Angela Carter – Interesting Literature

A Summary and Analysis of Angela Carter’s ‘The Courtship of Mr Lyon’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Courtship of Mr Lyon’, which was originally published in the British version of Vogue magazine, is a 1979 short story by Angela Carter (1940-92). The story was later collected in Carter’s 1979 book The Bloody Chamber.

Like most of the stories in The Bloody Chamber, ‘The Courtship of Mr Lyon’ took its inspiration from classic fairy tales. In this case, Carter’s story is a reworking of the ‘Beauty and the Beast’ tale. But precisely how we should approach, and analyse, Carter’s take on this well-known story requires a closer look at the text.

A Summary and Analysis of Angela Carter’s ‘The Erl-King’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Erl-King’ is a short story from The Bloody Chamber, a 1979 collection of feminist stories by the British writer Angela Carter (1940-92). In the story, a young girl wanders into a wood where a mysterious man of the forest seduces her; in his dwelling are cages containing birds which were once other young girls whom he has imprisoned with him in the forest.

A Summary and Analysis of Angela Carter’s ‘Wolf-Alice’

‘Wolf-Alice’ is a short story from The Bloody Chamber, the 1979 collection of modern fairy tales written by the British author Angela Carter (1940-92). The story tells of a girl raised by wolves who goes to live with a Duke who is a werewolf.

You can read ‘Wolf-Alice’ here before proceeding to our summary and analysis of the story below.

A Summary and Analysis of Angela Carter’s ‘The Werewolf’

‘The Werewolf’ is one of the shortest stories in Angela Carter’s 1979 collection The Bloody Chamber. This collection is notable for its feminist take on traditional fairy tales, and ‘The Werewolf’ is no exception. The story tells of a young girl who injures a wolf on the way to visit her grandmother in the forest, and contains a grisly twist at the end of the tale.

A Summary and Analysis of Angela Carter’s ‘The Bloody Chamber’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Bloody Chamber’ is the title story in Angela Carter’s 1979 collection of fairy tales rewritten from a feminist perspective. In the story, the longest in the collection, a young bride recounts her marriage to a Marquis whose previous three wives all died in mysterious circumstances, and the grisly discovery she made in a ‘bloody chamber’ of his castle.