Le Salon Literary Discussions: Recent Episodes
Le Salon Literary Discussions
This is not another book club. I’m Marisa, founder and host of Le Salon Literary Discussions where I put my master’s degree in English literature to good use by creating all kinds of resources for avid readers like you—from monthly virtual book discussions to book club guides, decoding literary theory to book-themed cocktail recipes. In each themed podcast series, we’ll dive into different writers, books, genres, and more—all in 30 minutes or less. A new series of six episodes drops every season, so make sure to subscribe to know when a new episode is posted and follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads.
In this special episode of the Le Salon Literary Discussions podcast I am joined by the intelligent, funny, and feminist Jennifer of Literary Love 123. Jennifer has a master’s degree where she focused on her love of the horror genre, and during my master’s degree I focussed on Gothic literature, so we’re well suited to bring you today’s discussion on Gaston Leroux’s novel The Phantom of the Opera!
Many of you may know the musical, but Andrew Lloyd Webber was inspired by a nearly forgotten French novel. You’ll hear what true stories from the Paris Opera House are in the novel, problematic aspects of the plot, how the novel is different from the musical, and how the novel fits into the literary tradition of Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Greek mythology and more!
Follow Jennifer:
- @literarylove123 on Instagram / YouTube / Threads
- Check out what she’s teaching next on Out School
More bookish resources for you:
- Join the book club you’ve been looking for!
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads.
- Visit my website.
Books mentioned in this episode:
- By Ann Radcliffe: Mysteries of Udolpho; A Sicilian Romance
- Hades and Persephone in Greek mythology
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
- The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
- By Edgar Allan Poe: The Fall of the House of Usher; Ligeia; The Raven; Annabel Lee; The Mask of the Red Death.
- What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
- By Stephen King: Gerald’s Game; Doctor Sleep; The Life of Chuck
- The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
- By Laura Purcell: The Whispering Muse; The Silent Companions
Alterations to the Grimm collected fairy tales have been ongoing since, well, the brothers began editing them in the early 1800s! The short tales lend themselves to a kind of metamorphosis that keeps them present across time and borders. In this episode we look at modern retellings of these established stories in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries that reimagine and reintroduce elements—creating new fairy tales for us to remember!
[5:09] “A stark contrast to Grimm characters who had these traits of heroism and courage baked into their personality because they are male.”
[13:11] “This allows us to wonder: what if the step-mother didn’t want to be in the mother role at all? Maybe she just doesn’t connect with children.”
[17:27] “Some scholars claim that stories we are exposed to before our teenage years have a lasting impact on us, we absorb them in a way we don’t with stories read later in life.”
Books mentioned in this episode:
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
- The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
- Bluebeard’s Egg by Margaret Atwood
- The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
- Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
- Surfacing by Margaret Atwood
- My Mother, She Killed Me My Father, He Ate Me [anthology]
- Uprooted by Naomi Novik
- Hunted by Meaghan Spooner
- Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi's
- How to Be Eaten by Maria Adelmann
- Rouge by Mona Awad
More resources for you:
- Join the book club you’ve been looking for!
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads.
- Visit my website.
This is going to be one of those episodes where once you hear about the patterns, you won’t be able to unsee them as you read the Grimm’s collected tales!
In this episode we examine common symbols in fairy tales and tease out what they mean. What is so interesting is that these symbols—the rule of three, clothing, the forest, roses—create a subtext or language all their own in the stories making them incredibly interesting to analyze. {Here is the link to the Fashion Institute of Technology exhibit on fairy tale fashion.}
[11:28] “While we might find fun sitting back and watching, there is undoubtedly a power dynamic and class consciousness aspect going on here with fashion at the centre.”
[15:21] “There is also something inherently magical about this wildness. It is a place of death and rebirth, decay and beauty.”
[22:14] “I believe it is this aspect that has kept works like the 1812 fairy and folk tales collected by the Grimm brothers interesting to readers and scholars alike.”
More resources for you:
- Join the book club you’ve been looking for!
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads.
- Visit my website.
