"The History of Gothic Publishing, 1800-1835: Exhuming the Trade breaks new ground by challenging the canon-making process of the Gothic romance genre and takes a closer look at the trade Gothic: 'below' and 'after' the canonical Gothic (1764-1820) from circulating libraries to Gothic chapbooks and from the Gothic in periodicals to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818). Challenging the critical assumptions which have marginalized the illegitimate and disreputable trade Gothic, The History of Gothic Publishing, 1800-1835: Exhuming the Trade explores the lives and works of hack novelists that made Gothic fiction prominent in the 1820s and 1830s such as Francis Lathom, Sarah Wilkinson and William Child Green, whose novels lined the shelves of the circulating libraries.

To better understand the entire Gothic genre we have to view the good novels with the awful, the canon and the trade; we need to lower our sights."--Jacket.