In our fifth installment of Reading the Gothic we are going to be looking at the adaptability and popularity of the Gothic novel. From Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto to Stephen King's Cell, from James Whale's Frankenstein to Eli Roth's The Hostel, the Gothic continues to permeate fiction and film today. Why though? Its not as if the giant helmet that crushed the poor Conrad could illicit more than laughter from today's readers, and it's hard to imagine an eighteenth century reader understanding the Zombie effects of a cell phone in Stephen King's dark wasteland. So how does the Gothic continue to hold its deathlike grip on us? Simple, it adapts, finding what the modern reader finds most horrific and holds it up to the light for us to see.

In our fouth episode of Reading the Gothic we look at one of the most extravagant, sensational and sexually charged Gothic novels, William Henry Ireland's The Abbess. From its conception in 1764 with Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto the Gothic genre has lurched from terror in Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho to sheer horror in Mathew Lewis's The Monk, but in 1799 the notorious Shakespeare forger Ireland turned his attention from the Bard to the Gothic writing what critics call the most voluptuous and salacious novel, The Abbess: A Romance.

In our third episode we discuss the literary mushrooms that are Gothic chapbooks or bluebooks. Considered by some as literary rubbish, these short tales of terror have been resurrected to thrill and chill the modern reader.