From Germany to Japan, Chile to Iceland! In this episode we’ll be looking at how the tales collected by the brothers Grimm in Children’s and Household Tales have corresponding stories in other locations around the world. We’ll look specifically at fairy tales “Hansel and Gretel” and “Snow White” to demonstrate how the kernel of a story is mirrored in different countries.
[7:59] “Turning our mind east, we can’t ignore the parallels between ‘Hansel and Gretel’ and the often-present fairy tale witch in Russian tales called Baba Yaga.”
[20:42] “And it isn’t a group of dwarves, but Bedouin, who actually teach Rimonah to ride a horse and use a sword. She becomes renown, not for her beauty, but for her swordsmanship…”
[23:28] “The stories from Children’s and Household Tales entered the public domain before the turn of the twentieth century, making them widely available for reproduction—for more than 100 years now.”
More resources for you:
- Join the book club you’ve been looking for!
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads.
- Visit my website.
In today’s episode we’re looking at the daddy of all patriarchal systems (pun intended!), the church and its teachings and how they are reflected in the Grimm fairy tales. After a quick refresher on Lutheranism, we dive into how Eve’s curiosity in the Garden of Eden becomes problematic, marriage as the only happily-ever-after, and Old Testament justice.
Further reading:
- The Truth About Stories by Thomas King
- The Owl, The Raven, and the Dove: The Religious Meaning of the Grimms' Magic Fairy Tales by G. Ronald Murphy.
[7:45] “So even though we get fairy tales, like The Frog Prince or Beauty and the Beast, that propose marriage between a woman and a creature, the animal is generally gendered to be masculine.”
[11:11] “In fact, early editions of the story point to the wife’s curiosity, her disobedience, and her gaining of knowledge as worse transgressions than Bluebeard’s murderous ways.”
[13:22] “In this story, not only do we see religious figures but the emphasis on the redemption found in confession.”
More resources for you:
- Join the book club you’ve been looking for!
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads.
- Visit my website.
From women storytellers to male writers, hear how sexism and the patriarchy were woven into the Grimm fairy tales. In this second episode in the series, we’ll trace how the brothers Grimm crafted competition between female protagonists and antagonists (centered on beauty and youth) and made physical labour around the home a way to show marriageability to princes and kings.
And these 19th century Grimm fairy tales aren’t entirely dated. You’ll hear about a study from the 1990s that demonstrate gender bias in these types of stories and we’ll examine the evolution of Disney’s take on the fairy tale princess—from Cinderella to Aladdin, Mulan to Brave.
[4:38] “…telling these stories among women, in spaces that were mostly exclusively female, was a way to offer caution around subjects that still to this day make victims feel shame.”
[6:29] “These edits not only wiped out the female experience we can infer from the original oral tale, but also begins to pit woman-versus-woman and demonstrate ‘desired’ female traits.”
[13:24] “Based on this, female readers come to understand that they must remain industrious to get and keep a husband—there is no room for laziness or complaints.”
More resources for you:
- Join the book club you’ve been looking for!
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads.
- Visit my website.
Welcome to this new Le Salon Literary Discussions podcast series about the brothers Grimm. You’ve probably heard the name before and can identify some of the fairy tales they collected, but in this series, we’re going to tease out themes from the tales to take a closer look at them—and I think you’re going to be surprised what we find!
In this episode we’ll explore who the brothers were, how they collected and published their most famous work Kinder-Und Hausmärchen, which translates to Children’s and Household Tales, and which stories were included in the first edition.
[2:45] “I promise you this series is going to give you something new to think about regarding these very old tales.”
[10:01] “And while ‘children’ might appear in the title, at first the brothers didn’t even consider what might attract children as readers to their stories.”
[15:08] “But this tradition on paper must begin somewhere, and without the collection from the Grimm brothers we wouldn’t have them to reimagine and reshape as our sensibilities and values evolve. That is the beauty of these stories.”
More resources for you:
- Join the book club you’ve been looking for!
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads.
- Visit my website.
