Tasmanian Gothic is a genre of Tasmanian literature that merges traditions of Gothic fiction with the history and natural features of Tasmania, an island state south of the main Australian continent. Tasmanian Gothic has inspired works in other artistic media, including theatre and film. Origins The genre was named by in a 1989 Meanjin article by Jim Davidson, titled Tasmanian Gothic. Although it deals with the themes of horror, mystery and the uncanny, Tasmanian Gothic literature and art differs from traditional European Gothic Literature, which is rooted in medieval imagery, crumbling Gothic architecture and religious ritual. Instead, the Tasmanian gothic tradition centres on the natural landscape of Tasmania and its colonial architecture and history. A densely populated Europe of the Industrial Revolution prompted Urban Gothic literature and novels like Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) and Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890). But in sparsely populated colonial Australia, especially the penal colony of Tasmania, the religious zeal of some prison wardens (akin, in many ways, to the institutionalised religion of the Inquisition; a theme reflected in European gothicism) and the mysterious rituals and traditions of Tasmania's indigenous Aboriginal inhabitants lent itself to an entirely different gothic tradition. Elements of Tasmanian Gothic art and literature also merge Aboriginal tradition with European gnosticism, rustic spirits and the faerie. Frederick Sinnett (founder of the Melbourne Punch), writing in 1856, considered traditional gothic romanticism inappropriate to Australian literature precisely because the colony lacked the requisite antiquity. For many, however, "the very landscape of Australia was gothic". The extensive Georgian architecture, including vast abandoned ruins such as Port Arthur Historic Site, reputed to be haunted, provide extensive inspiration for contemporary Tasmanian gothic. History Nineteenth century The dramatic landscape and impenetrable rainforests of Tasmania and the real and imagined brutality of the original penal colony provided a ready source of horror stories. Unsettling events such as the story of Alexander Pearce, the wandering cannibal who roamed through Van Diemen's Land in the 1820s, also influenced the bleak and sinister atmosphere that provided an ideal setting for gothic fiction. Benjamin Duterrau's historical epic painting, The Conciliation, which depicts the signing of a treaty between George Augustus Robinson and Indigenous freedom fighters, provided a foundation for Tasmanian Gothic. Duterrau's painting provided the foundation for later works, including the first major work of Australian Gothic literature, Marcus Clarke's For the Term