144.

^^Fiedler, p. 144. ^^Irving Malin, New American Gothic (Carbondale, 111.: Southern

Illinois University Press, 1962), p. 79. "̂ "See Thomas Tryon's The Other, Harvest Home, and Lady; see Ira

Levin's Rosemary's Baby and The Stepford Wives.

Eino Railo, The Haunted Castle (London: George Routledge and Sons, 1927), p. 7.

% a i l o , p. 235.

^%irkhead, p. 55.

Chapter III

lln a careful study of the novels of Victoria Holt, one can easily become repetitious in producing evidence of Holt's use of gothic tech­niques. In most cases, it is sufficient to cite only a few representa­tive examples, with the assumption that the reader realizes that exhaus­tive examples may be found in each Holt novel under consideration.

90

For synopses of all the modern gothic novels under consideration, see Appendix B.

3 Victoria Holt, Menfreya In The Morning (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett

Publications, Inc., 1965), p. 217. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Menfreya and the page number.

^Victoria Holt, The Curse Of The Kings (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1973), p. 260. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Kings and the page number.

^Victoria Holt, Lord Of The Far Island (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1975), p. 243. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Island and the page number.

^Victoria Holt, Kirkland Revels (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Pub­lications, Inc., 1962), p. 225. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Revels and the page number.

'Victoria Holt, The House Of A Thousand Lanterns (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1974), p. 339. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Lanterns and the page number.

^Victoria Holt, On The Night Of The Seventh Moon (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1972), p. 84. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Moon and the page number.

^Victoria Holt, The Secret Woman (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Pub­lications, Inc., 1970), p. 323. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Secret and the page number.

^^Victoria Holt, The King Of The Castle (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1967), p. 209. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Castle and the page number.

^^Victoria Holt, Mistress of Mellyn (Garden City, New York: Nelson Doubleday, Inc., 1960), p. 134. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Mellyn and the page number.

^^Victoria Holt, The Shivering Sands (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1969), p. 93. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Sands and the page number.

^^Victoria Holt, The Legend Of The Seventh Virgin (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1964), p. 109. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Virgin and the page number.

l^victoria Holt, The Shadow Of The Lynx (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1971), p. 165. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Lynx and the page number.

91

^^Dorothy Eden, Lady Of Mallow (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publi­cations, Inc., 1960), p. 7. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Mallow and the page number.

^^Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries Of Udolpho (London: Oxford Univer­sity Press, 1966 rpt.), p. 430.

^^Radcliffe, Udolpho, p. 431.

1^Radcliffe, Udolpho, p. 386.

'^Ann Radcliffe, The Romance Of The Forest in Three Eighteenth Century Romances (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1931), p. 434.

^^Radcliffe, Forest, p. 451.

2'Dorothy Eden, Winterwood (New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1967), p. 2. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Winterwood and the page number.

^^Dorothy Eden, Darkwater (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1963), p. 117. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Darkwater and the page number.

23Dorothy Eden, Ravenscroft (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publica­tions, Inc., 1964), p. 21. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Ravenscroft and the page number.

2^Dorothy Eden, The Millionaire's Daughter (New York: Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, 1974), p. 284. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Daughter and the page number.

Chapter IV

^Jane Aiken Hodge, personal correspondence, June 1, 1976.

Hodge, correspondence, June 1, 1976

^Hodge, correspondence, June 1, 1976.

^Fiedler, p. 144.

^Fiedler, p. 144.

^Jane Aiken Hodge, The Master Of Penrose (New York: Dell Publish­ing Company, 1967), p. i. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Penrose and the page number.

92

Jane Aiken Hodge, Savannah Purchase (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett publications. Inc., 1970), p. 84. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Purchase and the page number.

^Jane Aiken Hodge, The Winding Stair (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1968), p. 58. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Stair and the page number.

0 ''Jane Aiken Hodqe, Greek Wedding (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Pub­

lications, Inc., 1970), p. 219. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Wedding and the page number.

'^Hodge, correspondence, June 1, 1976.

"Hodge, correspondence, June 1, 1976.

"•Jane Aiken Hodge, Shadow Of A Lady (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1973), p. 76. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Shadow and the page number.

13 Jane Aiken Hodge, Watch The Wall, My Darling (Greenwich, Conn.:

Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1966), p. 70. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Wall and the page number.

' Jane Aiken Hodge, Marry In Haste (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Pub­lications, Inc., 1961), p. 72. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Haste and the page number.

'^Patricia Schartle Myrer, personal correspondence, August 26, 1976.

Myrer, correspondence, August 26, 1976.

Phyllis A. Whitney, Window On The Square (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1962), p. 161. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Square and the page number.

^^Phyllis A. Whitney, The Trembling Hills (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1956), p. 107. FiTrther reference to this book will be noted in the text by Hills and the page number.

1^Phyllis A. Whitney, Thunder Heights (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., I960), p. 15. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Heights and the page number.

^Ophyllis A. Whitney, Sea Jade (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publi­cations, Inc., 1964), p. 131^ Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by. Jade and the page number.

^1 Phyllis A. Whitney, The Quicksilver Pool (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1955), p. 57. Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Pool and the page number.

93

22 ^ Phyllis A. Whitney, Skye Cameron (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Pub­

lications, Inc., 1957), p. 216:̂ Further reference to this book will be noted in the text by Skye and the page number.

23 Henry James, "The Turn of the Screw," The Turn Of The Screw And

Other Short Novels (New York: New American Library, 1962), p. 323.

Chapter V

'Hodge, correspondence, June 1, 1976.

LIST OF SOURCES

Primary Sources

Eden, Dorothy. Darkwater. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1963.

. Lady Of Mallow. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1960.

. The Millionaire's Daughter. New York: Coward, McCann and Geoghegan, 1974.

. Ravenscroft. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1964.

. Winterwood. New York: Coward-McCann, Inc., 1967.

Hodge, Jane Aiken. Greek Wedding. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publica­tions, Inc., 1970.

_. The Master Of Penrose. New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1967.

. Marry In Haste. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1W\.

. Savannah Purchase. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., T970;

. Shadow Of A Lady. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1973.

. Watch The Wall, My Darling. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Pub­lications, Inc., 1966.

. The Winding Stair. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1968.

Holt, Victoria. The Curse Of The Kings. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1973.

. The House Of A Thousand Lanterns. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1974.

. The King Of The Castle. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publica-tions. Inc., 1967.

94

95

. Kirkland Revels. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Tnc., T962:

The Legend Of The Seventh Virgin. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Puolications, Inc., 1964.

Lord Of The Far Island. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1975.

. Menfreya In The Morning. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publica­tions, Inc., 1966.

Mistress Of Mellyn. Garden City, New York: Nelson Doubleday, Inc., 1960.

. On The Night Of The Seventh Moon. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1972.

. The Secret Woman. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Tn^., T970^

. The Shadow Of The Lynx. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1971.

. The Shivering Sands. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publica­tions, Inc., 1969.

Whitney, Phyllis A. The Quicksilver Pool. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1955.

. Sea Jade. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., T964.

. Skye Cameron. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., T9F7.

. Thunder Heights. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1960.

. The Trembling Hills. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, Inc., 1956.

. Window On The Square. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publica­tions, Inc., 1962.

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96

Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey. New York: New American Library, 1965

Beckford, William. Vathek, in Three Eighteenth Century Romances. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1931.

Birkhead, Edith. The Tale Of Terror. London: Constable and Company, LTD., 1921. •

Briney, Robert and Wood, Edward. Science Fiction Bibliographies: An Annotated Bibliography Of Bibliographical Works On Science Fiction And Fantasy Fiction. Chicago: Advent, 1972.

