Kafka, Gothic and Fairytale is an original comparative study of the novels and some of the related shorter punishment fantasies in terms of their relationship to the Gothic and fairytale conventions. It is an absorbing subject and one which, while keeping to the basic facts of his life, mind-set and literary method, shows Kafka's work in a genuinely new light. The contradiction between his persona with its love of fairytale and his shadow with its affinity with Gothic is reflected in his work, which is both Gothic and other than Gothic, both fairytale-like and the every denial of fairytale....

De Quincey's Gothic Masquerade is what has long been needed, a study of Thomas De Quincey's Gothic and Gothic-related texts by a Germanist working on Gothic and specializing in Anglo-German literary relations. Variously identified as Gothic Hero, Gothic Parasite, and author of a Gothick sport, De Quincey is the dark horse of Gothicism, for while his work has, increasingly, been associated with Gothic, not one of the recent companions to Gothic so much as mentions his name. Definitions of what is meant by 'Gothic' have changed, of course, and are still evolving, claiming more territory...