Product Description

From the haunting pictures of seventeenth-century Naples to Vampire nightclubs in present-day New York, Gothic is a history of the passions which overpower reason and of the images of excess produced by painters, gardeners, architects, poets, novelists, film-makers and fashion designers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #744138 in Books
• Published on: 1998-11-05
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

Ruth Rendell, Daily Telegraph
'Gothic is a marvellous and very likely definitive work ... The scholarship, style and sheer industry of research are so admirable.'

TLS
'Stimulating and wide-ranging, Gothic is stuffed with bold assertions.' TLS

Marina Warner, The Times
'Wide-ranging and often witty study of Goths and Gothic.' Marina Warner, The Times

Customer Reviews

Davenport Hines opens the doors to the gothic world
At a glance this book could be misconstrewed as merely a book on vampirology or of what 'gothic' culture really is in a contemporary light. this book is so much more than that. Hines looks at the gothic world in such vivid detail, etching the historical ideas of the gothic world and trancending it across time, art, film, literature, architecture and poetry. he discusses the use of gothic art and its significance in the historical context and the modern day interpretation. He highlights artists such as Goethe, Goya and attepmts to avoid the pitfalls of over concentrating on Bram Stoker or Anne Rice. The illustrations are magnificent and his discussion of their reception as they were unveiled to the public of the day is unparelled.

Davenport-Hines obviously wrote the book to illustrate the importance of the gothic world in a modern day context as well as pointing out to those who subscribe to gothic culture that it has very deep historical veins and roots. Vampires and monsters are discussed in his film section, as is the works of Lord Byron (who wrote "The Vampyre"), Shelly, Gaston Leroux (author of The Phantom of the Opera), Anne Rice, Bram Stoker and many more. References to places and histrorical happenings, cathedrals of gothic architecture and paintings are also stressed.

For those in love with the gothic world in all its manifestations, this book has been written for you