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This collection of short stories features gothic tales about animals and their interactions with humans. While human-animal hybrid monsters like vampires and werewolves can inspire fear and disgust, actual animals function differently in Gothic literature, often highlighting the monstrosity of humans instead. These animals sometimes enact revenge upon immoral characters (as in Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Black Cat” and Bram Stoker’s “The Squaw”), give voice to colonial anxieties (as in Matthew Lewis’s “Anaconda”), highlight gendered violence (as in Edith Wharton’s “Kerfol” and Alice Perrin’s “The Tiger-Charm”), and reveal characters’ true intentions (as in Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Brazilian Cat”). Animals in Gothic literature alternately elicit horror, provoke compassion, enact righteous revenge, and push readers to think about “humanity” in new ways. This collection focuses on seventeen short stories featuring cats, rats, snakes, horses, and birds from 19th- and early 20th-century Gothic literature.
Melissa Purdue is a Professor in the Department of English at Minnesota State University where she is co-director of the Human-Animal Studies and Environmental Humanities programs.