Brown, Charles Brockden. Edgar Huntly. New York: The Macmillan Com­pany, 1928.

.. Wieland, Or The Transformation. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1926.

Chase, Richard. The American Novel And Its Tradition. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1957.

Clareson, Thomas. Science Fiction: An Annotated Checklist. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1972.

Cowie, Alexander. The Rise Of The American Novel. New York: American Book Company, 1948.

Faulkner, William. Absalom, Absalom!. New York: Random House, 1936.

Fiedler, Leslie A. Love And Death In The American Novel. New York: Stein and Day, 1966.

Franklin, H. Bruce. Future Perfect: American Science Fiction Of The Nineteenth Century. New York: Oxford University Press, 1966.

Hart, James David. The Popular Book: A History Of America's Literary Taste. New York: Oxford University Press, 1950.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The House Of The Seven Gables. New York: Wash­ington Square Press, 1961.

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Lewis, Matthew Gregory. The Monk: A Romance. London: Oxford Univer­sity Press, 1973.

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Malin, Irving. New American Gothic. Carbondale, 111.: Southern Illi­nois University Press, 1962.

Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. New York: Dell Publishing Company, Inc., 1959.

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Philmus, Robert M. Into The Unknown: The Evolution Of Science Fiction From Francis Godwin To H. G. Wells. Berkeley: University of Cali-fornia Press, 1970.

Poe, Edgar Allan. Complete Stories Of Edgar Allan Poe. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1966.

Radcliffe, Ann. The Mysteries Of Udolpho: A Romance. London: Univer­sity of Oxford Press, 1966.

The Romance Of The Forest, in Three Eighteenth Century Ro­mances. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1931.

Railo, Eino. The Haunted Castle. London: George Routledge and Sons, LTD., 1927:

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Russ, Joanna. "Somebody's Trying to Kill Me and I Think It's My Husband: The Modern Gothic." Journal Of Popular Culture 6 (1973): 666-691.

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein, Or The Modern Prometheus. New York: New American Library, 1965.

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Varma, Devendra P. The Gothic Flame. New York: Russell and Russell, 1966.

APPENDICES

98

APPENDIX A

The following is a selective list of European, eighteenth- and

nineteenth-century authors and works linked with the gothic tradition

in literature.

Anonymous

Beckford, William

Curties, Horsley

Dacre, Charlotte

Godwin, William

Green, William Child

Hook, Sarah Ann

The Eve of San Pietro (1804)

The Abbess of St. Hilda

The Black Forest, or The Cavern of Horrors

The Convent Spectre

The Hag of the Mountains, or Mysterious Memoirs of the Marquis de la Terra and His Supposed Friend the Count di Suza, Including Those of Lucetta and Vittoria, The Lovely Daughters of a Vintager, at Montmelian, in Savoy

The History of Rinaldo Rinaldini, Captain of Banditti (1800)

Midnight Horrors, or The Bandit's Daughter

The Mysterious Omen, or Awful Retribution

Romano Castle, or The Horrors of the Forest

The Secret Oath, or Bloodstained Dagger

The Sicilian Pirate, or The Pillar of Mystery

Vathek (1798)

The Scottish Legend, or The Isle of St. Clothair (1802)"^

The Monk of Udolpho (1807)

Zofloya, or The Moor (1805)

The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1794) .

Travels of St. Leon (1799)

The Abbot of Monserrat, or The Pool of Blood

The Prophecy of Duncannon, or The Dwarf and the Seer (18241

Secret Machinations

99

100

Ireland, William Henry

Jones, Hannah Maria

Lancaster, Agnes

Lathom, Francis

Lathy, T. P.

Lee, Sophia

Lewis, Matthew Gregory

Mackenzie, Anna Marie

Marquis of Grosse

Maturin, Charles Robert

Bruno, or The Sepulchral Summons

Gondez the Monk (1805)

Rimualdo, or The Castle of Badijos (1800)

The Woman of Feeling (1803)

Emily Morehead, or The Maid of the Valley (1829)

The Abbess of Valtiera, or The Sorrows of a Falsehood (1816)

The Fatal Vow, or St. Michael's Monastery

Italian Mysteries, or More Secrets Than One (1820)

The Midnight Bell (1798)

The Mysterious Freebooter, or The Days of Queen Bess (1806)

Mystery (1800)

The Invisible Enemy, or The Mines of Wielitska (T806)

The Recess, or A Tale of Other Times (1783-86)

The Bravo of Venice (1804)

The Monk (1795)

Burton Wood (1785)

The Danish Massacre (1791)

Dusseldorf, or The Fratricide (1798)

Feudal Events (1797)

The Gamesters (1786)

Martin and Mansfeldt, or The Romance of Franconia (1802)

Monmouth (1790)

Mysteries Elucidated (1795)

The Neapolitan, or The Test of Integrity 07%)

The Irish Guardian, or Errors of Eccen-tricity (IBOT)"^

Horrid Mysteries: A Story (1796)

The Fatal Revenge of the Family of Montorio nsoTi

101

Montague, Edward

Morley, G. T.

Parsons, Eliza

Polidori, Dr. John

Radcliffe, Ann

Radcliffe, Mary Anne

Reeve, Clara

Roche, Regina Maria

Rouviere, Henrietta

Shelley, Mary

Sickelmore, Richard

Sleath, Eleanor

Smith, Charlotte

Teuthold, Peter

Walpole, Horace

Melmoth the Wanderer (1820)

The Demon of Sicily (1807)

Deeds of Darkness, or The Unnatural Uncle [1805]

Castle of Wolfenbach: A German Story (1793)

The Girl of the Mountains (1795)

Lucy (1794)

The Mysterious Warning: A German Tale (1796)

The Vampyre: A Tale (1819)

The Castles of Athlin and Dunbayne (1789)

Gaston de Blondeville (1826)

The Italian, or The Confessional of the Black Penitents (1797")

The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794)

The Romance of the Forest (1792)

A Sicilian Romance (1790)

Manfrone, or The One-Handed Monk (1809)

The Old English Baron (1777)

The Children of the Abbey (1796)

Clermont (1798)

The Tradition of the Castle, or Scenes in the Emerald Isle (1824)

The Capture of Vallance (1804)

Lussington Abbey (1804)

Frankenstein (1818)

Osrick, or Modern Horrors (1809)

Ariel, or The Invisible Monitor (1801)

The Orphan of the Rhine (1798)

Rosalie, or The Castle of Montalabretti (1811)

Emmeline, or The Orphan of the Castle (1788)

Ethelinde, or The Recluse of the Lake (1789)

Necromancer, or The Tale of the Black Forest (1794)

The Castle of Otranto (1764)

102

Walker, George

Ward, Catherine G.

Williams, W. Frederic

Woodfall, Sophia

The Three Spaniards (1800)

The Cottage on the Cliff, A Sea Side Story n823r

Durston Castle, or The Ghost of Eleonora n804]

Valambrosa, or The Venetian Nun (1804)

The Witcheries of Craig Isaf (1804)

Edmund Ironside

Rosa, or The Child of the Abbey

APPENDIX B

SYNOPSES OF NOVELS BY VICTORIA HOLT

Mistress Of Mellyn (1960)

When Martha Leigh comes to Mount Mellyn to be governess to Alvean

TreMellyn, she finds that the house holds many secrets. She is deter­

mined to make Connan TreMellyn love his daughter Alvean, who longs for

his attention, to discover what happened to Alice, Connan's first wife,

and to persuade the half-idiot Gillyflower to talk. She is romantically

pursued by Peter Nansellock, whose brother Geoffrey has supposedly run

off with Alice. Martha spurns Peter's advances because she realizes

that she is in love with Connan. Celestine Nansellock, Peter's sister,

is a frequent visitor at Mount Mellyn, and she persuades Martha that

Connan is in love with Linda Treslyn, the young wife of old Lord Treslyn,

When Treslyn dies suddenly, Martha expects Connan to marry Linda, but he

asks Martha to be his wife instead. She agrees to marry him and then

begins to think that he wants to marry her only to cover his affair with

Linda and to avert suspicion of foul play in Lord Treslyn's death. Mar­

tha's discovery that Lord Treslyn died a natural death comes just before

she is locked in a secret vault by Celestine, who wants to be mistress

of Mellyn herself. The idiot child Gilly leads Connan to the vault, and

the rescuers discover not only Martha but also Alice's remains. Celes­

tine is put away for murdering Alice, and Martha and Connan marry, liv­

ing to see their great-grandchildren play on the lawns of Mount Mellyn.

