Emma Tennant, The Bad Sister

Gina Wisker (University of Brighton)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.3: Scottish Writing and Culture, 400-present.
Vol. editors: Kate Ash-Irisarri (University of Edinburgh), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), J. Derrick McClure (University of Aberdeen)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1978

Places

Scotland (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

The Bad Sister (1978) is a tale of witches in contemporary life. Drawing from and reinterpreting James Hogg\'s classic Gothic taleConfessions of a Justified Sinner, which focused on an evil alter ego, the novel is itself rather schizophrenic, alternating between a documentary account of the murder of Michael Dalzell and his daughter, tracked down by an editor, and a hallucinatory account maintained by Jane, the other, illegitimate daughter, who seems to have perpetrated the crime.

Rejecting his less conventional lover, Michael Dalzell chooses a society girl and settles happily on the Borders of Scotland, only to have this relative peace disturbed by the intrusion of “fierce-looking women” (p.12 in …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

361 words

Citation: Wisker, Gina. "The Bad Sister". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 01 January 2002 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=1527, accessed 27 November 2024.]

Save this article