For our final episode in this series, we’re looking at what might have been the last play Shakespeare wrote: The Tempest. This play has marriage, magic, betrayal, and a happy ending—all things you’ve come to expect from the Bard. But what you might not expect is the commentary in the play on Indigenous vs. colonizer conflict. I’ll walk you through the ideas in The Tempest, who’s who, given you an act-by-act summary, and end with an explanation of the epilogue.
[5:12] “You’ll notice already that we’re getting a theme of the double: two brothers, two actions to shift power.”
[13:57] “And here, in Act IV, do we begin to get only one scene a piece. That means these separated groups will begin to come together.”
[18:54] “Some scholars have also argued that this 20-line epilogue was a way for Shakespeare himself to say goodbye to his audience.”
More resources for you:
- See what books are on the virtual literary salon schedule.
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads.
- Visit my website.
The Winter’s Tale is a changeling play: we can see where it switches from tragedy to romantic comedy making it seem like Shakespeare was trying to connect two stories. And it has an ending that is up for your interpretation (even as it sets everything to rights). Not only will you get a summary of the play in this episode, you’ll also hear about what the title means, if Shakespeare stole the story from another writer, and learn about one of the funniest deaths in a Shakespeare play. All in less than 25 minutes!
[1:54] “This change makes The Winter’s Tale one of Shakespeare’s problem plays, meaning it doesn’t fit nicely into the First Folio categories of history, tragedy, or comedy.”
[6:41] “… you’ll notice early one we’re getting jealousy and suspicion, some serious themes we’ve seen in well-known Shakespeare plays like King Lear or Hamlet.
[19:11] “What I find interesting is the feminist twist with Hermione at the end.”
More resources for you:
- See what books are on the virtual literary salon schedule.
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads.
- Visit my website.
There’s no place for Shakespeare to hide in this 20-minute episode! Not only does this episode give you an act-by-act breakdown of what is happening in Love’s Labour’s Lost, so you can better understand the action in the play, I also tell you when it was written, what might have inspired it, and what is the key theme you need to know about.
[1:01] “Unlike other plays, we don’t have, or aren’t conclusively sure, of a primary source that Shakespeare was inspired by.”
[7:17] “… as always in Shakespearean comedy the women are cleverer and wittier than the men.”
[14:39] “It’s like the Spider-Man meme where they are all pointing at each other—The King, Longavilla, and Dumaine.”
[18:35] “But did Shakespeare intend to come back to these couples? There is a play lost to us modern readers called, Love’s Labour’s Won.”
More resources for you:
- See what books are on the virtual literary salon schedule.
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads.
- Visit my website.
The Oxford University whose website says: “The biggest obstacle to enjoying Shakespeare is that niggling sense that understanding the works is a kind of literary IQ test.”
In this episode we’ll help you feel more prepared to face this “test” by looking at how to make it easier to read Shakespeare’s plays and giving you the answers to questions you’ve probably had about the man, the myth, and his works, including: What did he look like? Did he make up words? Why do we call him The Bard? Why is it bad luck to say “Macbeth” in a theatre?
And maybe most importantly: Why is Shakespeare still relevant?
We’ll even refresh your memory on his use of iambic pentameter (and why he uses measured AND unmeasured verse in some plays). Here’s an example of the emphasis when speaking a line from a Shakespeare play:
- So foul / and fair / a day / I have / not seen
[1:30] “First, I want to say it is challenging to read Shakespeare plays. Let’s all take a collective sigh of relief that we don’t have to pretend it isn’t.”
[10:04] “Rounding out his biography, you might be curious to know if there are any descendants that still bear the infamous playwright’s name."
[20:36] “And believe it or not, applying these modern lenses echo exactly what Shakespeare hoped to accomplish! He intended it to be problematic that Juliet is only 13 years old. He wants us to doubt that Romeo has fallen in love.”
More resources for you:
- See what books are on the virtual literary salon schedule.
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads.
- Visit my website.
One of the ways to better understand Shakespeare’s plays is to look at the historical context he was writing in. In this episode, I’ll share how he wrote and performed for two different monarchs: Elizabeth I and James I (of England). Keep in mind that this was still a time when depending how a play was interpreted, performances could easily have been seen as treasonous. So, Shakespeare actually had to have a honed political antenna.
