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Abstract:

The article deals with “Wondersmith”, a novella by Fitz James O’Brien, clearly a transitional text within the Gothic tradition. The author partially draws materisl from stories by Poe and Hoffmann, uses a variety of literary models and allusions. The story is based on a complex system of oppositions (living vs. artificial, human vs. animal etc.) partially following the Romantic tradition, partially anticipates ghost stories of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As a result, the text is somewhat eclectic and excess, but the ‛seams’ help to see how the author reworks European tradition in an attempt to create something new. The value of “Wondersmith” for a historian lies in the very fact that it visibly demonstrates the dynamics of literary forms, the transition from a romantic fairy tale to a ghost story.