Gothic Chapbook

Abstract

The well‐known image of young Percy Bysshe Shelley clandestinely devouring forbidden tales of terror under the rose bushes at Sion House is a familiar, if not disquieting feature of literary history. Shelley's youthful predilection for ‘stories of haunted castles, bandits, murderers, and other grim personages – a most exciting and interesting food for boys’ minds’ was satisfied in the form of cheap Gothic chapbooks (Medwin 1847: 29–30). Notwithstanding the pleasure provided by these short tales of terror, adaptations of popular Gothic novels had the added benefit of being economical – sixpence or a shilling – or a penny a night from the circulating library which stocked dozens of thrilling and dangerous titles.