We’ll look closer at how real-life events—including witchcraft, gunpowder, treason, and plot—made their way into Shakespeare’s plays.
[4:18] “It is said that Elizabeth knew Shakespeare’s work quite well, enough to make requests of what was performed… and even ask for certain characters to have more stage time.”
[13:42] “So, in a way, Shakespeare’s play was also a piece of propaganda. Or was it simply a playwright who had to continue to make money and entertain a monarch with their own agenda?”
[18:09] “What is kind of eerie about the Gunpowder Plot, and I give full credit to James Shapiro for highlighting this for me (and now you), is that King James and parliament knew about the plot through an anonymous letter. Very similar to how King Lear begins.”
More resources for you:
- See what books are on the virtual literary salon schedule.
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads.
- Visit my website.
I know that this season’s focus is going to have some people tune out immediately—but let me make the case as to why you might want to stick around.
Firstly, most of us know Shakespeare from our high school days. Let me assure you, this is NOT your high school Shakespeare! Secondly, looking at William Shakespeare is intimidating. I mean the guy has been popular for more than 400 years. Where do you even start? In this first episode I give you juicy gossip that could have used a 23andMe DNA test, show that Shakespeare could have been a business coach, and how we very nearly missed out on pop culture witches.
Sound different? My hope is that you’ll forget the mandatory readings urged on you in the classroom and start fresh with me in this series.
[11:49] “And with a royal court looking to him for entertainment… that’s where he found his inspiration as well!”
[13:29] “Oh yeah and there is definitely a class issue going on here. There is a struggle to believe that someone who wasn’t Oxford educated could capture the global imagination for generations.”
[18:12] “Because of this First Folio we continue to divide Shakespeare’s plays into comedies, histories, and tragedies.”
More resources for you:
- See what books are on the virtual literary salon schedule.
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads.
- See the list of Shakespeare plays broken down by type.
- Use code podcastlove at checkout for 20% off your ticket to August’s online book discussion of Maggie O’Farrell’s latest novel, The Marriage Portrait
In this last episode of the series on the Brontës we’re finally looking at brother Branwell and I recommend some novels that interact with the Bronte’s works—from modern retellings to spin offs. You can see Branwell’s painting of his sisters here.
If you haven’t yet read Anne’s novel Agnes Grey, or you’re due for a revisit, sign up for the August 2023 virtual discussion on this book. Click here to sign up and don’t forget to use code podcastlove to get 20% off your ticket to participate in the discussion—it’s better than a book club!
[10:52] “Recent years have opened up a more sympathetic understanding of Branwell, perhaps due to our wider conversations about mental health and addiction.”
[16:10] “It seems there is still a gap to be filled with reference to Anne and her two novels Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall."
[18:26] “Without many female writing role models, the women of the nineteenth century who picked up their pen often had to hide their creative depths in their own personal ‘attics’, maintaining established and expected ideas of femininity on the outside.”
Books mentioned in this episode:
- Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
- Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
- The Life of Charlotte Brontë by Elizabeth Gaskell
- The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë by Daphne du Maurier
- Jamaica Inn; My Cousin Rachel; Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
- Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
- Emma by Charlotte Brontë and Another Lady
- Emma Brown by Clare Boyland
- Mr. Rochester by Sarah Shoemaker
- Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye
- The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell
- Nelly Dean by Alison Case
- The Heights by Juliet Bell
- Ill Will and Walk the Invisible by Michael Stewart
- The Mad Women in the Attic by Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar
More resources for you:
- Sign up to participate in the virtual discussion on Anne’s Agnes Grey. It's better than a book club.
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads.
- Visit my website.
A super juicy look at how Charlotte Brontë negatively influenced the popularity of her sister’s works and how we remember them today. Did Charlotte believe she was acting with her sister’s best interest when it came to their legacies? Or did she have ambitions of being the Brontë sibling we remember the most?
- Don’t forget to register for the August 2023 virtual discussion on Anne’s novel Agnes Grey. Click here to sign up and don’t forget to use code podcastlove to get 20% off your ticket to participate in the discussion.
