<div>The gothic imagination, that dark predilection for horrors and terrors, specters and sprites, occupies a prominent place in contemporary Western culture. First given fictional expression in Horace Walpole’s<i>The Castle of Otranto</i> in 1764, the gothic mode has continued to haunt literature, fine art, music, film, and fashion ever since its heyday in Britain in the 1790s.<i>Terror and Wonder</i>, which accompanies a major exhibition at the British Library, is a collection of essays that trace the numerous meanings and manifestations of the Gothic across time, tracking its prominent shifts and mutations from its eighteenth-century origins, through the Victorian period, and into the present day. <br><br>Edited and introduced by Dale Townshend, and consisting of original contributions by Nick Groom, Angela Wright, Alexandra Warwick, Andrew Smith, Lucie Armitt, and Catherine Spooner,<i>Terror and Wonder</i> provides a compelling and comprehensive overview of the gothic imagination over the past 250 years.</div>