'Gothified histories': Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century women's gothic novels and enlightenment historiography (Sophia Lee, Ann Radcliffe, Susanna Rowson)

While historical gothic novels may seem to be formalistic failures or fledgling, pre-Walter Scott attempts at the historical novel, serious study of these works reveals their greater significance within the context of Enlightenment formulations of national history. This study examines how late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century female gothic novelists portray and explore the idea of history and how, in doing so, they illuminate period debates about the term “history” and point to an underlying uneasiness surrounding historiography itself, an uneasiness that stems in part from a suspicion that Enlightenment methods of historical production do not serve their proposed function of constructing a coherent national identity.; Set in specific historical time periods and featuring historically important figures, historical gothics like Sophia Lee's The Recess, Ann Radcliffe's Gaston de Blondeville and Susanna Rowson's Reuben and Rachel demonstrate a careful engagement with Enlightenment historical concerns: the place of the sentimental in historical writing; the subject matter on which a history ought to focus; the use of classical or modern methodologies in historical writing; ways to address problems caused by the lack or corruption of historical evidence; and the power dynamics involved in historical transmission that can affect a history's claims to objectivity. Furthermore, each author explores a specific aspect of historical knowledge and writing. Lee addresses sentimental portrayals of important historical figures; Radcliffe engages with amateur antiquarianism explores a specific aspect of historical knowledge and writing. Lee addresses sentimental portrayals of important historical figures; Radcliffe engages with amateur antiquarianism and historical tourism; and Rowson investigates the configuration of the Anglo-American nation as family.; The Recess, Gaston de Blondeville, and Reuben and Rachel highlight historical moments of cultural clash by surrounding them with horror, uncertainty, and the supernatural. Selecting historiography itself as a locus of terror, these novels continually rupture their own portrayals of history and dismantle illusions about history's objectivity, endurance, and ability to formulate an uncontested national subject. As they “gothify” history, these women writers show how depicting and organizing the past becomes an endeavor that can be dangerous; history becomes uncanny, unknowable, and impossible to control. Combining the two disjointed discourses of the historical and the gothic, gothified histories provide a unique glimpse into the cultural uneasiness surrounding historical representation.