An incredibly comprehensive, thoroughly-researched and original book about the circumstances that gave rise to Gothic fiction and how it engaged with them. It's a very challenging read in parts (maybe especially for me because I don't understand political theories very well), but extremely eloquent and convincing. Also: no Freudian criticism! At all! It's both very informative about the social and political conditions as well as attitudes of the late 18th century, and bold in suggesting theories of interpretation. The feminist aspect of the criticism is not the centre of the book, but just one of the many strands that Clery pursues in her investigations of the establishment of Gothic. I think my favourite was the first chapter, which contrasts two 'techniques of ghost-seeing'; the appearance of a 'theatrical' ghosts giving 'performances' in a house in Cock Lane, and David Garrick's performances on the London stage (especially as Hamlet seeing his father's ghost). A lot of the criticism is based on political and social theory, which I think I'm just not intelligent enough to understand, but it was still extremely useful and interesting.
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