The Bloody Chamber

The genius that lies behind the best collections of short stories, such as Angela Carter's "The Bloody Chamber," relies on developing a theme in the stories that is inherently dependent upon the reader's response.

In "The Bloody Chamber," Carter re-tells fairy tales such as Red Riding Hood and Cinderella, from a feisty feminist point of view meant to evoke both horror and a bit of revenge from most feminist readers. How that combination of horror and revenge affects our psyches is most revealing to the readers as to how they react to the new version of a very old, if… show more.

I am a huge fan of the very-brief gothic. It’s so hard to do well; trivial jump-scares are easy, but to produce a meaningful effect in only a few pages takes real precision. Shirley Jackson holds the crown with "The Lottery," but my second favorite instance of a surprisingly quick read that produces a real gasp is Angela Carter’s mini-treasure, "The Werewolf."

It manages to be a fairy tale, feminist critique, a witch, and a werewolf story all at once—and, like the beast in the title, it may not be what it appears. Also wonderful to me are "The Company… show more.

I read this book as a teenager, and it blew my mind. I always loved fairytales but thought that growing up meant putting them away. Angela Carter’s collection of radical, feminist short stories revises tales such as Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, and Beauty of the Beast while also exposing the violence and sex that were under their surface all along.  

While more of an anthology than a book, this still encapsulates the theme quite well. Perhaps more suited to a mini episodic format than a feature-length film, Carter still imbues many of her short stories with striking and unforgettable imagery.

I think of the titular story and its ancient castle by the sea or The Erl-King and its inescapable labyrinth of a forest and am left dumbfounded that I have not seen it rendered anywhere other than my own mind’s eye.

I return to this dark, sensual collection of Angela Carter stories most autumns, often through audio book. While these are not technically romance stories, they’re what I call romance-adjacent: fairy tales centered on love and passion—and their dangers—with gorgeous language and twists that subvert your expectations.

My favorite story here is “In the Company of Wolves,” but really that’s like choosing a favorite child.

This anthology of dark fairy tales is everything I love in fiction.

As Carter once said herself, she liked to pour new wine into old bottles, giving them a shake and then seeing them explode. This is something I also do in my own writing - taking the themes of myths or fairy tales and weaving their darkness into my Victorian gothic novels. 

Angela Carter’s collection of retold tales is considered a classic work of feminist fiction. The author disassembles well-known fairy tales, such as “Bluebeard,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” and “Beauty and the Beast,” and churns them into subversive narratives that evoke an underlying current of female rage. In her titular story, “The Bloody Chamber," Carter brings the classic “Bluebeard” tale into the 1970s and expands the backstory of the main protagonist, giving her history and motivation for the choices she makes. The author doesn’t shy away from the violence of the original tale, wrapping it in the gothic style. While many… show more.

When I first discovered that books could be more than entertainment, I saw them as a private space between authors and readers, safe from the tyranny of respectability, convention, and conformity, where truths could be told. Angela Carter occupies that space. Fairytales, fables, and folklore are deconstructed and retold by an author for whom society’s repression of the feminine is all too obvious. (Neil Jordan collaborated with the author on a magical movie adaptation of a few of these tales in A Company of Wolves). Go wild.

I read this book when my mind needs a holiday from the mundane world, and it always restores me. Blood-edged and sharp-toothed, it’s a collection of retold fairy tales written with passionate vividness, dry humour, and pure poetic sensuality. Carter brings a modern eye to Bluebeard, Red Riding Hood, and the rest, but her tellings feel almost primal: there’s a tangibility to them, a scent that comes off the page, and her play with language feels like she’s drawing you into a wicked conspiracy with her. I adore this book! 

Several reviewers of my book referred to Angela Carter, so I decided to revisit my collection after many years.

A rich and chilling retelling of my childhood nightmare story Bluebeard heads Angela Carter’s collection. Carter delights in the gruesome and gory detail, the blood-soaked keys, the dripping corpses. When I was a child I was terrified of the illustration in my fairy tale book of a hanging row of girls in beautiful blood-stained gowns, I couldn’t read the actual story, I was too frightened, but time and again I returned to that vivid illustration, horribly fascinated. Now, many years later,… show more.