19

TH

CENTURY
HORROR
By aidan and lily

The 19th century was an era of rapidly

accelerating scientific discovery and
invention, with significant developments
in the fields of mathematics, physics,
chemistry, biology, electricity, and
metallurgy that laid the groundwork for
the technological advances of the 20th
century. The Industrial Revolution began
in Great Britain and spread to continental
Europe, North America and Japan. The
Victorian era was notorious for the
employment of young children in
factories and mines, as well as strict
social norms regarding modesty and
gender roles.

WHERE IT ALL STARTED

It was in the 19th century that the Gothic
tradition blossomed into the genre that
modern readers call horror literature.
Influential works and characters that continue
resonating with film and cinema today saw
their genesis in such works as Mary Shelley's
Frankenstein (1818), the works of Edgar Allan
Poe, the works of Sheridan Le Fanu, Robert
Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll
and Mr Hyde (1886), Oscar Wilde's The Picture
of Dorian Gray (1890), and Bram Stoker's
Dracula (1897). Each of these novels created
an enduring icon of horror seen in modern reimaginings on the stage and screen.

FRANKENSTEIN
Frankensteinis a novel written by the English
authorMary Wollstonecraft Shelleyabout the young
science studentVictor Frankenstein, who creates a
grotesque but sensitivecreaturein an unorthodox
scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story
when she was eighteen, and the novel was published
when she was twenty. The first edition was published
anonymously in London in 1818. Shelley's name appears
on the second edition, published in France in 1823.
Frankensteinis infused with elements of theGothic
noveland theRomanticmovement, and is also
considered to be one of the earliest examples of science
fiction.Brian Aldisshas argued that it should be
considered the first true science fiction story because, in
contrast to previous stories with fantastical elements
resembling those of later science fiction, the central
character "makes a deliberate decision" and "turns to
modern experiments in the laboratory" to achieve
fantastic results.It has had a considerable influence in
literature and popular culture and spawned a complete
genre ofhorrorstories, films, and plays .

DRACULA
Dracula is an 1897 Gothic horror novel by Irish
author Bram Stoker. Famous for introducing the
character of the vampire Count Dracula, the
novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to move
from Transylvania to England so he may find new
blood and spread the undead curse, and the
battle between Dracula and a small group of men
and women led by Professor Abraham Van
Helsing. Dracula has been assigned to many
literary genres including vampire literature,
horror fiction, the gothic novel and invasion
literature. Although Stoker did not invent the
vampire, he defined its modern form, and the
novel has spawned numerous theatrical, film and
television interpretations.

DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is the original
title of a novella written by the Scottish author Robert
Louis Stevenson that was first published in 1886. The
work is commonly known today as The Strange Case
of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or
simply Jekyll & Hyde. It is about a London lawyer
named Gabriel John Utterson who investigates
strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr. Henry
Jekyll, and the evil Edward Hyde. The work is
commonly associated with the rare mental condition
often called "split personality", referred to in
psychiatry as dissociative identity disorder, where
within the same body there exists more than one
distinct personality. In this case, there are two
personalities within Dr. Jekyll, one apparently good
and the other evil. The novella's impact is such that it
has become a part of the language, with the very
phrase "Jekyll and Hyde" coming to mean a person
who is vastly different in moral character from one
situation to the next.