Creating Atmosphere
It was a dark and stormy night...
Why do dark deeds seemly occur in the dark shadows of a castle or ruined church? Why do these settings lend themselves so well to the Gothic and Horror Genres? And why do we even have a genre called Gothic? Where does this term come from? And what associations do you make with it?
Neil Gaiman. The Sandman: The Kindly Ones. Illustrated by Marc Hempel, Richard Case, D’Israeli, Teddy Kristiansen, Glyn Dillon, Charles Vess, Dean Ormston, Kevin Nowlan. New York: DC Comics, 1996.
Horace Walpole. The Castle of Otranto: A Gothic Story. Introduction and Illustrations by W. S. Lewis. Westerham, England: The Limited Editions Club, 1975.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus. Introduction by Edmund Lester Pearson. Illustrated by Everett Henry. New York: The Limited Editions Club, 1934.
Jane Austen. Northanger Abbey. 1818. Edited by Barbara M. Benedict and Deirdre Le Faye. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Bram Stoker. Dracula. Illustrations by Felix Hoffman. New York: The Limited Editions Club, 1965.