103

104

Kirkland Revels (1962)

Catherine Corder, rejected by an unfeeling father, rides out on the

moors, meets Gabriel Rockwell, and rescues a starving dog which she calls

Friday. After Catherine and Gabriel marry, they go to his family home,

Kirkland Revels, which is built on the site of an old abbey. Once there,

Catherine learns that there is a history of suicides in Gabriel's family

and that Gabriel's father, aunt, sister Ruth and nephew Luke had had no

warning of the unwelcome marriage. Within a week of their arrival at

Kirkland Revels, Gabriel dies in a supposedly suidical fall from the

traditional balcony for such acts. Catherine is the only one v/ho refuses

to accept his death as suicide. Catherine leaves, but, discovering that

she is pregnant, returns to bear the heir. She discovers eccentric Aunt

Sarah, who stitches family history into her tapestries, meets Aunt Hagar,

cousin Simon Redver's mother, and receives visits from the legendary

monk-ghost who haunts the former abbey. In the next few months Cather­

ine tries to solve the mystery of Gabriel's death, sees the monk several

times, discovers that there is no threat of insanity from her family for

her child, and, because of a series of strange events, comes to the con­

clusion that someone is trying to stage her suicide or promote her in­

sanity. Simon rescues Catherine when the trusted family doctor, Deverel

Smith, tries to have her committed. Catherine safely bears her child

and marries Simon, and the threat to the inheritance is removed when

Deverel Smith makes a suicidal leap off the balcony of Kirkland Revels.

The Legend Of The Seventh Virgin (1964)

Kerensa Carlee, poor but educated by the parson and his daughter

105

Mellyora, aspires to the position of mistress of the Abbas. She marries

the enamoured younger son, Johnny, and thus assures herself of a place

in the wealthy St. Larnston family. Justin marries Judith Derrise be­

cause the St. Larnstons actually need money, but Judith has inherited

the Derrises' tendency to madness. Kerensa's bringing the impoverished

Mellyora home to care for her son leads to an unconsummated romance be­

tween Justin and Melly. Johnny disappears, Judith falls down the stairs

and dies, and Kerensa conceals the fact that her son's toy caused Judith's

death. Questions concerning Judith's death and its connection with

Justin's love for Melly cause such a scandal that Justin goes away rath­

er than subject Mellyora to disgrace, and Johnny is left the owner of

the St. Larnston Abbas and lands. Johnny's absence leaves Kerensa in

charge, but his fate is undetermined until the abandoned St. Larnston

tin mine is opened, revealing the bodies of Johnny and his once lover,

Hetty Pengaster. Kerensa then dreams of marrying an old friend, Dick

Kimber. While waiting for Kim (Dick) to propose, Kerensa begins repairs

on her Granny's cottage and is lured there by the half-mad brother of

Hetty Pengaster, who holds her responsible for Hetty's death. He walls

up Kerensa at the Abbas like the seventh virgin of legend was walled up,

and she is rescued at the last minute by Kim. Kim and Mellyora marry,

and Kerensa is left to build her life around her son Carlyon.

Menfreya In The Morning (1966)

Harriet Delvaney, the unloved, limping, unattractive daughter of a

prominent M.P., runs away from her cold father to hide on the island

owned by their long-time friends, the Menfreys. Gwennan Menfrey aids

106

her friend in this escapade, which is soon found out, and the two girls

are sent off to school together. Gwennan elopes with an actor, and

Harriet marries Gwennan's brother Bevil, her childhood sweetheart. When

Harriet finds a dying Gwennan and takes her son home to rear, it becomes

necessary for the Menfreys to hire beautiful Jessica Trelarken as gov­

erness. Harriet first suspects that Bevil is having an affair with

Jessica and then that Jessica is plotting her death. She sees the acci­

dental arsenic poisoning, the stopping of the tower clock that signifies

Menfrey death, and the order for funeral arrangements for Mrs. Menfrey

as signs that someone means her harm. In the end it is the overly-

protective, demented Fanny, Harriet's nurse and maid, who lures her to

the near-death by drowning from which she is rescued by Bevil. Jessica

confesses that her plots to encourage Harriet's jealousy were only polit­

ical ploys to discredit Bevil so that his M.P. post would become avail­

able for Jessica's lover, Harry Leveret.

The King Of The Castle (1967)

Dallas Lawson comes to the Chateau Gaillard in France to restore

the old paintings belonging to the Comte de la Talle. He is surprised

to find Dallas instead of her father, but he allows her to stay, commends

her work, and watches her establish authority over and friendship with

his uncontrollable daughter Genevieve. Dallas falls in love with the

Comte but is convinced that he means to marry his mistress Claude.

Claude marries the Comte's cousin Philippe, but Dallas still feels that

Claude and the Comte are lovers. In searching for the de la Talle emer­

alds, Dallas discovers the oubliettes in the dungeon, realizes that

107

someone is trying to kill the Comte, and discovers that the Comte's

first wife killed herself because she learned of the insanity that ran

in her family. Dallas is romantically pursued by Jean Pierre Bastide,

a de la Talle bastard who aspires to the lordship of the castle. Before

she unravels the mystery of the Comte's first wife's death and discovers

the emeralds, Dallas wonders if the Comte murdered his wife, if Claude's

mythical child is the Comte's, if Jean Pierre is trying to seduce Gene­

vieve, and if Jean Pierre is the one trying to take the Comte's life.

In the climactic dungeon scene, Dallas learns that Jean Pierre has been

searching the castle for the emeralds, making the mysterious noises she

heard, and that Philippe has been trying to kill the Comte. Philippe

actually does shoot the Comte and is banished, Jean Pierre leaves, the

emeralds are found and put away, Dallas discovers that the Comte does

not want his first wife's insanity disclosed to perhaps influence the

highly-strung Genevieve, the Comte recovers, and the Comte and Dallas

marry.

The Shivering Sands (1969)

When Caroline Verlaine, recently widowed wife of famous concert

pianist Pietro Verlaine, comes to Lovat Stacey to teach piano to the

three girls there, she conceals the fact that her real reason for coming

is to solve the mystery of her archaeologist sister Roma's disappearance.

She discovers that the house has its own mysteries, including the child­

hood banishment of the son Napier for killing his brother Beaumont, the

unhappy marriage of Napier and the child-like Edith, and mysterious

lights appearing in the burned-out chapel in the woods. Caroline becomes

108

Involved in the family's problems, is concerned about Edith's love af­

fair with the curate, worries about the illegitimate Allegra's prank-

sterism, and finds herself falling in love with Napier. After Edith dis­

appears, Caroline tries to find some link between her sister's and

Edith's disappearances in order to solve the mystery and prove Napier

Innocent of his wife's murder. When she gets too close to recognizing

the archaeological discovery that led to Roma's death, she is nearly

burned to death but is rescued by the housekeeper's daughter Alice.

