Gothic Fiction
The Castle of Otranto
The Castle of Otranto is regarded as the first Gothic novel, a genre appealing to a taste for terror and set in a remote past when prodigies…
Two Supernatural Stories
Perceval Landon was a journalist and short story author, and in these two tales he explored the supernatural. In ‘Railhead’, a man receives …
Benighted
Phillip and Margaret Waverton, along with a cheerful young acquaintance Roger Penderel, finds themselves driving through a terrible storm wi…
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…
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 (…
The Lady of the Shroud
As the title suggests, this work does flirt with the supernatural. Yet it is essentially a political novel—a utopian experiment in a fictiti…
The Dark Chamber
"...this is an absolutely magnificent work of art! Poetry — song — & the ultimate quintessence of atmospheric morbidity & horro…
Manfred
Manfred is a dramatic poem in three acts by Lord Byron, and possibly a self confessional work. A noble, Manfred, is haunted by the memory of…
The Man-Wolf
"The Man-Wolf" is a 38,000 word novella that appears in the English language collection of short stories entitled, The Man-Wolf an…
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…
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…
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…
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, …
Bram Stoker The Lair Of The White Worm
Play of the Week presents Bram Stoker’s gothic tale of horror, adapted by Brian Wright. Set in 1870 in the High Peak district of Derbyshire,…
The Blood of the Vampire
The Blood of the Vampire is a Gothic novel, often compared to Bram Stoker's Dracula and Le Fanu's Camilla. Harriet is a vampire who kills ac…
Widdershins
Onions wrote several collections of ghost stories, of which the best known is Widdershins (1911). It includes the novella The Beckoning Fair…
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…
Farewell
In his startling and tragic novella Farewell (‘Adieu’), Balzac adds to the 19th century’s literature of the hysterical woman: sequestered, c…
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…
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…