[8:24] “After the death of both Emily and Anne, Charlotte took the step to reach out to her publisher proposing she edit a new edition of her sisters’ works.”
[17:25] “In her Biographical Notes on the Pseudonymous Bells, she went even further, hinting that it was the toxic and difficult novel that brought about Anne’s demise.”
[23:24] “It has also led many scholars, and Emily and Anne fans, curious (and maybe even furious) to wonder if Charlotte went so far as to destroy other sources or even draft manuscripts.”
Books mentioned in this episode:
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
- Biographical Notes on the Pseudonymous and the preface to Wuthering Heights.
- Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
- The Professor by Charlotte Brontë
- Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
- Read some of Emily’s poetry online.
- The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell
More resources for you:
- Sign up to participate in the virtual discussion on Anne’s Agnes Grey. It's better than a book club.
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads.
- Visit my website.
Today’s episode is all about the most well-known Brontë sister: Charlotte. While her presence has been felt in the other episodes, here we’ll look more closely at her personal life and her novels. If you’re a fan of the novel Jane Eyre, you might want to read my blog post about the fairy tale elements or listen to the episode titled Modern Gothic from my last podcast series.
[4:40] “It would be in this city on the continent, far away from home, that Charlotte would find an infatuation worthy to make into a plot.”
[14:34] “While a more public life kept her busy, Charlotte never seemed comfortable in the limelight and very often came across as awkward."
[19:34] “… we can’t just look at Charlotte as the naïve champion for her sister’s publications, but as a force that altered their (and subsequently our) memories of them.”
Books mentioned in this episode:
- The Professor by Charlotte Brontë
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
- The Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
- Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
- Villette by Charlotte Brontë
- Shirley, A Tale by Charlotte Brontë
- Vanity Fair by William Thackeray
- Emma by Jane Austen
- Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
More resources for you:
- See what books are on the virtual literary salon schedule. It's the book club you've always dreamt of joining!
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads.
- Visit my website.
Hear how Anne Brontë, the youngest child in the family, has been cast as the lesser-known talent in popular culture (although undeservedly so!). In August we’re bringing Anne into the light by reading and talking about her novel Agnes Grey. Click here to sign up for the discussion and don’t forget to use code podcastlove to get 20% off your ticket.
[6:43] “Unfortunately, this would turn out disastrous as both siblings would return home in 1845 when her brother had been dismissed for ‘making love to his employer’s wife.’”
[15:16] “In the preface to the second edition, Anne responded by arguing that women could write as boldly as men.”
[17:24] “It isn’t clear if she hoped the sea air would provide some relief from her ailments or if she foresaw her death and hoped to visit a happy place one last time.”
Books mentioned in this episode:
- The Graduate by Charles Webb
- Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Action Bell
- Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
- The Professor by Charlotte Brontë
- The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë
More resources for you:
- Sign up to participate in the virtual discussion on Anne’s Agnes Grey. It's better than a book club.
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads.
- Visit my website.
I’m so excited to share my love of Emily Brontë with you by diving into what she might have been like during her lifetime. While we only have a few surviving writings by her, including her single novel Wuthering Heights, from these tidbits Emily has often been cast as the wild child of the Brontë family. Once you’ve listened to today’s episode, you might want to watch Kate Bush’s music video for her song “Wuthering Heights.”
[2:59] “One of the family servants described her as preferring the company of pets to people and that she had ‘the eyes of a half-tamed creature.’”
[11:17] “What we do know for sure is that Emily was so angry at Charlotte for this intrusion into her privacy that she didn’t speak to her sister for days.”
[13:20] “But often Hollywood only portrays 16 of the novel’s 34 chapters, leaving out a whole lot of plot!”
Books mentioned in this episode:
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- The Poems of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
More resources for you:
- See what books are on the virtual literary salon schedule. It's the book club you've always dreamt of joining!
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads.
- Visit my website.