After several abortive attempts to discover who is haunting the chapel

and after several encounters with the semi-mad Aunt Sybil, Caroline is

lured to the shivering quick sands on the coast by a demented Alice.

Alice is exposed as the murderess of Roma and Edith, Caroline is saved

from the quicksands by Napier and another of her suitors, Godfrey Wilmot,

and Caroline and Napier later marry.

The Secret Woman (1970)

When Anna Brett's Aunt Charlotte becomes an invalid. Nurse Chantel

Loman comes to care for her. Aunt Charlotte's death by overdose causes

inquiry, but Chantel's testimony absolves Anna from guilt. When Chantel

Is called to Castle Crediton to nurse Monique, the exotic, ailing wife

of Redvers Stretton, she arranges for Anna to come to the castle as

governess to Edward, Redvers' child. Chantel falls in love with Rex

Crediton, half-brother of Redvers. They all set sail for Coralle, the

South Sea island home of Monique, and the trip is plagued with suspicions

about the mysterious sinking of Redvers' former ship, the Secret Woman,

threats to Edward's life, and hysterical accusations from Monique about

109

Redvers' love for Anna. After their arrival on Coralle, Anna and Chantel

discover that Monique is no better physically and is more unstable men­

tally. Anna discovers that Chantel has married Rex secretly and that

the natives have found the figurehead of the Secret Woman as well as the

diamonds that Redvers was accused of having stolen. Soon after Anna

proves Redvers' innocence, Chantel dies when she accidentally drinks the

coffee she poisoned for Redvers. Anna discovers that Chantel had plot­

ted Redvers' death because she had learned of the switch of babies that

put Redvers, the true Crediton heir, in his lifetime role of bastard.

Anna returns to England and, after several years, is re-united with the

now-widowed Redvers.

The Shadow Of The Lynx (1971)

When Nora Tamasin is orphaned, she discovers that Charles Herrick

has been named her guardian. He sends his son Stirling to escort Nora

to Australia, and Nora and Stirling visit Whiteladies, an old, regal

mansion, before embarking for Australia. Once in Australia, Nora dis­

covers why Charles Herrick is called the Lynx, for his steely blue eyes

miss little. She falls under his spell, as does everyone, marries him

despite her love for Stirling, and is widowed not long after her mar­

riage. Knowing the Lynx wanted to avenge himself on the people at White-

ladies who accused him unjustly and caused his deportation to Australia,

Nora and Stirling take the millions Lynx made in Australia and go to

England to buy Whiteladies. Despite the fact that he loves Nora, Stir­

ling marries Minta, the heir to Whiteladies, when he discovers that

Whiteladies cannot be sold by the Cardew family. Not long after Minta

no

becomes pregnant, a series of "accidents" occur to endanger her life.

She is saved each time, but, knowing of Stirling's love for Nora, she

begins to believe that her husband wants to kill her. After the last

poisoning attempt, Nora takes Minta home with her, where they both dis­

cover that Minta's stepmother, Lucie, is the one who killed Minta's moth­

er and made the same attempts on Minta's life because she wanted White­

ladies for herself. Lucie throws herself off a balcony at Whiteladies,

Minta bears Stirling a son, and Nora returns to Australia convinced that

Stirling and Minta will have a fine marriage. Minta's neighbor, Frank-

lyn Wakefield, returns to Australia with Nora in the hope of persuading

her to marry him.

On The Night Of The Seventh Moon (1972)

While a student at the Damenstift in Germany, Helena Trant is lost

in the woods and rescued by a charming man whom she knows only as Sieg­

fried. She spends the night in his hunting Schloss under the housekeep­

er's watchful eye and returns to school the next day. On the night of

the seventh moon the people celebrate the coming of Loki, the god of

mischief, and Helena is kidnapped by the same man but is again returned

home safely. She then discovers that he is the Count Lokenburg of the

ruling family and that his name is Maximilian. She marries him, has a

honeymoon, and then is mysteriously drugged. When she wakes, she is

told that her marriage is a dream and that the child she is to have is

the result of rape. After she is told that her child died at birth,

she takes a job as governess to the children of Maximilian's cousin, the

Count. She attracts the attention of the Count, discovers that Maximilian

Ill

has married again, and begins to think that someone is trying to murder

Fritzi, one of the Count's children. Frau Graben, the family nursemaid,

helps Helena uncover the mystery surrounding her marriage, and Helena

finds out that Fritzi is her child. She realizes the the Count, Maxi­

milian's cousin, is responsible for her son's close brushes with death.

She and Maximilian arrive at the Island of Graves in time to save Fritzi's

life, Max's evil cousin is killed, and, upon the retirement of Maximil­

ian's second wife to a convent, Helena and Maximilian are together again.

The Curse Of The Kings (1973)

Judith Osmond, the ward of the vicar, is educated at Keverall Court

with Sir Ralph's daughter Theodosia and nephew Hadrian. Her great inter­

est in archaeology endears her to Sir Ralph and causes her involvement

with the archaeologically eminent Travers family--Sir Edward, Tybalt--

the brilliant son, and Sabina--the frivolous daughter. After the death

of the vicar, Judith goes as companion to Lady Bodrean, Sir Ralph's

wife. While she is enduring the miserable life of a companion, she sees

Tybalt again and realizes anew that she loves him. After Sabina's mar­

riage to the curate and Theodosia's marriage to archaeologist-professor

Evan Galium, Sir Edward dies in Egypt, supposedly as a result of having

disturbed the sleep of the pharoahs. Sir Ralph also dies, leaving a

large sum of money for archaeological advances, incomes for his wife and

nephew, and one-half of his fortune to each of his daughters--legitimate

Theodosia and illegitimate Judith. After Judith's sudden marriage to

Tybalt, they all set off for Egypt to finish Sir Edward's work. In

Egypt Theodosia becomes pregnant and is frightened by a soothsayer's

112

dire warnings of death, Judith is obsessed with the idea that Tybalt and

the beautiful housekeeper Tabitha Grey are in love, and a young Egyptian

girl, Yasmin, is murdered. After Theodosia falls to her death from a

dangerous, wooden bridge, the whole expedition seems cursed, but they

decide to stay. Judith is lured to entrapment in an obscure tomb because

she has discovered that the Pasha who has lent them his house is trying

to kill or scare them in order to cover his own theft and sale of ancient

tomb artifacts. Judith is rescued by Tybalt and is reassured of his love

when Tabitha marries another archaeologist.

The House Of A Thousand Lanterns(1974)

Jane Lindsay, daughter of a housekeeper and a cast-off nobleman,

rises to a position of class through marriage and of authority through

study of Chinese artworks. She first marries Joliffe Milner, nephew of

the Sylvester Milner who taught her the family business, buying Chinese

artworks. When she finds out that Joliffe already had a wife when he

married her, she returns to Roland's Croft to find her mother dying.

Later discovering herself to be pregnant, she marries Sylvester, who has

been paralyzed in an accident. She then goes to China with him and her

son, and tries to discover the mystery of the House of a Thousand Lan­

terns. In the process, she inherits the house upon Sylvester's mysteri­

ous death, receives proposals from Sylvester's manager, Tobias Grantham

and Sylvester's nephew Adam, re-marries the now-free Joliffe, suspects

Joliffe of trying to murder her in order to gain the business and marry

the beautiful Chan Cho Lan, and is imprisoned in a subterranean tomb by

Chan Cho Lan as expiation for her sin of owning a Chinese mandarin's

113

house. Jane leaves China with her husband and son, restoring the house

to Chan Cho Lan's son in order to placate the displeased Chinese ances­

tors.

