Talking Scared

[From the Vault] Laura Purcell & The Art of Darkness

Neil McRobert

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I’m feeling Gothic this week. Must be the weather. 
 
In lieu of a new episode, I searched the vault and found this cracker from January 2021, in which Laura Purcell — doyenne of the contemporary British Gothic —  talked me through her Victorian spookshow of mesmerism and haunted silhouettes, The Shape of Darkness.
 
 We also get into the social nightmare of Victorian England – when life was even more gothic than it is now, believe it or not!
 
 Enjoy!
 
 Other books mentioned:
 

  •  The Residence (2020), by Andrew Pyper
  •  The Haunting of Alma Fielding (2020), by Andrew Pyper
  •  Shadowland, or Light From the Other Side (1897), by Elizabeth d’Esperance
  •  “The Blue Lenses,” in The Breaking Point (1959), by Daphne du Maurier
  •  “The Mezzotint”, “A View From A Hill” and “Oh Whistle and I’ll Come To You My Lad”, found in The Collected Ghost Stories of M.R. James

 
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