At the height of the Victorian period, a passion for Gothic style swept England and spread far beyond. Gothic architecture, associated with the social and cultural ideals of the Middle Ages, was seen as a means of remaking the modern world.

In this lucid exposition, Chris Brooks unravels the layers of meaning that Gothic held for its many reinventors: from the political uses of Gothic history in the seventeenth century to Barry and Pugin's Houses of Parliament in the mid-nineteenth. Yet Gothic is not just buildings: continually recreated, it has taken the form of poetry and fiction, of painting and sculpture, of movies and video games, of Gothic music and Gothic punk. This is the first book to deal comprehensively with the whole scope of the Gothic Revival.