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  • 2.2 - Fantasmagoriana: The Cosmopolitan Gothic and Frankenstein

  • Edited by Dale Townshend, Manchester Metropolitan University, Angela Wright, University of Sheffield
  • Catherine Spooner, Lancaster University
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of the Gothic
    Published online:
    18 July 2020
    Print publication:
    06 August 2020, pp 41-64

  • Summary

    This chapter investigates the ‘cosmopolitan Gothic’ collection of German ghost stories brought together in Jean-Baptiste Benoît Eyriès’s French translation Fantasmagoriana (1812) and Mary Shelley’s English Gothic masterpiece Frankenstein (1818; 1831). The first section of the chapter explores the German provenance of Fantasmagoriana as these ghost stories travelled between European cultures in the early nineteenth century. The second section examines the historical context of popular magic-lantern shows and storytelling, in particular the phenomenon of the phantasmagoria, musing on its possible influence on the famous ghost storytelling contest at the Villa Diodati in June 1816. The final section considers the influence of particular ghost stories in Fantasmagoriana on the composition of Mary Shelley’s novel.