Hi, I'm new to the forum. Of recently I got hooked on gothic romance from the 50's-70's. I was wondering if anyone had a ballpark estimate on how many titles there actually were in that time period that could be called "gothic romance".
There were probably thousands of titles published during this period, but I'd wager a good third of them were mystery/horror/thrillers repackaged as "Gothics". There was such a craze during the 1970s that publishers couldn't keep up with demand, so they slapped Gothic-style covers on everything under the sun and hoped readers wouldn't notice. I have a hunch this was partly responsible for the decline of the genre; the quality slipped and the emphasis on sub-genres like "Satanic Gothics" drained the blood out of the field and into the rising tributary of modern horror fiction.
P.S. -- Not that some of these horror Gothics weren't good -- just that the genre broke up along faultlines and continental drift finished it off.
P.P.S. -- Excuse my bad metaphors . . . I've been reading Raymond Chandler lately.
A lot!
If you google: "Mystery File Gothic Romantic Suspense paperbacks", a website for a list of various gothic romantic-suspense comes up. The list is not complete by any means, but I think good representation of gothics are listed. Also, Gothic Journal.com has a catalog of the gothics that they offer in their lending library. Lots of books listed there!