Welcome back to the Le Salon Literary Discussions podcast! In this series we are talking all about the Brontës. Chances are you’ve heard of the novel Jane Eyre and maybe even Wuthering Heights, but over the next six episodes we’re going to look at the women behind these lasting novels—sisters Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—and their legacy. In this first episode we’re tracing their early family life and writings but also exploring the myth around these siblings as secluded literary geniuses.
[2:54] “That’s right: the famous last name that would become known to readers centuries later, Brontë, was NOT Patrick’s original last name.”
[10:41] “In a letter, Charlotte writes that ‘we did not like to declare ourselves women, because… we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice.’”
[12:02] “There is something gendered about this myth. The words “untaught” and “naïve” lend themselves specifically to women of the era. It reinforces the idea that the sisters produced excellent art despite their limitations.”
Books mentioned in this episode:
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
- The Cottage in the Woods by Patrick Brontë
- The Maid of Killarney by Patrick Brontë
- Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell
More resources for you:
- See what books are on the virtual literary salon schedule.
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads.
- Visit my website.
In today’s last episode on the English Gothic novel, we’re tying up loose ends by looking at more women writers in the genre (in chronological order) and how racialized communities have turned Colonial Gothic on its head. All while continuing to demonstrate how the early tropes are still being used (and manipulated) today!
🌟 Don’t want it to be over? Sign up for one of the upcoming virtual literary salons (it’s the book club you’ve always dreamed of!): literarysalon.ca/virtual.
[2:00] “I want to instead highlight women writers and racialized communities and how Gothic has given them a genre to explore their histories, traumas, and feelings.”
[4:17] “But what cannot be missed in Dacre’s work, is the strong and sexual female characters throughout. She challenged established gender roles and boundaries in her work, and for that alone, Zofloya is worth a read.”
[14:06] “Wide Sargasso Sea is part of a tradition of bringing those with mental illness, those off stage, those people of colour, into the main storyline. And more and more modern authors are using the Gothic to do the same.”
Books mentioned in this episode:
- Because there are so many mentioned in the section on women Gothic writers, get the full list in this blog post.
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
- Dracula by Bram Stoker
- Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
- Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
- “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gillman
- Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith
Connect with Marisa:
- See what books are on the virtual literary salon schedule.
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads and Twitter @lesalonreads.
- Visit my website.
There are many rabbit holes we could go down when looking at the subgenres or new areas spawned from Gothic literature. But, with the aim of keeping these episodes informational but not more than 30 minutes, we’re going to look at three key ones: the haunted house, Southern Gothic, and dark academia.
[4:46] “The Haunting of Hill House is considered a perfect example of this trope—Stephen King even said so!”
[11:42] “Much like the early English Gothic novels that placed their scary settings in hot climates, like Italy and Spain, Southern Gothic includes this ‘heat’ for the same reasons: believing that the oppressive heat made people hot tempered or unable to think clearly.”
[14:53] “In these old and shadowed places, there is the potential for a dark underbelly—usually taking the form of secret societies with often-unhealthy thirst for knowledge.”
Books mentioned in this episode:
- Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
- The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
- The Shining by Stephen King
- The Monk by Matthew Lewis
- The Yellow Wall-Paper by Charlotte Perkins Gillman
- Home Before Dark by Riley Sager
- Beloved by Toni Morrison
- The Witching Hour by Anne Rice
- Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt
- The Secret History by Donna Tartt
- If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio
- Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
- They Never Learn by Layne Fargo
- Bunny by Mona Awad
- Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
- Babel by R. F. Kuang
Connect with Marisa:
- See what books are on the virtual literary salon schedule.
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads
- Visit my website.
Matthew "Monk" Lewis created his Gothic horror novel, The Monk, that shocked London society before his 20thbirthday. In this episode, we look at how taking the Gothic down the road to horror opened the genre to so many best-selling authors today!
[3:09] “In his work the mind and the body are assaulted by human and supernatural forces… With a twist of sexual urges.”
[9:51] “The truth is: The Monk and The Italian were published the same year—1796. Given the plot similarities, it is likely that they both knew what Gothic tropes they wanted to use, but presented them in two very different ways.”