The Lord Of The Far Island (1975)

For years Ellen Kellaway thinks of herself as a Poor Relation. Her

Aunt Agatha reminds her often that she lives on the bounty of her aunt

and uncle, and Ellen realizes that she will go to some family as govern­

ess as soon as her cousin Esmeralda makes a match in her debut. Every­

one thinks that Esmeralda will marry Philip Carrington, the younger son

of family friends, but Philip proposes to Ellen instead. While they

plan the marriage, Ellen discovers that, although she is fond of Philip,

she is marrying him only to escape the drudgery of a life as a governess.

She believes that Philip loves her, however, and she is amazed one day

to find out that Philip has killed himself. Again the prospect of gov-

ernessing looms before her, but Ellen is saved by an invitation from

Jago Kellaway, her guardian, to visit Far Island, the home that her

mother took Ellen from when she was three. On the Island, Ellen dis­

covers that Jago is an exciting, disturbing, self-confident man, real­

izes that Jago's sister Jenifry dislikes her for her friendship with

Michael Hydrock, Jenifry's daughter Gwennol's suitor, and finds out'that

she has a half-sister, Silva. When Ellen nearly drowns because someone

drills a hole in her boat, she begins to suspect that someone around

her is trying to kill her. Jago proposes, and Ellen knows that she

loves him, but she suspects him of murdering Philip and of trying to

114

murder her. She refuses his proposal and tries to unravel the mystery

surrounding her sister Silva's disappearance. In doing so, she talks

with her father's former valet, who discloses the news that she is her

father's heir, that Silva, presumed to be dead, was the second heir, and

that Jago will inherit the Island upon Ellen's death. Frightened of Jago.

Ellen tries to escape the Island in order to think, is drugged and nearly

drowned by Rollo Carrington, Philip's brother, and is rescued in time by

Jago. When she recovers, Ellen learns that Silva, whom Rollo married for

the inheritance he thought was hers instead of Ellen's, is still alive.

Rollo's attempts at Ellen's life were necessary because Philip had died

before marrying Ellen and securing her fortune for the failing Carrington

financial empire. Ellen marries Jago and brings Silva to live with them

on the Island.

SYNOPSES OF NOVELS BY DOROTHY EDEN

Lady Of Mallow (1960)

Sarah Mildmay, secretly engaged to Ambrose, who has long waited to

inherit Mallow Hall, agrees to help him prove that the newly-arrived

Blane Mallow is not really the heir to the Mallow fortune. When Blane

reappears from the tropics with Amalie, his wife, and Titus, his son, to

claim his inheritance, Sarah takes a position with the new Mallows as

governess. While Ambrose goes to the tropics for evidence to expose

Blane as an imposter, Sarah spies on the Mallow family for information

that will discredit Blane. Blane becomes as suspicious of Sarah and her

motives as she is of him, but Sarah is indispensible to the terrified

Titus and thus must stay. Sarah is caught by Blane several times as she

spies around the house, listens at doorways, secretly meets messengers

from Ambrose, and follows Blane to London to find out whom he is meeting.

Mysterious things begin to happen to Titus, until Blane orders Sarah to

keep the child away from his own mother. After the mysterious disappear­

ance of Samantha, who Amalie tells Sarah was actually Blane's wife,

Amalie's behavior becomes wilder and more erratic. When Samantha's body

is found, Amalie's mind snaps. She confesses the murder of Samantha,

kidnaps Titus, and throws herself off the bell tower. After Amalie's

death, Blane confesses to Sarah that the real Blane had been originally

married to Samantha instead of to Amalie, and that he was posing as his

dead friend Blane Mallow only to secure the Mallow inheritance for Titus,

Blane's illegitimate son. Sarah breaks her engagement with Ambrose and

leaves England with the imposter. 115

116

Darkwater (1963)

When Fanny is sent by her Uncle Edgar to meet her young cousins

Nolly and Marcus, she prepares to leave Darkwater for good. She is un­

able to leave the two orphans, however, so she returns to Darkwater with

them, their Chinese amah, and memories of her meeting with Adam Marsh,

the handsome young man who met her at the station with the children.

The children cling to Fanny in a strange world, and they become even

more dependent upon her when their amah is killed and found in the lake.

Sarah notes that her Aunt Arabella has some mysterious accidents, that

her uncle's lawyer, Hamish Barlow, disappears, and that her mentally un­

stable cousin George, who is wery possessive of Fanny, is implicated in

each case. Fanny begins to see more of Adam Marsh, but she thinks that

he is courting her cousin Amelia. Fanny begins to fear that George, in

his unbalanced state, will murder someone else. When she tries to con­

vince her Uncle Edgar that George is dangerous, he agrees with her, but

their theory is disputed by Adam Marsh. Marsh has proof that Uncle

Edgar has cheated Fanny out of her inheritance, killed the amah, taken

the inheritance of the children, killed the lawyer Barlow who found out

too much, and planned the death of Aunt Arabella, who also knows about

the inheritances. Uncle Edgar is taken to prison, and Fanny marries

Adam Marsh, the uncle of the children, whom Fanny and Adam later adopt.

Ravenscroft (1964)

When orphaned Bella and Lally go to London to find their relatives,

they meet a stranger on the coach and go home to stay with her. They

become suspicious of the old woman. Aunt Aggie, and her son Noah when

117

they hear strange noises at night. The baby supposedly being nursed by

Aunt Aggie's never-seen niece dies, and Lally catches Noah burying it

in the snow one night. Aunt Aggie drugs Lally in preparation for sell­

ing both girls into white slavery, and Bella summons help from the street

by calling from an upstairs window. The two men who come to their res­

cue are an elderly doctor and Guy Raven, a rich Member of Parliament.

Guy takes the girls to his home and then offers to marry one of them

to avoid further scandal, even though he still loves his first, now-dead

wife. Since Lally has become unbalanced and terrified as a result of

their experience with Aunt Aggie, Bella offers to marry Guy. Once mar­

ried to Guy, Bella discovers that they are still in danger from Aunt

Aggie and Noah, who have sworn vengeance from prison. Lally is terri­

fied by an Aunt-Aggie look-alike in the village, and Bella becomes sus­

picious of Miss Thompson, who looks after Lally, thinking that she and

Guy are having an affair. After Bella's baby is born, a maid servant

disappears and Guy and Bella begin to watch for Noah and Aunt Aggie.

Just when it seems that Bella cannot mistrust her husband Guy more.

Miss Thompson is killed, and Guy is arrested for the murder. Bella goes

to London with Lally and the baby and is drugged by her housekeeper, a

friend of Aunt Aggie's. Bella discovers that Miss Thompson was really

Noah's wife, and that Noah has several reasons to hate them now: their

discovery of the white-slavery business, their testimony that sent him

to prison, and the death of Noah's wife. Noah tries to kill Bella and

Lally, but Lally escapes and brings help.

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Winterwood (1967)

After Lavinia Hurstmonceaux's brother kills a man defending her

honor and goes to jail for the crime, Lavinia takes the name Hurst and

goes to Italy as companion to her cousin Marion. Cousin Marion discov­

ers that Lavinia "borrowed" her gown and jewels to wear to the opera,

and Lavinia is forced to find another position. She takes a position

as companion with the Meryons, to help with their crippled daughter.

Flora. After the Meryons attend the funeral of their aunt's servant,

they, Lavinia, and the Meryon's Aunt Tameson go to England to Winterwood.

At Winterwood a nephew, Jonathan Peate, shows up, and Aunt Tameson later

dies. When it is discovered that Flora is Aunt Tameson's heir, she

suddenly begins having a series of accidents. When a series of letters,

with current postmarks, written in Aunt Tameson's hand, arrive from

Italy, the people at Winterwood are in a state of terror. In one let­

ter. Aunt Tameson announces her arrival. When the doorbell rings.

