Customer Reviews

Six Gothic Dramas (De Monfort, Orra, The Dream, The Family Legend, The Phantom, Witchcraft) (Valancourt Classics)

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It is a crying shame that Joanna Baillie's Early-Nineteenth-Century audience paid her (an unmarried woman playwright and poet) far more acknowledgement than posterity has done. Apparently, Baillie has become the hot ticket in Women's Studies courses and panel discussions. It's not sufficient, though, that academia contentedly praises her genius amongst its own and does precious little to advance her status to those of us out here in the thicker middle. To yokels like me who had to stumble upon Baillie by accident, a tip: if you want to read Romantic drama with more iconoclasty than Percy Shelley, more balls than Byron, and more psychosis perhaps than even Hamlet has to offer, READ BAILLIE. This work is not simply "Women's Studies" fare or "Early English Drama" to collect dust--it is timeless literature with possibly more relevance today than when it was written. Thanks to Dr. Colon for helping to make this gem of literature accessible to us!