This fascinating study explores the multifarious erotic themes associated with the magic lantern shows, which proved the dominant visual medium of the West for 350 years, and analyses how the shows influenced the portrayals of sexuality in major works of Gothic fiction.

List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgements Preface Introduction 1. Sex and the Ghost-Show: the Early Ghost Lanternists, Friedrich Schiller's Die Geisterseher /Ghost-seer , Matthew Lewis's The Monk and E-G Robertson's Convent Fantasmagori e 2. Byron: Incest, Voyeurism and the Phantasmagoria 3. Charlotte Brönte's Villette , Forbidden Desire and Lanternicity in the Domestic Gothic 4. Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla (1872), 'Ambiguous Alternations': Lesbian Desire in the Lanternist Novella 5. Lanternist codes and Sexuality in Dracula and The Lady of the Shroud Conclusion

"A compelling (and - why not?) sexy addition to the burgeoning scholarship on the true underpinnings of Gothic fiction, theater, and film. This book also helps elucidate the history of cinematic forms, the filiations of Romanticism across the nineteenth century, and the history of sexuality and its deployment in changing symbols. In addition, as a contribution to the ongoing development of New Historicist/Cultural Studies, it juxtaposes different media from the same era to show how each affects and is affected by the other in "associations" that enable the modern reader "to discover a forgotten intermedial world of allusion"." - Jerrold E. Hogle, Review 19 (2015) "Focusing on the Gothic magic lantern and its associations with the erotic, there is much more here which serves to provide an improved understanding of the responses of contemporary writers, artists and other commentators to the magic lantern show. Similarly the author interconnects with the erotic content to be found in a great deal of early lantern imagery [ ] It provides a refreshingly different view of lantern history, and is therefore highly recommended." - Mervyn Heard, The Magic Lantern Society Journal (2015)