Flora's mother rushes up to her room and kills herself. It is revealed

that Charlotte, Flora's mother, and Jonathan Peate had convinced Peate's

mother to impersonate Aunt Tameson so that she could re-make Aunt Tame­

son's will in their favor. The caller is actually Eliza, the former

pseudo-Aunt Tameson's maid, and Charlotte never lives to find out that

her attempts on her daughter's life have been revealed. Lavinia and

Daniel Meryon are later married.

The Millionaire's Daughter (1974)

Harry Spencer has two great dreams: to become a millionaire and to

have a daughter who marries an English aristocrat. He marries Louisa,

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from a decadent yet aristocratic American family, and they have a daugh­

ter, Christabel, and a son, Henry. After Henry dies of exposure in a

kidnapping attempt, Harry hires a bodyguard for Chrissie. When Chrissie

comes of age, Harry and Louisa take her to Paris where she meets Perci­

val, Lord Monkshood. The scandal about Lord Monkshood's divorce does

not deter Chrissie, and she marries him. On their honeymoon he asks

her to cut her hair short, but other than dutifully desiring to sire

an heir, he leaves her alone. Back at Monkshood, Chrissie meets Matthew

Smith, a painter assigned the restoration of family portraits, and she

receives a young blackamoor as a gift from her husband. Soon after her

baby is born, Chrissie discovers that her husband keeps young boys like

the Black boy around in order to satisfy his homosexual urges. Chrissie

leaves without looking at her newborn son, the Monkshood heir, and lives

with Matthew Smith until they are free to marry.

SYNOPSES OF NOVELS BY JANE AIKEN HODGE

Marry In Haste (1961)

Faced with disgrace and financial disaster, Camilla's father pre­

pares to sell her in marriage to his most threatening blackmailer. In

the face of such a situation, Camilla chooses to accept the unusual

proposal of Lavenham, Lord Leominster, who wants to marry because his

grandmother has threatened to disinherit him if he does not. Fully

aware of Lavenham's innate distrust and dislike of women, Camilla enters

into the marriage of convenience and finds herself not initially sorry

that Lavenham's hoydenish sister Chloe, with no place to go, is forced

to accompany them when Leominster is sent to Portugal. In the Portu­

guese setting of intrigue and suspicion generated by Napoleon's south­

ern advances, Camilla finds herself forced to cover up for Lavenham on

his spying-mission absences, tending his wounds in secret when he comes

home. She must also contend with his dislike of women, conceal the

truth about the one night they had together that he has forgotten, and

try her best to prevent Chloe from continuing her secret affair with

Charles Boutet, a self-acknowledged French spy who threatens to destroy

them all. As their position in Portugal becomes more and more dangerous

with the advance of French forces and the collapse of the Portuguese

government, Camilla and Chloe are separated from Lavenham, captured by

Boutet, rescued by Portuguese partisans, and finally smuggled out of

Portugal by Mr. Smith, an English spy. Once home in England, the girls

are hailed as heroines, but each is still in suspense about the danger

120

121

surrounding the Duke of Weston (Smith) and Lavenham. Finally, Weston

returns and persuades Chloe to marry him, and Lavenham, returning to

find that his son has inherited the Lavenham foot and that his wife has

begun to love him, persuades Camilla to abandon their "convenient" mar­

riage for a more satisfying union.

The Master Of Penrose (1967)

(Here Comes A Candle)

Kate Croston, narrowly rescued from the British by Jonathan Penrose,

goes back to Boston with him to nurse his autistic child. It is soon

evident to Kate that Jonathan, who everyone says loves his wife Arabella

to distraction, is primarily concerned with Sarah. Sarah is terrified

of her mother, but she responds to Kate's loving care and begins to

have fewer and fewer screaming spells. Kate, Sarah, and Jonathan enjoy

the quiet of Penrose, the family estate, while Arabella lives her ov/n

life in Boston. On a jaunt to the beach Kate is doubly frightened when

a carriage very narrowly runs Sarah down. Kate realizes that Arabella

is one of the people in the carriage and that the man with her is

Charles Manningham, a British soldier whose rape of Kate drove her to

the flight that ended in America. Because Manningham is so obviously

after Arabella's money, Kate tries to warn Jonathan about Manningham's

former life but cannot bring herself to tell Jonathan the full story of

her past with Manningham. Because he distrusts women, Jonathan believes

Manningham's and Arabella's lies about Kate's wantonness, and he declares

not only his love to Kate but also his intention of setting her up carte

blanche. Kate is incensed, but their resolution of the misunderstanding

122

is delayed by Manningham's and Arabella's kidnapping of Sarah. Manning­

ham finds Kate and takes her to Sarah because she alone can handle the

child, and Kate, Sarah, Arabella, and Manningham set off for Washington,

where Jonathan is supposed to give them ransom money. Taken by surprise,

Kate is knocked out, tied up, and left behind. Escaping her bonds, she

must contend with panic in Washington when the British forces, freed of

fighting Napoleon, come to take the capitol. Kate finds Jonathan, the

two of them find Sarah and narrowly rescue her from a burning building,

and Arabella dies in the fire, freeing Kate and Jonathan to marry.

The Winding Stair (1968)

Juana Brett, half English and half Portuguese, meets Gair Varlow

and receives a summons to her grandmother's castle in Portugal at the

same time. Arriving in Portugal, Juana discovers that Gair is an English

spy and that she is to take her grandmother's place as co-conspirator

with Gair and as handmaiden of the Sons of the Star. As handmaiden of

the Star she finds herself compelled in great secrecy to go down a hid­

den staircase to open and close the meeting place of the Sons, a secret

and wery dangerous society of anonymous members who plan the overthrow

of the Portuguese government when Napoleon's forces march into Portugal.

Frightening events make Juana more sure than ever that she cannot trust

anyone except Gair, for members of the Star who fail their duties are

peremptorily killed, plans are made for the deaths of the royal family,

and her cousin, Vasco Mascarenhas, who has been courting Juana assidu­

ously, reveals himself as a fortune-hunter rather than a lover. Juana

finds it increasingly difficult to meet with Gair, her pseudo-suitor.

123

In order to report her spying on the secret meetings. After her grand­

mother is beaten and is on her deathbed, Juana reveals her plan to give

her inheritance, the castle, to her Portuguese relatives, and she refuses

Vasco's proposal. Juana is kidnapped by the Sons of the Star and held

prisoner by Vasco, the real leader of the Sons. While a prisoner she

learns that Vasco plans to marry her to strengthen his claim to the

throne of Portugal, as they two are descendants of Sebastian and Juana,

former royalty of Portugal. Realizing her cousin's madness, Juana, in

a last function as the handmaiden of the Sons, reveals his mad plans for

murder and tyranny to his followers at their last meeting. She is con­

demned as a traitor, as is Gair, who tries to save her, and the two are

left to die below the castle. Juana's cousin Roberto saves them, they

warn the King of his danger, the members of the Sons are arrested, and

Vasco is killed by Gair as he attempts to kill the King. Juana and

Gair leave Portugal to marry and live in England.

