Abstract
Immortality is one of the strongest themes of Gothic science fiction, but it has its beginnings in the traditional Gothic writings of the late 18th century. In these texts the ‘immortality’ in question manifested itself in the form of ancestral lineage or the preservation of a family line and name that would create an immortality of sorts for those carrying the name and those residing in an ancestral home. It was the root of the evil in Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto and it was at the heart of Clara Reeve’s The Old English Baron, and continued to be a recurrent theme in Gothic fiction for many years.
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© 2015 Sian MacArthur
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MacArthur, S. (2015). ‘One Day, I Shall Come Back. Yes, I Shall Come Back’: Immortality and the Fight for Humanity in Gothic Science Fiction. In: Gothic Science Fiction. The Palgrave Gothic Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137389275_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137389275_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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