Monsters presents a critical, historical and theoretical account of monstrosity in fiction, politics and science from the eighteenth century to the present. It outlines distinctive features of monsters and details their changing and complex significance, role and effect in analyses of key Gothic texts, including The Castle of Otranto, Frankenstein, Dracula. Identifying both continuities and alterations in their appearance and meaning in different contexts, the argument tracks the way monsters shift from cautionary and revolting beings to figures of transformation.