Abstract

In current mass market children's fiction, Gothic dominates and reviewers lavish praise on anything deemed “deliciously scary” (Merritt 2010), “deliciously spinetingling” (Seymenliyska 2011), “chilling, creepy and utterly compelling” (Lewis 2012), “marvellously strange and scary” (Pullman 2002: 33) or “wonderfully macabre” (Riddell 2009). Traditional fantasy and Golden Age “back-list” favorites have been swept aside in this Gothic craze, which constitutes a huge variety of styles, genres and audiences: pitch-perfect Gothic pastiche in Chris Priestley's The Tales of Terror (2007–9) and Anne Fine's The Devil Walks (2011); splatter horror in Darren Shan's Demonata series (2005–9); psychological Gothic in Patrick Ness's A Monster Calls (2011) and Neil Gaiman's Coraline (2002); dark fantasy with Joseph Delaney's The Spook's Apprentice (2004); adventures on the high seas with Justin Somper's Vampirates (2005–11); wisecracks with Derek Landy's Noir detective Skulduggery Pleasant (2007–12); dystopian horror in Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games (2008) and, of course, sparkly vampires in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight (2005).