Here are 100 books that Carmilla and Other Gothic Tales fans have personally recommended if you like
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I grew up listening to my family’s "true" ghost stories, each creepy tale ending with a declaration that "there are no such things as ghosts." As a teenager, I devoured books of folklore, with all their tales of ghosts, witches, and long-legetty beasties: and also many books about paranormal research. As an adult, I’m a complete unbeliever but still very fond of both reading and writing ghost stories!
I shared a love of ghost stories with my mother and we often recommended them to each other.
But Mum had a thing for ghost stories set in the Arctic winter, with its killing cold and six months of darkness. She reckoned that, as a setting for ghostly goings-on, it couldn’t be beaten.
I wish I could still give her a copy of Dark Matter. She would have read it in a sitting. A wonderful evocation of the disturbing power of darkness, cold, and isolation.
'What is it? What does it want? Why is it angry with me?'
January 1937.
Clouds of war are gathering over a fogbound London. Twenty-eight year old Jack is poor, lonely and desperate to change his life. So when he's offered the chance to be the wireless operator on an Arctic expedition, he jumps at it. Spirits are high as the ship leaves Norway: five men and eight huskies, crossing the Barents Sea by the light of the midnight sun. At last they reach the remote, uninhabited bay where they will camp for the next year. Gruhuken. But the Arctic…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I grew up listening to my family’s "true" ghost stories, each creepy tale ending with a declaration that "there are no such things as ghosts." As a teenager, I devoured books of folklore, with all their tales of ghosts, witches, and long-legetty beasties: and also many books about paranormal research. As an adult, I’m a complete unbeliever but still very fond of both reading and writing ghost stories!
I once made the mistake of reading several of James’ ghost stories, one after another, while alone in the house.
I was making a cup of coffee when something started scratching stealthily at the inside of a cupboard door. I had to lower myself from the ceiling before I discovered that some scrunched carrier bags hung inside the cupboard had unscrunched, causing the ghostly scratching. But that’s why I love James’ ghost stories.
The second in a series of republished classic literature, The Ghost Stories of M. R. James collects the tales that best illustrate his quiet mastery of the ghost story form. Running through each of these stories is a slowly escalating sense of unease and dread, which ultimately shifts into the wildly uncanny. James' characters exist in a world of ancient objects whose atrocious histories begin to repeat when they are disturbed, and the blinkered repression common to James' narratives only amplifies the shock of the spectral appearance.
I grew up listening to my family’s "true" ghost stories, each creepy tale ending with a declaration that "there are no such things as ghosts." As a teenager, I devoured books of folklore, with all their tales of ghosts, witches, and long-legetty beasties: and also many books about paranormal research. As an adult, I’m a complete unbeliever but still very fond of both reading and writing ghost stories!
We all think we know "A Christmas Carol" but after the Muppet version, I find myself thinking of it as simply comical.
Until I re-read it, I forget just how chilling the ghosts who visit Scrooge are. And I love "Captain Murderer," Dickens’ account of how his nursemaid terrified him with scary tales, because it takes me back to my own childhood love of terrors.
Then there are stories like "The Signalman," which is not at all funny, darkened with the signalman’s dreadful loneliness and apprehension.
Dickens was a Master. Even his humorous ghost stories have an edge of fear.
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I grew up listening to my family’s "true" ghost stories, each creepy tale ending with a declaration that "there are no such things as ghosts." As a teenager, I devoured books of folklore, with all their tales of ghosts, witches, and long-legetty beasties: and also many books about paranormal research. As an adult, I’m a complete unbeliever but still very fond of both reading and writing ghost stories!
I like a writer of ghost stories to personally believe in ghosts, as Benson did.
I also appreciate that he brings to even his scariest and most horrible tales the same sharp social observation and wit that he brought to his Mapp and Lucia stories.
Note, however, that the great M. R. James thought Benson’s stories "went over the line of legitimate horridness." Well, I love James, but disagree with him here. I dislike gross horror myself, but think a touch of Benson-style horridness now and again is enlivening (if that’s the right term for a ghost story).
'His body was pressed against the wall at the head of the bed, and the face was a mask of agonised horror and fruitless entreaty. But the eyes were already glazed in death, and before Francis could reach the bed the body had toppled over and lay inert and lifeless. Even as he looked, he heard a limping step go down the passage outside.'