Greek Wedding (1970)

Phyllida Vannick finds herself in 1826 in the middle of the Greek

war of independence. She and her aunt, Cassandra Knight, escape the

Sultan's harem and are rescued from the water by Brett Renshaw. Because

Renshaw has just been disinherited and thrown over by Helena, his fian­

cee, he heartily dislikes women, but agrees to take Phyllida and Aunt

Cass to Greece on his steam-driven yacht. When the boat is captured and

impounded for war by Greeks, the three are rescued by Alexandros f'avrom-

ikhalis, who, fortunately, knows Phyllida's brother Peter, a Philhellene,

whom she has come to find. As Phyllida, Brett, and Aunt Cass sail around

124

Greece under Alex's protection, they try to get word of Peter, but in­

stead meet up with Jenny, Brett's sister, who has come to Greece to find

him. When they discover that the Helena must be repaired before she

will run again, they take a house on shore, waiting for news of repair

parts and of Peter. Brett begins a book on the war, Phyllida realizes

she doesn't love Alex and breaks off their secret engagement, and they

find Peter and nurse him back to health. After Phyllida refuses Alex

and Jenny refuses Peter, the two men plot another way to get Phyllida's

fortune for themselves ^nd^ for the war effort. Alex tricks Brett and

Phyllida into coming to his castle stronghold supposedly to nurse Peter

again, and they are captured with freedom only in terms of Phyllida's

marriage to Alex and Brett's consent to Jenny's marriage to Peter.

Oenone, Alex's lifelong betrothed, helps Brett and Phyllida escape after

Phyllida signs over half her fortune for Oenone's dowry. Having escaped

from Alex, Brett and Phyllida declare their love for each other and are

married by a village priest, but they still must get past the Turkish

forces to safety. After witnessing a sea battle as Turkish prisoners,

they make contact with the British, are reunited with Jenny and Aunt

Cass, and turn Peter over to Alex with the promise of a pension as long

as he stays in Greece. Brett, who has now inherited his title, and

Phyllida prepare for a formal wedding on the morrow.

Savannah Purchase (1970)

As children, look-alike cousins Juliet and Josephine had often

exchanged identities to fool the convent sisters. As young women they

meet again after Waterloo in Savannah. Juliet, hiding from her father's

125

creditors at an old plantation near Savannah, meets Josephine again and.

with no other choice than starvation, she sets out on another game of

deception. Josephine, nursing an old grief, will not be happy until

she throws herself into a rescue mission for Napolson on St. Helena.

Juliet agrees to take Josephine's place as Mrs. Hyde Purchis while

Josephine finds a rescue ship and sailors. As Mrs. Purchis, Juliet is

faced with remembering all Josephine has told her about her husband

Hyde and Savannah society, but she cannot deal with the angry advances

of Fonseca, Josephine's lover. Fonseca's anger at Juliet's repulsion

of him precipitates ugly words, leading ultimately to a duel in which

Fonseca is killed and Hyde wounded. Through Hyde's slow recovery Juliet

is worried with fears of Josephine's sudden return, the dangers of Hyde's

being punished for duelling, and her own realization that she loves

Hyde and has sparked in him a desire for the resumption of a true mar­

riage. With Josephine's return and the subsequent switch comes a wors­

ening in Hyde's condition for lack of nursing; so Juliet comes to Win­

chelsea again to care for Hyde. She realizes that the Black servants,

freed by Hyde, are devoted to him, but she feels their hatred for Jose­

phine and fears they may have learned the secret and prefer Juliet for

a mistress. The fear of Hyde's duelling hangs over them, but the heavy

mood is interrupted by a visit from the President. Back in Savannah,

Juliet meets another man from Josephine's past, but is at a loss as to

why Monsieur Tarot has grounds to blackmail her. When the blackmailing

is exposed when Tarot sells a necklace she gives him, Juliet discovers

that Hyde had discovered the charade early in the game, had supposed

127

disembark on shore in Italy, they find themselves caught up in the polit­

ical uproar. Trenche is captured and imprisoned, and Helen realizes that

her husband is more and more reliant upon his man Price for his decisions,

Once Lord Merritt has placated his uncle with marriage, he inherits the

fortune he wants, but Helen finds herself continually in danger as she

becomes less necessary to her husband. He and Price contrive to leave

her alone at their villa when a volcano erupts, threatening her life,

but Charles Scroope saves her. After Ricky's birth she fears that they

both will suffer an "accident" and so leaves a letter with friends, to

be opened upon her death, that stops Price and Lord Merritt for a while.

She is saved a second time by Scroope, who arranges for troops to stay

with her when Price had again arranged for her to be alone to be killed.

Charles Scroope is injured in battle and Helen nurses him back to health

in time for him to help her and Ricky escape before Napoleon's troops.

In the escape Scroope kills Price, a French spy, and on board ship Lord

Merritt is killed by Trenche, now escaped. Trenche is killed by Scroope

when he tries to kill Helen and Ricky, and Helen and Scroope confess

their love for each other.

129

she saw Virginia slip and fall into the pool. Morgan knew Virginia

could not swim, but she could not reach her in time and fled, fearing

she would be accused of murder. Lora and Wade return home with the

ghosts that lay between them exorcised, and they join in a new, closer

relationship.

The Trembling Hills (1956)

Sara Jerome cannot understand her mother's reluctance to move to

San Francisco, but, faced with unemployment, Mary Jerome agrees to the

move. In San Francisco Sara and her mother live with the Renwick family,

for whom Mrs. Jerome is the housekeeper, and Sara renews her romantic

plans to marry her childhood idol, Ritchie Temple. She soon discovers

that Ritchie is engaged to Judith Renwick, but she continues to dream

of being Ritchie's wife. At the same time Sara is caught up in the

mystery of discovering who her family is. She discovers that her real

name is Bishop and that Hester Varady, the great aunt of Nicholas Ren-

wick's fiancee Geneva, is her aunt, too. When the great earthquake and

fire of 1906 hit San Francisco, the Renwicks, along with Sara and her

mother, are burned out and forced to move in with Hester Varady. Sara

discovers that the Varady house is the source of the disturbing night­

mares she has had since she was a child, that Hester Varady is terrified

of cats and believes a white cat haunts her house, and that there was

once a mysterious Callie Bishop living in the house. Sara befriends the

friendless Renwick child, Allison, realizes that she really regards

Ritchie as a brother, and comes to understand that, although she loves

130

Nicholas Renwick and he loves her. Nicholas is connitted to marrying the

gentle Geneva. Sara is publically acknowledged as Hester Varady's heir

and finally remembers the source of her continuing nightmare as having

been her witness of her father's being pushed from a balcony to his

death. When Sara confronts Hester Varady with her theory that it was

Hester who killed Leland Bishop, Hester tells her that it was Callie

Bishop, who was Leland's mad, first wife. Sara discovers that Hester

had kept Callie and Callie's white cat locked in a room at the top of

the house to save the family from the disgrace of insanity. After

Callie's and Leland's deaths Mary Jerome Bishop had left with Sara and

Hester had brought Callie's and Leland's daughter Geneva from a convent

as her heir. When Geneva learns that her mother was mad, she kills

herself, thereby leaving Nicholas and Sara free to marry.

Skye Cameron (1957)

When her father is paralyzed in a fall and unable to work, Skye

Cameron and her parents leave New England to live with Robert Tourneau,

her mother's brother, in New Orleans. Skye, tall and strong, with bright

red hair, feels out of place in Creole surroundings and finds it hard to

accustom herself to the confining life of a Creole lady. She is courted

by Courtney Law, whom her uncle has chosen for her to marry, but the ro­

mance is hindered both by her reluctance to have her mate chosen for her

and also by Courtney's infatuation for Skye's mother. On one of her

escapes from her chaperones, Skye explores a rowdy street, is accosted

by a drunk, and is rescued by Justin Law, Courtney's outcast brother.

