Author Archives: William the Bloody

About William the Bloody

Cat lover. 18C scholar on the dialogue and novel. Co-convenor OGOM Project

10 Books That Will Change How You Think About Fairy Tales

Posted on 29th May 2015 by William the Bloody

And more on fairy tales. Some of the books on this list will be familiar (including The Bloody Chamber); some less so. There are books on the fairy tale, and reworkings of fairy tale themes and new fairy tales–for young … Continue reading →

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Angela Carter

Posted on 29th May 2015 by William the Bloody

Angela Carter’s stylish, erotic, often witty transformations of classic fairy tales are a central point of interest for those who study contemporary Gothic, and paranormal romance in particular (where motifs and plots from fairy tale are often metamorphosed in ways … Continue reading →

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Happy Walpurgisnacht!

Posted on 30th April 2015 by William the Bloody

Tonight is the night that witches party. There is a wild, fantastic depiction of this in Goethe’s Faust and there are memorable reworkings throughout literature and the arts–in Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, Joseph Heller’s … Continue reading →

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Landscapes of Romance: Generic Boundaries and Epistemological Dialectics in the Paranormal Romance of Julie Kagawa’s The Iron King

Posted on 29th April 2015 by William the Bloody

Here’s the abstract for the paper I presented last week at the excellent Reading the Fantastic: Tales beyond Borders conference at the University of Leeds. You can download the paper from here, too. Within contemporary fantastic fiction, a modulation of … Continue reading →

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Vampires aren’t that bad

Posted on 15th April 2015 by William the Bloody

Dr Sorcha Ní Fhlainn, Gothic/Horror academic & lecturer at MMU, takes issue with the stance of some Roman Catholics who think that the allure of fictional vampires is dangerous (see previous post here).

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Victorian fairytales and folklore: round up

Posted on 3rd April 2015 by William the Bloody

More here on nineteenth-century fairy tales and folklore. Lucy Scholes reviews a book on folklore studies from the period, an anthology of Victorian literary fairy tales, and a book on the relationship between the genre and science.

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Tales for the Young by Hans Christian Andersen

Posted on 3rd April 2015 by William the Bloody

It was the birthday of the great Victorian fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen yesterday, so here’s a useful page at the British Library, allowing you to view his classic Tales for the Young.

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Sarah Hentges, ‘Girls on fire: political empowerment in young adult dystopia ‘

Posted on 31st March 2015 by William the Bloody

More ideas to add to the debate around YA dystopias which I’ve posted about recently. In this article, Sarah Hentges argues that images of young women in these currently very popular novels and films are positive and ’empowering’. She also … Continue reading →

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Lauren Chochinov, ‘Carmilla Rising: Adapting Le Fanu’s Novella In the Age of Social Media’

Posted on 31st March 2015 by William the Bloody

A very interesting review by Lauren Chochinov on the recent (2014) web-based adaptation of Le Fanu’s Carmilla by Jordan Hall and Ellen Simpson. I’ve only had glimpses of this series, but Chochinov’s article here has certainly whet my appetite for … Continue reading →

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Caasandra Clare’s City of Heavenly Fire

Posted on 29th March 2015 by William the Bloody

I’ve finally got round to finishing City of Heavenly Fire, the last book in the splendid YA paranormal romance series, The Mortal Instruments. Cassandra Clare writes with considerable flair, but her characterisation is exceptionally strong–you really do care for the … Continue reading →

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