Writing Fear: Russian Realism and the Gothic

"Bowers’s Writing Fear illuminates… how major Russian realists utilized the tropes of a genre generally considered realism’s perfect antithesis. An innovative, captivating study."

B.J. Nieubuurt, University of Michigan, CHOICE Connect

"Appealing both for the insightful readings of specific works and for the big picture about Russian Realism’s encounters with the Gothic that ultimately emerges. Writing Fear is likely to be of keen interest to those who study nineteenth-century Russian literature as well as to colleagues who study non-Russian literary traditions and have an interest in the Gothic." Bella Grigoryan, University of Pittsburgh, The Russian Review

"Writing Fear is an innovative, elegantly written book, underpinned by excellent scholarship. As such, it makes an important contribution not only to Russian studies, but to the literary history of nineteenth-century Gothic as a whole."

Margarita Vaysman, University of St Andrews, Slavonic and East European Review

"Writing Fear is a rich and innovative study that reinterprets the Russian realist tradition by tracing the pervasive presence of gothic thematics and aesthetics throughout the period that we usually perceive as more ‘modern’ and socially focused and thus unconcerned with the fantastic, gothic, or sublime. This is a major contribution to Russian literary studies, as well as studies of realism and the gothic more generally."

Valeria Sobol, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

"The scholarship presented here is excellent. Writing Fear demonstrates a striking depth and breadth of reading not only of secondary literature but also of the various primary texts it discusses. Katherine Bowers impressively brings together works from the Russian, British, and other European traditions to offer comparative readings of the exploitation of gothic imagery, preoccupations, and plots in order to throw new light on the interpretation of these works. This text will become essential reading for courses on Russian literature and the gothic, and is just as valuable in terms of its studies of individual authors and works."

Claire Whitehead, Reader in Russian, University of St Andrews