Description:
Dreadful Pleasures: An Anatomy of Modern Horror, Twitchell, James B. Published by Oxford University Press, 1985. First Edition. 385pp. with notes, bibliography and index. Quarter red cloth over red boards. Volume is in unread condition; jacket is clipped with rub to head of spine and toning inside flaps and rear panel. James Twitchell traces our fascination with horror from the cave paintings at Lascaux to the "slasher" movies today.
Twitchell finds that three particular stories have had a special resonance in our culture: the bloodsucker (Dracula), the deformed creature (Frankenstein), and the transformation monster (The Wolfman, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). Why have these stories persisted to the point of becoming mythic and to the exclusion of others? Insightful, provocative, and entertaining; film buffs and scholars, literary critics and devotees of the Gothic novel will all welcome this study.