Gothic Fiction
Hans of Iceland
Hans of Iceland was written in 1821 and is the very first novel written by young Victor, years before he became the great Hugo. It has all t…
The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton
Five early short stories by Edith Wharton, American author of The House of Mirth. Includes “Kerfol,” “Mrs. Manstey's View,” “The Bolted Door…
St Andrews Ghost Stories
Seventeen ghost stories (fourth edition published 1921) centered around the ruined medieval cathedral of Saint Andrew in the Scots city of t…
Widdershins
Onions wrote several collections of ghost stories, of which the best known is Widdershins (1911). It includes the novella The Beckoning Fair…
The House of the Seven Gables
The House of the Seven Gables is a gloomy New England mansion, haunted from its foundation by fraudulent dealings, accusations of witchcraft…
The Landlady
Everything changed when Ordynov, a secluded young thinker, stepped out of his old lodgings in search of another corner. The ailing landlord …
Farewell
In his startling and tragic novella Farewell (‘Adieu’), Balzac adds to the 19th century’s literature of the hysterical woman: sequestered, c…
Short Stories
In 1859 Charles Dickens launched a new weekly journal, All the Year Round, to replace Household Words. Elizabeth Gaskell remained a prolific…
The Black Monk
Aspiring academic Andrei Kovrin, while summering in the countryside per the advice of a physician, is haunted by the apparition of a black m…
Masterpieces of Mystery
'The Listener'First, it was a strange array of cats, then an increasingly mysterious, and then terrifying increase in...happenstances and...…
The Dark Chamber
"...this is an absolutely magnificent work of art! Poetry — song — & the ultimate quintessence of atmospheric morbidity & horro…
The Mysteries of Udolpho
Considered a change agent in early Gothic romance; oft-referenced in later literary works or paid homage to by such authors as Jane Austen (…
They Return at Evening
The Author of The Ghost Stories of an Antiquary in the preface to one of his books expressed his lively distaste for benevolent ghosts, and …
The Black Flemings
The brick New England mansion on the rocky coast had been Gabrielle’s only home. She leaves and returns to find Wastewater Hall a deadly me…
Northanger Abbey
Northanger Abbey is a hilarious parody of 18th century gothic novels. The heroine, 17-year old Catherine, has been reading far too many “hor…
Rappaccini's Daughter
The story is set in Padua in a distant, but unspecified past. From his quarters, Giovanni, a young student of letters, observes Beatrice, th…
The Shrine of Death
Lady Emilia Dilke was a renowned author, art historian and women's activist whose supernatural weird tales often had a haunting dreamlike qu…
The Jolly Corner
"The Jolly Corner," published in 1908, is considered by many to be a ghost story ranking second only to "The Turn of the Scre…
Dormant
Dormant is a gothic novel. It begins breezily enough with seven friends starting out in life. Rose, the artist, falls in love with Anthony, …
Mary Schweidler, the Amber Witch
Wilhelm Meinhold, a Pomeranian priest working on the Island of Usedom, relates the story of Mary Schweidler, the Amber Witch. The author ass…