E. F. Benson was a master of the ghost story and now all his rich, imaginative, spine-tingling and beautifully written tales are presented together in this bumper collection. The range and variety of these spooky narratives…
I have been fascinated with ghosts since an early age (Casper the Friendly Ghost was a favorite childhood cartoon) because this is the supernatural being that could be in your home right now! I have read numerous ghost stories/novels and have learned all the nuances that spirits can present from poltergeist activity to seances to spiritual possession. I zoom in on those ghost stories where the past is critical to the intent of the haunting spirit, whether it be beneficial or malevolent in nature. As a neuroscientist and author of paranormal fantasy novels, my distinctive background also allows me to approach this genre in a unique way.
Although this is part of Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, it is the ghost story involving the entity known as Goblin that fascinates me the most in this novel and challenges me to write ghost stories as well.
This was the first story I read where a spirit is miraculously tethered to a specific living being, Quinn Blackwood, from the beginning of his existence and throughout his lifetime, influencing every decision that he makes; a blueprint for Griffin Meade’s journey with the ghost of Angelus Bartholomew III in my novel.
The final plot twist as to why Goblin haunts Quinn blew me away and I dare anyone to try and guess it!
SOON TO BE A MAJOR TV SHOW, FROM THE NETWORK BEHIND THE WALKING DEAD
'[W]hen I found Rice's work I absolutely loved how she took that genre and (...) made [it] feel so contemporary and relevant' Sarah Pinborough, bestselling author of Behind Her Eyes
'[Rice wrote] in the great tradition of the gothic' Ramsey Campbell, bestselling author of The Hungry Moon
The 9th novel in Anne Rice's bestselling Vampire Chronicles. Mystery and magic combine in this masterpiece from the mistress of the vampire genre
A terrifying drama of bloodlust and betrayal is unravelling within the Blackwood Farm family. Their grand…
I’ve been a nerd for the morbid for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, I tore through all the books on the shelves in my house, whether they were appropriate for my age group or not. I started tearing into Stephen King books at 8 or so. I remember vividly copying language out of Christine when I was about 10 on the playground and getting in a lot of trouble for it. But I turned out okay. I really do believe that kids have a fascination for things above their age range, and adults enjoy it, too, and I still love all of these.
This is another book that really hit me right between the eyes as a kid, and revisiting it with my kids as an adult, it’s nothing short of just creepy weirdness.
Guillermo Del Toro once said that kids' stories should be frightening, and this definitely fits the bill. The best part about it is how short the stories are, too, so I was able to break it up with my kid into a number of sittings.
Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark is a classic collection of chillingly scary tales, in which Alvin Schwartz offers up some of the most alarming tales of horror, dark revenge, and supernatural events of all time, complemented in this paperback edition by spine-tingling illustrations by renowned artist Brett Helquist. Walking corpses, dancing bones, knife-wielding madmen, and narrow escapes from death-they're all here in this chilling collection of ghost stories. Make sure you read these books with the light ON!
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I have loved gothic and ghostly tales ever since my grandmother showed me a haunted house and told me stories about fairies and changelings. You can often find me browsing in vintage markets and bookshops searching for the perfect find. I have published two gothic middle-grade novels. Welcome To Dead Town is about 12-year-old Raven McKay, who is put into foster care in the town of Grave’s Pass when her parents disappear. But Grave’s Pass isn’t an ordinary town. It’s a town where the living and the dead live side by side. Read below to find out about the next book in the series.
I loved this lyrical, finely-observed story and its many bloodcurdling moments. I felt nothing but sympathy and love for James Harrison as he settled into his new home in the village of Ledsham and was blamed for things he didn’t do.
The ghost of Thomas Kempe a 17th century apothecary truly haunts these pages and gave me a serious case of goosebumps. It’s also a gripping mystery as James tries to put the ghost to rest.
The classic ghost story from Penelope Lively, one of the modern greats of British fiction for adults and children alike.
James is fed up. His family has moved to a new cottage - with grounds that are great for excavations, and trees that are perfect for climbing - and stuff is happening. Stuff that is normally the kind of thing he does. And he's getting blamed for it. But it's not him who's writing strange things on shopping lists and fences. It's not him who smashes bottles and pours tea in the Vicar's lap. It's a ghost - honestly. Thomas…
I write adventure and mystery stories for children aged 9 - 13, involving battles with mythical creatures, dangerous pacts with demons, and other supernatural chills. My first book, Ante’s Inferno, won the People’s Book Prize and a Silver Wishing Shelf Award. For The Fall of a Sparrow, I drew on my love of ghost stories, not just for their scariness but also for their emotional complexity: ghosts don’t haunt just for the sake of it. They need something only the main character can give. Friendship, perhaps, a companion in their loneliness… or something much darker. Here’s my choice of classic stories in which ghosts pursue a wide – and sometimes terrifying – variety of agendas.
