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By November 1822, the British reading public had already
voraciously consumed both Walter Scott's expensive novels and
Rudolf Ackermann's exquisite lithographs. The next decade, referred
to by some scholars as dormant and unproductive, is in fact
bursting with Forget Me Nots, Friendship's Offerings, Keepsakes,
and Literary Souvenirs. By wrapping literature, poetry, and art
into an alluring package, editors and publishers saturated the
market with a new, popular, and best-selling genre, the literary
annual. In Forget Me Not, Katherine D. Harris assesses the
phenomenal rise of the annual and its origins in other English,
German, and French literary forms as well as its social influence
on women, its redefinition of the feminine, and its effects on late
nineteenth- and early twentieth-century print culture. Harris
adopts an interdisciplinary approach that uses textual and social
contexts to explore a forum of subversive femininity, where warfare
and the masculine hero were not celebrated. Initially published in
diminutive, decoratively bound volumes filled with engravings of
popularly recognized artwork and "sentimental" poetry and prose,
the annuals attracted a primarily middle-class female readership.
The annuals were released each November, making them an ideal
Christmas gift, lover's present, or token of friendship. Selling
more than 100,000 copies during each holiday season, the annuals
were accused of causing an epidemic and inspiring an "unmasculine
and unbawdy age" that lasted through 1860 and lingered in
derivative forms until the early twentieth century in both the
United States and Europe. The annual thrived in the 1820s and after
despite - or perhaps because of - its "feminine" writing and
beautiful form.
This astonishing collection of 95 rare Gothic tales from British
Literary Annuals tales takes us further than perhaps eighteenth or
nineteenth-century scholars are comfortable with- to the Gothic's
afterlife. Once touted as a literary "dead zone" -the Annuals of
the1820s and 30s are unexpectedly populated with dozens of
terrifying and horrific Gothic tales. A groundbreaking collection,
Forgotten Gothic, illustrates the continued development of the
Gothic genre even after its supposed death in 1820.
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