This volume investigates the intersection of Gothic literary conventions and the evolution of verse within the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Caroline Franklin, an established scholar of Romantic and Gothic literature, provides a curated selection of primary texts alongside critical apparatus to contextualize how poetic form mirrored the anxieties and aesthetic shifts of the era. The work argues that Gothic verse was not merely a peripheral genre but a central vehicle for exploring themes of terror, the sublime, and social transgression.

The framing suggests a scholarly, academic resource intended for students and researchers of British Romanticism. The inclusion of specific prose touchstones indicates a focus on the intertextual relationship between Gothic poetry and the development of the Gothic novel.