The criminal and the Gothic: New book explores law's darker side

A new book by Dr Barbara Hughes-Moore traces current criminal law issues back to their Gothic origins in the late nineteenth century.

The Criminal in Gothic Fiction and Contemporary Law: Literary and Legal Doubles was published by Routledge in June 2026.

The book explores how law has characterised certain people as ‘criminal’, ‘monstrous’ or ‘deviant’, and argues that Gothic fiction can help us better understand the fears, stereotyping and power structures that continue to influence ideas of criminality today.

We spoke to Dr Hughes-Moore to find out more…

What inspired you to pursue this area of study and write this book?

The book started out as my PhD thesis, and after I finished it, I wanted to turn it into its own thing; to stitch together the pieces, Frankenstein-style, into something new. As a longtime fan of the genre, I’m always looking to the Gothic for ways to make life weirder and more whimsical, and I look to it often as a resource when teaching law – especially criminal law, which is awash with Gothic features (revenge, blood, murder).

What does the book tell us about society's understanding of criminality?

That ‘the criminal’ is something that changes and evolves as society changes and evolves. Often, who we decide to label as ‘criminals’ speaks to deeper cultural fears at a specific time and place.

I focus on the Victorian era, which was a time of Imperial and industrial expansion, and also a time when emerging disciplines like criminology, psychology, and forensics were having a profound impact on how law assigned responsibility for ‘criminal’ actions.

It was also a time when British institutions were particularly hostile to people who weren’t white, straight, cisgender, or able-bodied; a time in which homophobia and misogyny, classism and racism, underpinned a good deal of mainstream thinking in law, literature and society. Harmful stereotypes of this kind were used to criminalise certain behaviours and thereby to control certain people.

We can also see these fears in the literature of the time, such as Gothic novels, which likewise evolve over time. For example, the literary vampire may once have been considered a perpetrator of crime (as in Stoker’s Dracula), but has since been reclaimed as a liberated, and liberating, figure who subverts heteronormative gender roles.

Were there any particularly surprising discoveries that emerged during your research?

That Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker knew each other, went to the same university, and even fell in love with the same woman! Bram Stoker stole Oscar Wilde’s girlfriend. I love tracing these unexpected connections. The Gothic is endlessly surprising because it is always being reinvented, subverted and transformed.

Who do you hope will read the book?

I think the book will especially appeal to those teaching, studying, or researching legal history, or fans of Victorian Gothic novels – but I hope it also has a more general appeal to those interested in the things that go bump in the night!

What do you hope people take away from it?

That the law is a very scary thing. Law controls us, and compels us to obey it; it can take away our property, our liberty, and even our lives. It acts upon us without having to touch us or even directly instruct us: it’s there whenever we cross a road, whenever we get on a train, whenever we eat or sleep. But I hope that readers will take comfort in the Gothic, as I do, in the ways it can teach us how to confront, process, and articulate our fears.

Could you share what its publication means to you?

You know the saying that there are only two people you need to make proud of you: your 8-year-old self and your 80-year-old self. Well, 8-year-old me would be so stoked to know she’d one day grow up to write a book about vampires!