Ruffians – always under the secret (or not so secret, depending on if he is the Disguised or the Obvious species) control of the Villain.Sometimes takes on form of Humble Social Inferior or Female Friend of Virginal Maiden, well-meaning but ignorant of darker designs of Villain. The Stupid Servant – acts as comic relief by asking seemingly stupid questions, transitions between scenes, brings news, messenger, moves plot forward.Tyrant/villain – who may or may not be disguising his (her) True Evil Nature for the earlier stages of the plot.

Hero – who may or may not be misrepresented as The Villain for the earlier stages of the plot.

Older, Foolish Woman – who often has charge of or advises the Virginal Maiden, or acts as an Awful Warning due to past errors of judgement, which Virginal Maiden may or may not take into consideration.Usually starts out with a mysterious past, and later discovered that she is the daughter of an aristocratic or noble family.

Virginal Maiden – young, beautiful, pure, innocent, kind, virtuous and sensitive.So, cribbing from the article and adding some of my own descriptive notes to those provided, we generally must have: I have had recourse to our ever-handy Wikipedia to quickly define the main elements of a proper traditional gothic novel, and by applying the criteria to the books in question we can get a nice overview of how well the authors fulfilled the requirements of this assigned genre. Perhaps this won’t be the most sober-minded book discussion, which would indeed be fitting, for these books are not High Literature in any sense of the term, and are therefore free game for a little bit of mild mockery, all in good fun, because I did read them willingly and with general pleasure, though occasionally that pleasure was all about their fulfillment of stereotypical Gothic Romance Scenarios. The three books under discussion will be:Īll of these are velvety dark, thrillingly romantic (for the most part), highly predictable (ditto), and guiltily enjoyable tales. As different as can be in time periods and settings, but all at heart clinging to a similar traditional structure, that of the Gothic Romance Novel. Prefacing this sure-to-be-rambling post with this information, for those of you who wonder what I’m actually talking about way down below.

Nine coaches waiting by mary stewart