ABSTRACT
Straddling Enlightenment empiricism and Romantic aesthetics, Gothic fiction of the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century engages with both ancient folklore and budding theories of political economy as a way of understanding the cultural discourse contemporary to its time. Gothic fiction often focuses on the inevitability of consequences, and "The Vampyre" makes it clear that unmitigated self-interest is horrific. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations attempts to describe its own phenomena—economics. Smith sets out to gather information about the intricacies of societies, looking at how a society gathers its wealth, from where, and to what effect. Smith understands there to be certain compulsory sentiments tethered to human nature and the experience of them as equal parts physical and intellectual, additionally molded by situation and upbringing. As Smith explains, It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
