The gothic novel -the literary stronghold of ghosts, family curses, imperiled heroines and cumbersome plots- might be thought to fall under the category of "escapist fiction." But in this groundbreaking reappraisal, Teresa Goddu demonstrates that the American Gothic novel was, in often surprising ways, actively engaged with social, political, and cultural concerns of its time.

Although social dislocations such as slavery or the massacre of Native Americans were repressed by our national conciousness, Goddu points out that these subjects were effectively incorporated by the gothic novel,...