A Big Ol’ Gothic List for October

October 11, 2022

Books / Lists / Resources

Our Gothic Realms course is off to a spooktacular start, and we can’t wait for our first set of lecture and seminar classroom time this week!

But we also know that many of you weren’t able to sign up because time/ money/ life.

So we wanted to share a little of the dread glamor with you this week!

As an icebreaker in our Gothic Realms discussion group, we asked everyone to share their favorite Gothic story, and the results were magnificent.

So we’ve compiled all the recommendations we have so far, plus several of our own favorites, for you to curl up with by the fire.

A BIG OL’ GOTHIC LIST

  • The Addams Family directed by Barry Sonnenfeld (film)
  • Affinity by Sarah Waters (novel)
  • The Algernon Blackwood Collection by Algernon Blackwood (collection)
  • Beetlejuice by Anthony King and Scott Brown (musical)
  • Beetlejuice directed by Tim Burton (film)
  • The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter (collection)
  • Bram Stoker’s Dracula directed by Frances Ford Coppola (film)
  • Cackle by Rachel Harrison (novel)
  • The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (novel)
  • Carmilla by Sheridan le Fanu (novella)
  • The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe (collection)
  • Collected Ghost Stories by M.R. James (collection)
  • Crimson Peak directed by Guillermo del Toro (film)
  • Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan Maguire (novella)
  • Dracula by Bram Stoker (novel)
  • Dracula directed by Tod Browning (film)
  • Fingersmith by Sarah Waters (novel)
  • Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (novel)
  • The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton (collection)
  • Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir (novel)
  • The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (novel)
  • In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado (memoir)
  • Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice (novel)
  • Interview with the Vampire directed by Neil Jordan (film)
  • The Italian by Ann Radcliffe (novel)
  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (novel)
  • Jane-Emily by Patricia Clapp (novel)
  • “The Lady of the House of Love” by Angela Carter (short story)
  • The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving (book)
  • The Legend of Sleepy Hollow directed by Tim Burton (film)
  • The Locked Tomb by Tamsyn Muir (book series)
  • Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (novel)
  • Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (novel)
  • Northanger Abbey directed by Jon Jones (film)
  • O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker (novel)
  • The Others directed by Alejandro Amenábar (film)
  • The Phantom of the Opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber (musical)
  • The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (novella)
  • Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth (novel)
  • “Rappaccini’s Daughter” by Nathaniel Hawthorne (short story)
  • Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (novel)
  • Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer  by Tanith Lee (short story collection)
  • Sabella, or the Blood Stone by Tanith Lee (novella)
  • The Seance by John Harwood (novel)
  • The Sprite of the Nunnery; A Tale, from the Spanish by Joseph Trapp (novel)
  • Sunshine by Robin McKinley (novel)
  • The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (novel)
  • This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron (novel)
  • The Woman in Black by Susan Hill (novel)
  • What We Do in the Shadows created by Jemaine Clement (TV series)
  • Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (novel)
  • Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand (novella)

What did we miss? Leave us a comment and let us know!

Happy October!!

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Comments

  1. Cynthia Westover

    What a fab list. Every time I thought of one to add, it appeared!

    I adore:
    Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson.
    We Have Always Lived in a Castle, Shirley Jackson
    The Haunting, 1963, film, Director Robert Wise

  2. DeathrockFairy

    I am an avid reader of Fae, faerie, and Fair Folk books of all genres, from YA to adult, from fairy tale retelling to horror. As of now, I’ve read close to 200 novels in this genre over the past few years, and I’m still going strong.
    Besides being a faerie fan (albeit very much a Christian one), I’m also a real deal Trad Goth. For this reason, much of my taste in these books is gaged by my musical and aesthetic taste. Certainly, I have aesthetically lighter fairy tale books that I love, but I mostly go for darkly glittering fantasies where Faerie is the stuff of dreams and nightmares instead of being saccharine or overly humanized.
    I very much like your blog, though I’m not much for fiction about witches due to their extreme overuse in media and literature, and I’m a traditional Goth who loves Cocteau Twins and Siouxsie and the Banshees, so I’m not much for metal or dark pop! But otherwise, we’re aesthetically similar in a gothic Fae way. I was particularly happy that you wrote about two of my favorite fictional faerie novels, Winter Rose by Patricia A. McKillip and Roses and Rot by Kat Howard (as well as my un-favorite Tam Lin by Pamela Dean). I do understand surrealism better than realism and I have no shame!
    I go by DeathrockFairy on Quotev, Pinterest, and Deviantart. Actually, when you first started out several years ago, you guys inspired me to write about and visualize my knowledge of books, dance, opera, poetry, music, and the arts that depict Faerie and the fairy tale’s romantic-gothic side here on the Internet. I even rewrote the Woodland Goth page on Aesthetics Wiki! My aesthetic is very much my own, even if it takes many influences, such as my IRL tendency to dress Strawberry Switchblade-style despite being a grown woman in my early 20s.
    I’m not the type to read absolutely EVERY Fae book, particularly if I don’t like the darn thing plot-wise, but I am the type to give most stories in this genre a chance. I’m self-taught in regard of my knowledge of this niche world, but that’s how I’ve uncovered all kinds of exciting stories I would’ve otherwise never known. Hopefully one day I’ll create my own blog and transfer all of my work to the world of DeathrockFairy.
    So that’s a little about me, just enjoying the recommendations from you and appreciating the aesthetic you’ve got going on and recommending this list include The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter. I’ll just leave you with my personal top 20 Faerie books as of now:
    1. The Goblin Market by Christina Rossetti
    2. Winter Rose by Patricia A. McKillip
    3. The Book of Atrix Wolfe by Patricia A. McKillip
    4. Honeycomb by Joanne M. Harris
    5. War For the Oaks by Emma Bull
    6. Terri Windling’s Borderland series
    7. The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope
    8. Phantastes: A Faerie Romance by George MacDonald
    9. Into the Heartless Wood by Joanna Ruth Meyer
    10. An Enchantment of Ravens by Margaret Rogerson
    11. Roses and Rot by Kat Howard
    12. Vassa in the Night by Sarah Porter
    13. Theatré Illuminata trilogy by Lisa Mantchev
    14. Orfeia by Joanne M. Harris
    15. The Door in the Hedge by Robin McKinley
    16. Small Favors by Erin A. Craig
    17. The Twisted Ones by T. Kingfisher
    18. Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier
    19. Midnight in Everwood by M. A. Kuznair
    20. The Kingdom of Back by Marie Lu

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