This section contains excerpts from two sermons, one from the thirteenth century by Thomas of Chobham who wrote a number of sermons, a work on preaching and a work on virtues and vices, and one anonymous sermon in macaronic form, from the fifteenth century, in which Latin and English are blended to create a syntactically homogeneous whole. The purpose of such macaronic sermons is unclear. The third item in this section is a short ghost-story, which appears in a commonplace book, and was possibly used in a sermon to make a point about the importance of the Mass for remission from time in Purgatory.

The chapter explores the emergence of the American short story in the context of a “culture of wonder” that dominated the Atlantic world of print prior to Washington Irving. Although ghost stories, and tales of apparitions and witchcraft were often discarded as formless pieces, these “small tales” were widely reprinted in the pages of early transatlantic magazines, fostering sensational effects as well as transgressive stories about individuals whose behavior was outside the norm. The chapter examines the circulation of early short narratives in the context of serialized imprints such as magazines and newspapers. It focuses on popular topics such as ghost stories and sensationalistic tales. Moreover, the chapter unearths the rich archive of transatlantic storytelling, demonstrating how the short form combines oral and textual performances conditioning the nineteenth-century tale as it can be found in the writings of Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe.

Though railways have been frequently depicted as icons of the progressive and the dynamic within British Victorian fiction, their secular and timetabled culture is, in fact, more often than not freighted with a disruptive Gothic presence. This chapter begins by noting how the construction of the railways in the nineteenth century literally impacted upon the built and cultural environments, laying waste to familiar landmarks and marking the bodies of those who travel as well as those who serve the engines of progress. The chapter considers the theme of physical violence and sexual interference within the closed space of the railway carriage, making reference to popular newspaper reportage and erotic fiction before engaging with the issue of psychological trauma and isolation, particularly among those whose task is as much to protect, as to transport, the travelling public.