[18:16] “His swerve towards horror in his Gothic novel would be the precursor to and inspiration for H. P. Lovecraft, Richard Matheson, Octavia E. Butler, Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, to name a few.”
Books mentioned in this episode:
- The Monk by Matthew Lewis
- The Castle Spectre by Matthew Lewis
- The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
- The Italian by Ann Radcliffe
- The Mystery of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe
- The Invisible life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab
Connect with Marisa:
- See what books are on the virtual literary salon schedule.
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads
- Visit my website.
Ann Radcliffe, the mother of the English Gothic novel, used her tales of terror to look at feminist themes like inheritance and the dangers of marriage. Unfortunately, her own biography demonstrates that she was confined by what was expected of women writers and is still missing form Gothic 101 syllabi.
[1:22] “As a fun fact to start us off: if you’re a Jane Austen fan, you may recognize the title The Mysteries of Udolpho.”
[5:52] “In fact, there is an argument to be made that even though female protagonists are threatened, scared, and locked away, they find a way to endure throughout the story.”
[13:48] “She was an incredibly popular novelist during her lifetime—some believing the most popular of the era."
Books mentioned in this episode:
- Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
- The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe
- The Italian by Ann Radcliffe
- Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
- Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft
- The Romance of the Forest by Ann Radcliffe
- Waverly by Sir Walter Scott
- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
- A Sicilian Romance by Ann Radcliffe
More resources for you:
- See what books are on the virtual literary salon schedule.
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads and Twitter @lesalonreads.
- Visit my website.
Horace Walpole lived and breathed the Gothic. His novel, The Castle of Otranto, is considered the first English Gothic novel, earning him the title of ‘father of Gothic’. In this episode, we’ll look at his biography, his inspiration for his “Gothic story”, and his legacy.
[1:15] “For the man who began the English Gothic novel era, he isn’t exactly what you’d expect.”
[12:48] “If you’ve read Shakespeare’s Hamlet, you’ll get a very similar vibe to Otranto.”
[15:59] “Let the critics have their say: I shall not be vexed: it was not written for their age which wants nothing but cold reason. I own to you, and you will think me madder than ever, that of all my works it is the only one in which I pleased myself.”
Books mentioned in this episode:
- The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- The Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum
- Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard IIIby Horace Walpole
- The Monk by Matthew Lewis
- The Mysterious Motherby Horace Walpole
More resources for you:
- See what books are on the virtual literary salon schedule.
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads and Twitter @lesalonreads.
- Visit my website.
Diving right into Spooky Season by tracing the history of the English Gothic novel. In this first episode of the series, we discuss where the term “Gothic” came from and how it moved from architecture to literature in England in the late eighteenth century. We then trace the evolution of the English Gothic novel from 1764 up until the beginning of the 20th century by looking at the tropes that define the genre and, of course, a mention of Freud.
[3:45] “For historical context, English Gothic literature emerged at a time of political, economic, and social upheaval.”
[10:26] “Gothic [found] itself relegated to the popular and trashy realm of cheap, formulaic fiction.”
[15:00] “But what Freud also provided was a springboard of sorts for the Gothic to travel across the Atlantic.”
Books mentioned in this episode:
- The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
- Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
- Pamela by Samuel Richardson
- The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson’s
- The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
- Dracula by Bram Stoker
- A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
- Edgar Huntly by Charles Brockden Brown
More resources for you:
- See what books are on the virtual literary salon schedule.
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads.
- Follow me on Twitter @lesalonreads.
- Visit my website.
A little about what you can expect from the Le Salon Literary Discussion’s podcast.
Meet your host, Marisa, and learn about the French salon tradition this bookish business is based on. I am all about providing resources—from virtual discussions to breaking down literary theory—that enhance what it is you’re reading. It’s educational tidbits without the tuition!
Each podcast series will be on a specific theme and launched seasonally. This way we’ll dive into different writers, books, genres, and more—all in 30 minutes or less.
More resources for you:
- See what books are on the virtual literary salon schedule.
- Follow me on Instagram @lesalonreads.
- Follow me on Twitter @lesalonreads.
- Visit my website.