More of a supernatural mystery than a ghost story perhaps, but since the sinister magic that besets 13-year-old Aveline arises from a witch long buried in the cold, dark side of the churchyard, this fast-paced, imaginative tale qualifies as both. Particularly striking is that you can read it as a simple, scary ghost story – or as an unnerving portrait of someone with a narcissistic personality, alternating charm, menaces, and pathos to unsettle Aveline and bring her under her spell. Brrrr.
Aveline is thrilled when she discovers that the holiday cottage her mum has rented for the summer is beside a stone circle. Thousands of years old, the local villagers refer to the ancient structure as the Witch Stones, and Aveline cannot wait to learn more about them.
Then Aveline meets Hazel. Impossibly cool, mysterious yet friendly, Aveline soon falls under Hazel's spell. In fact, Hazel is quite unlike anyone Aveline has ever met before, but she can't work out why. Will Aveline discover the truth about Hazel, before it's too late?
My interest in ghosts is partly due to growing up in York, which is one of the most haunted cities in the UK. In that city, I think that pretty much every pub has its own ghost, and if you’re unlucky (or lucky) enough, you stand a good chance of spotting long-dead Roman soldiers, plague victims, or ghostly dogs as you walk the streets. This atmosphere has seeped into my fiction; I have written two novels of the supernatural and am currently working on a third. I’ve also made a study of the grim and gothic in fiction; my Ph.D. thesis was largely about vampires (especially Dracula) but also strayed into other monsters and uncanny stories over the past two centuries.
The other recommendations on my list are titles that will help you if you want to calm yourself down, maybe even get some sleep, whilst staying in a haunted house. But maybe you want to lean into the atmosphere. If that’s the case, you need M. R. James.
His ghosts are rarely glimpsed clearly, you get troubling hints of their appearance, or you just see the horrible things they have done to their victims, and that makes them all the more terrifying. In these stories, anything could turn on you: a doll’s house, your Latin homework, the advert you see on your daily commute. Proceed with caution.
M.R. James is probably the finest ghost-story writer England has ever produced. These tales are not only classics of their genre, but are also superb examples of beautifully-paced understatement, convincing background and chilling terror.
As well as the preface, there is a fascinating tail-piece by M.R. James, 'Stories I Have Tried To Write', which accompanies these thirty tales. Among them are 'Casting the Runes', 'Oh, Whistle and I'll come to you, My Lad', 'The Tractate Middoth', 'The Ash Tree' and 'Canon Alberic's Scrapbook'.
'There are some authors one wishes one had never read in order to have the joy of…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I am a novelist and an academic. My own writing often evokes both the Gothic and the supernatural, and I enjoy the pleasures of plot: mystery, intrigue, and suspense. The popular literature of a particular culture will often tell you more about what that culture fears than the complex high art written at the same time. But where the project becomes really interesting is the moment when a writer exploits the literature of terror to investigate the human psyche and the dark side of the mind. All these tales are also award-winning films. In every case the book is more frightening.
Montague Rhodes James, dean and provost of King’s College Cambridge, read this tale at the College Christmas gathering in 1903. James’ ghost stories often involved traditional scholars – confirmed bachelors, rather like himself. The bleak East Anglian landscape plays a significant role and here a Professor takes time off to play golf and get on with some writing at a seaside resort. He finds a strange bronze whistle in a ruined round church site. There is a second bed in the rented room at his boarding house.
I love the thrill that M.R. James describes as "pleasant terror," but his tales are often much darker. He unveils an uncanny sexual horror in the images that haunt this terrifying story. I still see them when I close my eyes.
Montague Rhodes James OM, MA, FBA (1 August 1862 – 12 June 1936), who used the publication name M. R. James, was an English author, medievalist scholar and provost of King's College, Cambridge (1905–1918), and of Eton College (1918–1936). He is best remembered for his ghost stories, which are regarded as among the best in the genre. James redefined the ghost story for the new century by abandoning many of the formal Gothic clichés of his predecessors and using more realistic contemporary settings. However, James's protagonists and plots tend to reflect his own antiquarian interests. Accordingly, he is known as…
