Gothic Fiction by Ren

Known for its cuckoo clocks, what mountainous region of Germany frequently serves as a setting for Gothic fiction and some disturbing fairy tales, and is even named in the subtitle of a well-known "horrid" novel?

Speaking of "horrid" novels, which Austen character rattles off a list of them, preceded by mention of the arguably just as delightfully horrid novels of Ann Radcliffe?

The genre may have roots in the 18th century, but Lawrence Olivier and Joan Fontaine fanned the flames of Gothic horror alongside this actress in a film adapted from a novel authored by the granddaughter of Svengali's creator.

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Shelley's classic Frankenstein offers a horrific scenario of reanimation after death of a creature fashioned by the most macabre of methods. One would think anyone familiar with the novel would refrain from tinkering with human life so gruesomely, although perhaps this Italian neurosurgeon, who claims a human head transplant -- to take place in China, maybe -- is forthcoming, has not read it?

An unexpectedly chilly visit to which glacial lake birthed a handful of dark tales, including a precursor to Bram Stoker's epistolary novel?

You can't raise the dead without a little lightning ... this Italian scientist toyed with dissected frogs and an electric current. Although he failed to discern the actual source of the current, his investigations set the course for modern study of electrophysiology.

Can one truly have a Gothic tale without a murder? Legally, perhaps, murder is crime perpetrated only by homo sapiens but it is pongo pygmaeus that "stands" accused in this mystery narrative authored by a native son of Baltimore. Give the common name of the guilty party.

Apparently Gothic fiction can't get away from Italy, either. This short story, written by an American, takes place in Padua, and features a poisonous woman (because if you are female and not in distress in a Gothic bit of fiction, you surely must be the source of others' distress).

How many tales are in the fictional first small press run of the fictional collection of short stories Thirteen Tales of Change and Desperation?

A Latin origin characterizes this adjective often applied to distressed Gothic heroines ensnared in tragic circumstances; a cognate frequently appears as the title of a discrete movement in a requiem mass.

Who wrote this?

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At times distinct from a will, this type of document effectively imprisoned an adolescent heiress to her Uncle Silas' Bartram-Haugh mansion until she would come of age.