Gothic Classics and Modern Horror Stories
Discover classic gothic novels and modern horror stories, from Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House to Dracula-era thrillers. Uncover timeless tales of suspense, inheritance, and the macabre in this curated reading list.
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The Haunting of Hill House
by Shirley Jackson
An anthropologist conducts an unusual research project in a reputedly haunted house.
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The Castle of Otranto
by Horace Walpole
First published pseudonymously in 1764, The Castle of Otranto purported to be a translation of an Italian story of the time of the crusades. In it Walpole attempted, as he declared in the Preface to the second edition, `to blend the two kinds of romance: the ancient and the modern'. He gives us a series of catastrophes, ghostly interventions, revelations of identity, and exciting contests. Crammed with invention, entertainment, terror, and pathos, the novel was an immediate success and Walpole's own favourite among his numerous works. His friend, the poet Thomas Gray, wrote that he and his family, having read Otranto, were now `afraid to go to bed o'nights'. The novel is here reprinted from a text of 1798, the last that Walpole himself prepared for the press.