Defines the American Gothic and places it both within the context of the major movements of intellectual history and also within the context of the critical issues of American culture.

A comprehensive resource for study of this popular field, this compnaion to regional American literature contains more than 30 original essays from both established and up-and-coming scholars.

Twelve uncanny tales of the race-haunted nineteenth-century South, by authors both celebrated and obscure, are presented along with background readings, themselves often chilling, placing the tales in a historical context.