This volume carves out a new area of study, the 'industrial Gothic', placing the genre in dialogue with the literature of the Industrial Revolution. The book explores a significant subset of transatlantic nineteenth-century literature that employs the tropes, themes and rhetoric of the Gothic to portray the real-life horrors of factory life, framing the Industrial Revolution as a site of Gothic excess and horror. Using archival materials from the nineteenth century, localised incidences of Gothic industrialisation (in specific cities like Lowell and Manchester) are considered alongside transnational connections and comparisons. The author argues that stories about the real horrors of factory life frequently employed the mode of the Gothic, while nineteenth century writing in the genre (stories, novels, poems and stage adaptations) began to use new settings - factories, mills, and industrial cities - as backdrops for the horrors that once populated Gothic castles.

The book is written for an academic reader but is accessible to a wider audience. The primary market for this book will be academics in the field of Gothic studies, including undergraduate and graduate students. A non-specialist general reader with an interest in nineteenth-century literature and history, particularly those with an interest in women's labour history will also find this book accessible and interesting.

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction: Weaving a Transatlantic Gothic Industrial History Chapter 1: The Industrial Gothic Novel Chapter 2: Industrializing the Gothic Victim/Heroine: Mill Girls and Factory Girls Chapter 3: The Carceral Gothic and the Cotton Industrial Complex Chapter 4: Old and New Industrial Horrors: Monsters and Disabled Bodies Chapter 5: The Industrial Environment: EcoGothic Horrors Epilogue: Unravelling the Industrial Gothic