This general issue of Mosaic contains essays that explore the parallels of the archaic and the grotesque in Edgar Allan Poe, question how Charles Dickens helped form our social imaginary of the family, and read Emily Carr through her paintings and writings to better understand female autobiography. It also presents essays that examine gender and race in Toni Morrison, similarities between Soviet literature and postmodernism, psychoanalytic approaches to Sam Shepard, and much more.