ABSTRACT
Though Sheridan LeFanu (1814-1873) could be regarded as continuing Radcliffean traditions, the complexity of his protagonists and point of view in works like Uncle Silas (1864) and "Carmilla" (1872) anticipate the psychological ambiguity of modern Gothicism and separate LeFanu from lesser-known contemporaries. Fear of the present and future rather than the past also distinguishes the most significant Gothics of the period: Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886), Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), H. G. Wells's The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897). Analyzed in view of late Victorian cultural phenomena-sexual repression, loss of religious faith and moral absolutes, scientific and psychological research, and imperialism-these novels demonstrate the power of Gothic fiction to address the shifting anxieties of readers coping with the changes, uncertainties, and dangers of both Victorian and modern worlds.