Wilde may have produced more criticism and theatre than Gothic fiction, but his masterpiece is an unparalleled classic. On the other side of the pond, Ireland produced many of the nineteenth century’s most accomplished Gothic writers, from Sheridan Le Fanu to Bram Stoker to Oscar Wilde. The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde (Read the book here.) Its long shadow, both in the academy and in popular culture (it is a clear influence in Rosemary’s Baby) hasn’t diminished its power one whit.ĥ.
Though “The Yellow Wallpaper” is more grounded in the psychological than the physical, it’s just as terrifying as Poe’s stories, possibly more so - a staple of college literature courses, this proto-feminist tale of a young wife whose enforced captivity (by her husband, who swears it’s for her own good) drives her slowly insane is skin-crawlingly frightening reading for any woman. "The Yellow Wallpaper," Charlotte Perkins Gilman (Read the story here. “The Raven” is capable of converting even the most poetry-averse schoolchild, while classics like “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” show off Poe’s facility for wedding haunting descriptive writing to terrifying (and brilliant) plot hooks.Ĥ. If you’re looking for more old-school American gothic, the obvious next step is Edgar Allan Poe. Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, (Explore an online archive of Poe's work here.) Like Macbeth, he dooms himself, but, eerily, we never find out exactly what happened to him - but we can be pretty sure that, whatever it was, it wasn’t pretty.ģ. One of the oldest pieces of American literature that remains popular to this day (albeit largely through retellings, including Tim Burton’s regrettable film adaptation), The Legend of Sleepy Hollow has all the classic staples of horror stories: a terrifying supernatural creature (who borrows a lot from the uncanny), a beautiful but unattainable woman, and a male protagonist who thinks he’s considerably smarter than he is. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving (Read the story here.) Still, the sensational aspects have had a long life: it’s no coincidence that the tagline of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was “Something Wicked This Way Comes,” a quote taken directly from the text of the play.Ģ. Murderers go insane and commit suicide, innocent women and children are brutally murdered, and Macbeth himself is possibly Shakespeare’s least sympathetic tragic hero. Though it would be inaccurate to cite Shakespeare’s Macbeth as the origin of horror stories - ancient mythology and legends feature plenty of horrifying incidents - it does serve as a touchstone for modern horror: supposedly written to please King James I, a Scot with a penchant for the supernatural, Macbeth manages to both deploy pulpy, sensational horror tropes - a coven of witches, a damning prophecy, a possible demon possession, and a ghost returning from the dead to haunt the man who killed him - and darker, more perturbing aspects. Macbeth, William Shakespeare (Read the play here.) Here are 13 choices, from Shakespeare to Henry James to Neil Gaiman:ġ. Halloween is the perfect time of year to immerse yourself in a good, old-fashioned horror story.
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