For Mary Wollstonecraft, the word “gothic” would not have denoted a kind of literature, let alone a mode or genre. At best, it would have signaled an architectural style and the epoch and people who produced it. Literally denoting “of the Goths,” the word signified “medieval,” perhaps vaguely “barbarous”: at once “not classical” and “not modern.” It also carried political connotations, thanks to the widespread belief that the ancient Goths were the same Germanic invaders who had settled in England during the late Roman Empire. Synonymous with nativist associations of pre-Norman England, it could be associated with various Saxon traits of inclusiveness, fairness, vigor, and forthrightness. Students of popular culture already will have a notion how such a rich yet opaque term could come, with time, to denote a literature. And once established, Gothic’s blend of historical fantasy, uncanny phenomena, sexual danger, and extreme situations has never left us.