The Gothic world of Anne Rice / edited by Gary Hoppenstand and Ray B. Browne.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Introduction. Vampires, witches, mummies and other charismatic personalities : exploring the Anne Rice phenomenon / Gary Hoppenstand and Ray B. Browne -- The lived world of Anne Rice's novels / Katherine Ramsland -- The anthropological vision of Anne Rice / Frank A. Salamone -- Gothicism, vampirism, and seduction : Anne Rice's "The master of Rampling Gate" / Garyn G. Roberts -- Development of the Byronic vampire : Byron, Stoker, Rice / Kathryn McGinley -- Anne Rice : raising holy hell, harlequin style / Edward J. Ingebretsen -- Eroticism as moral fulcrum in Rice's Vampire chronicles / Terri R. Liberman -- Anne Rice's Interview with the vampire : novel versus film. pt. 1. Shadows in the night : characters / Diana C. Reep ; pt. 2. Dark journey : plot / Joseph F. Ceccio ; pt. 3. The New Orleans setting / William A. Francis -- Let us prey : religious codes and rituals in The vampire Lestat / Aileen Chris Shafer -- Anne Rice's The tale of the body thief and the astral projection literary tradition / Joseph F. Ceccio -- "We're talking science, man, not voodoo" : genetic disaster in Anne Rice's Mayfair Witch chronicles / Ann Larabee -- "He's not one of them" : Michael Curry and the interpellation of the self in Anne Rice's The witching hour / Ellen M. Tsagaris -- The historical novels of Anne Rice / Bette B. Roberts -- Degrees of darkness : Gens de couleur libre ethnic identity in The feast of all saints / Marte Kinlaw and Cynthia Kasee -- The world of Forever knight : a television tribute to Anne Rice's new age vampire / James F. Iaccino.

Directly and in considerable detail this anthology argues for the serious study of the literary oeuvre of Anne Rice, a major figure in popular literature today. This writer of gothic fiction attracts not only great general interest among readers but also much serious scholarly attention among those who recognize in her work evidence of sophisticated characterization and intricate plotting. Such readers find allusions in Rice's work to that of Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto, to Ann Radcliffe's gothic romances, such as The Mysteries of Udolpho, and to Bram Stoker's Dracula, as do such present-day authors as Clive Barker, Robert R. McCammon, and Stephen King. The essays in this volume assert that Rice goes far beyond the conventions of the formula to examine important contemporary social issues. Like a handful of authors working in the horror genre, Rice perceives in its otherwise predictable narrative structures a way by which a larger, more interesting cultural mythology can be developed, as the editors of this volume point out. In short, Rice may be said to search for philosophical truth, examining themes of good and evil, the influence on people and society of both nature and nurture, "the conflict and dependence of humanism and science," as one essayist states.