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She learns later that Justin has recently returned from the West, where

he was briefly jailed for murder. Her family is scandalized by her

association with Justin and further shocked when she meets a young boy,

Lanny, at the park and brings him home to play with the Tourneau daugh­

ter. Skye is thrown together with Justin again when the Tourneaus, out

of deference to Courtney and his mother, attend a party at the Law home.

Alarmed at Courtney's obvious attention to Skye's mother at the party.

Uncle Robert forces an engagement between Skye and Courtney by threaten­

ing to put Skye's father and mother out of his house. Further evidence

of her uncle's treachery is revealed when Skye discovers that he is

guilty of having spread rumors to force his partner, Justin's father,

to flee New Orleans during the Civil War, and of having taken the Law

fortune to replace his own lost fortune. Skye further learns that

Robert has brought Lanny, who is really Justin's son, and Justin's wife

Isabelle to his house in order to blackmail Justin into leaving town.

Justin and Uncle Robert duel, and Robert suffers a heart attack as a

result. When Isabelle flees the house in fear of Justin, Skye learns

that she was the one responsible for the murder that Justin was con­

victed of and that Isabelle thinks Justin wants to kill her. She drowns

trying to escape Justin, Skye breaks her engagement with Courtney, Uncle

Robert recovers but is too weak to sustain his financial and psychologi­

cal hold on the Law family, and Skye and Justin plan to marry.

Thunder Heights (1960)

When Camilla King comes to Thunder Heights at the call of her dying

grandfather, she finds that her presence is resented with an almost

132

palatable hatred. Her grandfather dies before he can tell her why he

sent for her, and Camilla learns that she has been left everything in

his will. She tries to assure her Aunt Hortense, her Aunt Letty, and

her Cousin Booth that she will share the Judd fortune with them, but

Hortense and Booth are cynical. Ross Granger, her grandfather's finan­

cial agent, is also disappointed that the Judd fortune has been left to

Camilla, because it ruins his chances of advancing his architectural

career. Camilla tries to make friends with her family, but she learns

that Booth has dangerous changes of mood, Hortense hates her and plans

to break the will, and that Letty, seemingly harmless, knows secrets

she will not share. When Camilla, sent to the basement on a fabricated

errand, nearly falls to her death from a broken step, she discovers that

the step had been tampered with. This event, coupled with the incident

in which the cat drank Camilla's tea and was poisoned, causes Camilla's

suspicions to heighten. When Camilla tells Ross about her fears for her

life, he tries to get her to leave with him. Camilla refuses because

she wants to renew family relationships. Camilla also wants to discover

the truth about her mother Althea's death, and she feels that Letty and

Booth have the answers. Camilla narrowly escapes Booth when he tries to

kill her, and she discovers that Booth arranged the "accident" that

killed her mother. Booth returns to Thunder Heights to kill Camilla,

but he is caught in the house when Letty sets it afire. He is fatally

burned while rescuing Letty from the fire, Thunder Heights is burned to

the ground, and Camilla leaves with Ross Granger.

133

Window On The Square (1962)

When Megan Kincaid is summoned to the Reid mansion to make dresses,

she is surprised to be asked to remain as nursemaid for the troubled

little boy who lives there, but she agrees. Still in the guise of dress­

maker, Megan moves in and begins to make friends with Jeremy, a very dis­

turbed child who has recently been accused of murdering his father. In

her close contact with the Reid household, Megan discovers several things:

that Leslie Reid married Brandon, her late husband Dwight's older brother,

less than a year after Dwight's death; that Brandon and Leslie are far

from friendly with each other; and that Jeremy is constantly searching

for the second gun that disappeared the night of his father's death, a

discovery that will prove his innocence. Megan finds that Jeremy's

sense of guilt over his father's death is mixed with a fear of his own

Innate evil tendencies. Jeremy is constantly abused and accused of

wickedness by Miss Garth, the governess, and his mother ignores him.

Megan wins Jeremy's confidence and makes progress in restoring his child­

hood to him. In the process, she realizes that she has fallen in love

with Brandon Reid and has also alienated Garth. Megan soon realizes

that Jeremy is in danger when more and more evidence is manufactured to

point to his increasing danger as an unstable child. A climax comes

when Brandon asks Leslie for a divorce so that he can marry Megan and

Leslie tries to keep him bound to her with hints of her necessary se­

crecy. Megan has momentary doubts about Brandon when Leslie accuses

him of murdering his brother and marrying her to insure her silence, but

Brandon explains that the silence he bought with marriage was Leslie's

134

promise not to reveal Dwight's political disgrace and indiscretions to

the men's ailing father, who is now dead. Realizing that she cannot

keep Brandon and that he and Megan are close to finding out that it was

she, not her son Jeremy, who killed Dwight, Leslie kills herself. The

missing pistol is found, Dwight's death is explained and Jeremy is ex­

onerated, Brandon is exonerated of Leslie's death, and Brandon and

Megan marry.

Sea Jade (1964)

When orphaned Miranda Heath comes to the Bascomb mansion in Scots

Harbor, she is unprepared for the hate that greets her. Having come

at the dying Captain Bascomb's request, Miranda is told at once by the

Captain that he expects her to marry Brock McLean. Miranda herself is

against the marriage, but she does not understand the violent hatred

both Brock and his mother feel for her. With Brock, his mother. Brock's

child Laurel, and Lien, the Captain's Chinese wife, all against her,

Miranda finds that the only friendly person at the house is Ian Pryott,

an impoverished young writer promised a legacy for writing the history

of the Bascomb company and the three captain-partners--Obadiah Bascomb,

Andrew McLean, Brock's father, and Nathaniel Heath, Miranda's father.

When Miranda is talking one evening with Captain Bascomb, Tom Henderson,

formerly a sailor on the Sea Jade, enters the room and frightens Bascomb

so much that he has a heart attack. Henderson disappears, the family

comes, and Brock forces Miranda to promise the dying man she will marry

Brock. After he forces their promises, the Captain fools them by calling

135

a preacher, and they are married before the Captain dies. Miranda is

suddenly faced with a hostile husband, a malicious mother-in-law, an

unfriendly stepdaughter, and veiled hints that her father Nathaniel

killed Brock's father on the last voyage of the Sea Jade. Trying to

discover the secrets in the mystery surrounding the Sea Jade's last

voyage, Miranda searches the Captain's cabin aboard the Pride for ex­

planatory charts and logs or letters. On board the Pride one day she

hears the murder of Tom Henderson. Not knowing for sure who the mur­

derer is, she suspects everyone, including Brock. Miranda tries to find

out about her parents, who came from Scots Harbor, searches for clues in

the murder of Captain McLean, and tries to befriend the unloved child.

Laurel. She makes slow progress with Laurel and practically no progress

with Brock, but she develops a friendship with Ian, even posing for the

figurehead he is carving that is a replica of the first Sea Jade's fig­

urehead. Miranda fears for her life when she finds the figurehead

hacked to pieces, and she discovers that the damage was done by Lien,

who is jealous of lan's feelings about Miranda. Miranda finds a letter

in which Captain Bascomb admits that it was he, not Heath, who shot

McLean. Miranda is still afraid of the person who killed Tom Henderson,

and newly-raised questions about her birth are added to her worries.

Miranda and Mrs. McLean go to search the Pride for a letter that proves

that Miranda is Bascomb's illegitimate daughter, but they are trapped

by Ian, who sets the ship afire, before they find it. Brock rescues the

two women, Ian plunges into the sea and drowns, and it is revealed that

Ian planned the Captain's death in the hopes of marrying Lien, whom he

136

expected to inherit the fortune. When Miranda, already married, inher­

ited instead, Ian killed Henderson and nearly killed Miranda and Mrs.

McLean, who discovered the truth. After lan's death Miranda and Brock

realize their love for each other and make a home for Laurel.