Introduction:Towards the Haunted Midlands

Abstract

The English Midlands is home to a rich and distinctive gothic tradition: vast landscapes with nebulous borders disorient the traveller spatially as well as temporally, the unsettled legacies of ancient Mercia seep into the present day, and the ghosts – and ecological repercussions – of industrialisation haunt regions such as the Black Country. Yet this cultural tradition is largely underexplored. This introduction to the ‘Haunted Midlands’ special issue of Midland History begins to elaborate the ways in which the Midlands can be productively placed within, and complicate, critical frameworks associated with regionalist literary studies. It does so with specific reference to a selection of key Midlands gothic texts, all of which evidence a fascination with place, placelessness, and the relationship between the Midlands and the nation of which it forms a significant part.<br/