A book of monsters: Promethean horror in modern literature and culture

by David Ashford

Overview

This books traces the rise to prominence in the twentieth-century of a sub-genre of gothic fiction that is, emphatically, a horror of enlightenment rationality rather than gothic darkness, examining post-modern revisions of Modernist “Promethean” tropes in an eclectic range of gothic, fantasy and SF writing. Whether the subject be terror of London’s churches in the psychogeographical fiction of Iain Sinclair and Alan Moore, the Orcs in the linguistic fantasies of J.R.R. Tolkien, King Kong, killer-computers, or demon-children in post-war British science-fiction, A Book of Monsters offers illuminating perspectives on the darker recesses of the post-modern imagination, setting out a compelling, and comprehensive, overview on our contemporary unconscious.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781526195456
Publisher:	Manchester University Press
Publication date:	01/20/2026
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	5.43(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

David Ashford is an Assistant Professor of English Literature at the University of Groningen

Table of Contents

1 The modern Prometheus: A brief introduction to the horror of Enlightenment
2 Architects of the Occult: London’s alternative “gothic” tradition
3 Gorillas in the House of Light: Inter-war Modernism as crisis management at London Zoo
4 Orc-talk: Spectres of Marx in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth
5 Pandora’s box: The insidious appeal of the Brutalist dystopia
6 The Mechanical Turk: Enduring misapprehensions concerning artificial intelligence
7 The Promethean Altar: Prospects of atonement in twenty-first century science fiction
Select bibliography
Index