Critical essays are invited for an edited collection on the Historical Horror novel in the twenty-first century. This volume will focus on the intersection of women, history and the horror novel. It will explore representations of gender, sexuality and power in historical horror novels.

Horror and history have been intertwined since the publication of the first Gothic novel, Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, in 1764. The past is a useful landscape for the horror novel, as it allows both a distancing—horror is imagined to happen on other shores or in other times—as well as a closer exploration of the horrors to be found at home.

In the twenty-first century, female novelists have embraced the affordances of the historical horror novel to explore themes such as hunger, motherhood, desire, displacement, abuse, suffering, trauma and violence. Horror novels set in the past are both narratives about historical oppression, and explorations of the horrors to be found in the present. These novels revel in the abject, the grotesque and the weird, embracing the capacity of horror to speak to contemporary women’s experiences.

The proposed edited collection seeks to examine the contemporary historical horror novel from a variety of perspectives. We are especially interested in historical horror written by women. We are defining historical horror broadly and would be happy to receive papers on historical horror in other media, such as film, television or games.

This collection will be submitted for consideration to the Brill Global Historical Fictions series.

Abstracts of 250 words are due by 30 June 2026 and should be emailed to stephanie.russo@mq.edu.au

Full papers of 7,500 words will be due at the end of 2027.