This remarkable anthology of gothic fiction, spanning two centuries of American writing, gives us an intriguing and entertaining look at how the gothic imagination makes for great literature in the works of forty-six exceptional writers. Joyce Carol Oates has a special perspective on the 'gothic' in American short fiction, at least partially because her own horror yarns rank on the spine-tingling chart with the masters. She is able to see the unbroken link of the macabre that ties Edgar Allan Poe to Anne Rice and to recognize the dark psychological bonds between Henry James and Stephen King. In showing us the gothic vision--a world askew where mankind's forbidden impulses are set free from the repressions of the psyche, and nature turns malevolent and lawless--Joyce Carol Oates includes Henry James's 'The Romance of Certain Old Clothes,' Herman Melville's horrific tale of factory women, 'The Tartarus of Maids,' and Edith Wharton's 'Afterward,' which are rarely collected and appear
