I just read the most interesting article on Slate.com Pulp the Classics about pulp covers for classic literature. What a fantastic idea! The pulp and the Gothic, of course, are the perfect bedfellows. Lurid, sexual, garish and over-the-top, these 1950's covers still speak volumes about the modern reader. They highlight the sensual and the violent, the aspects most pleasing to readers looking for sensationalism rather than substance. This, of course, relates prefectly to the Gothic. Readers of the Gothic were likewise unsophisicated looking for the sensational and the horrific as well as the moralistic and didactic.
Perhaps Zittaw Press should think about the pulp as it republishes the Gothic. What does the modern readers want from the old Gothic novels? The lurid? The sexual? What does this tell us about readers two hundred years ago? What does this tell us about ourselves?
