Shades of Sail: Edwardian Nautical Hauntings

Alder, Emily

Abstract

Ghost ships are an enduring trope in history, literature, and folklore of the sea, and continually change in meaning according to their cultural contexts. The early twentieth century produced British nautical gothic fiction that grapples with the implications of the transition from sail to steam and new naval technologies in the lead-up to the First World War. In three stories by William Hope Hodgson, Oliver Onions, and Richard Middleton, I examine how ghost ships from the sailing past return from the dimensions of ocean and time, to haunt the present and negotiate anxieties and hopes about a changing modern world.

Citation

Alder, E. (2021). Shades of Sail: Edwardian Nautical Hauntings. In C. Bloom (Ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Steam Age Gothic (839-856). Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40866-4_45

• Online Publication Date: Feb 4, 2021
• Publication Date: 2021
• Deposit Date: May 7, 2021
• Publisher: Springer
• Pages: 839-856
• Book Title: The Palgrave Handbook of Steam Age Gothic
• ISBN: 9783030408657
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40866-4_45
• Keywords: Ghost ship, Sea, Nautical gothic, Age of Sail, First World War, Navy, British empire
• Public URL: http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/2770373