The first full-length study of the Brontës as Gothic writers.

This book discusses how the Gothic mode productively afflicted the writings of the Brontë sisters. The nostalgic nature of Gothic provided the Brontës with a means of creatively exploring their sense of loss and dislocation. The Gothicness of the Brontës’ imaginations complements the deep influence of Romanticism on their writing; both modes treat the past with reverence. Ultimately, the Gothic identity of the Brontës consists not in terror but in the desire to bring the dead back to life. Of course, this desire is itself a form of terror, terror at living in a world from which we are cut off from those that have gone before.