SOURCE: Cox, Jeffrey N. “Introduction.” In Seven Gothic Dramas, 1789-1825, edited by Jeffrey N. Cox, pp. 1-78. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1992.

In the following excerpt, Cox examines Baillie's use of Gothic conventions in De Monfort. The critic focuses specifically on the depiction of women in Gothic literature as representative of their roles in society.

From 1798 to 1851—for over half a century—Joanna Baillie was the most respected and arguably the most important playwright in England. She wrote twenty-six plays. Her first volume of A Series of Plays: In Which It is Attempted To Delineate The Stronger Passions of the Mind Each Passion Being The Subject of A Tragedy and a Comedy (usually referred to as the Plays on the Passions) went through five editions in the first six years following its publication in 1798. Seven of her plays were staged during her lifetime, the most important of them—De...