Books like Come Hither, Vol. 1 — picked by fans

The Hill of Dreams will appeal to anyone who has struggled to gain creative acceptance. Welsh-born Machen who was admired by Lovecraft spins a wondrous if tragic tale of a faun-like country boy, Lucian who moves to London, hoping to write a novel based on a pagan vision but loses his way in the course of setting magic to paper.

Machen effortlessly captures the poetic hopelessness expressed by Chatterton, Ernest Dowson, and Lionel Johnson, literary waifs all. An exquisite elegy for romantic outsiders of all centuries, it evokes the fading lilt of Pan’s Pipes at dusk. Although most people consider The Picture of Dorian Gray to be the ultimate expression of Decadent literature, The Hill of Dreams with its morbid beauty and taint of autumnal decay is the equal of Oscar Wilde’s esoteric masterpiece. Machen’s yearning for the ineffable so beautifully expressed in his book was the inspiration for my… show more.

This bejeweled guide to Fin de Siècle art and aesthetics is like a moonlit walk in one of King Ludwig II fairytale castles, populated by androgynous chimeras, drowned princes, and erotic vampires carrying John the Baptist’s head on a platter designed by Moreau. As fabulous and tragic as the author, whose drag mode was that of a convincing English Spinster, Philipe Jullian was born to write this book which has influenced my work since I bought it aged 18, with not a clue about life. For over 40 years I have endeavored to keep a torch burning for the extraordinary decorative aesthetics of the author. Few books are as complete as Dreamers of Decadence for not only does Jullian explore the artists of that curious oeuvre, he also introduces the best of the literature as well as the movement’s strange obsessions and themes, each chapter revealing new facets of the… show more.

The fact that this queer masterpiece was written entirely in the solitude of a prison cell is only the first of many awe-inspiring truths about the book and its author. The drag queen Divine, a pimp named Darling Daintyfoot and Our Lady populate the book (published in 1943) offering a glimpse into a voluptuous Parisian fringe world. It was the thrilling—at times disturbing—story that first drew me in as a budding writer, but ultimately it was my realization that a book can be at once highly artful and literary as well as deeply erotic. It opened up a new freedom that I draw on every day as a novelist. 

There is a world of difference between the fairies of folk-lore and the ‘airy-fairy’s’ to use one of Katherine Brigg’s descriptions that infest popular media. Disney’s depiction of Peter Pan & Tinkerbelle as ordinary kids who happen to have wings bears no relation to the fairies of folklore. The moment a fairy character is absorbed into capitalist entertainment, their magic is lost. The unsurpassable fairy lore of Katherine Briggs 1898-1980, takes up an entire shelf on my bookcase and includes The Anatomy of Puck, The Fairies in Tradition and Literature, The Vanishing People, and A Dictionary of Fairies. The one-time president of the English Folklore Society, her books are so authoritative and imaginative, they bring to life the incredible inhabitants of the otherworldly realm. All the best books on the subject were written before 1970, the later ones tending to be cribbed from Briggs and that other… show more.

The themes of regret and the unstable nature of memory stayed with me long after I had finished the book. A renowned expert on the Arabian Nights, Irwin weaves stories within stories, leaving the reader unsure about what is real and what is the product of a character’s imagination.

The unreliable narrator is a mildly successful but ultimately second-rate twentieth-century British painter who refers to a creative practice employed by the surrealists. The book took me on a wonderful journey through the artistic culture of London. Edith Sitwell, Salvador Dalí, and André Breton are just a few of the famous names who populate this surprising story. 

When I was a student I found this book an inspiration. Beautifully written, it brings out deep affinities between the poetry and ideas of Wordsworth, Shelley, and other poets in England and the idealist philosophers in Germany, and the ways both groups rewrote the cosmic ideas of Christianity and ancient esoteric systems. It continually sets off sparks with its surprising comparisons. In the fifty years since it appeared, scholars have complained about how many writers the book leaves out, but given that its theme is “The High Romantic Argument” and not all of Romanticism, I am still impressed by how much it takes in.

This novel put a pin on what became a life-long fascination with gothic fiction for me.

I first read it over forty years ago and it is hands-down the most memorable novel ever from my early reading diet.

Why is it so memorable? It hits all the high notes necessary for gripping suspense/mystery/romance in this genre and is laden with all the gothicky feels.

It includes a bit of the supernatural, mystery of an old gravestone, mood setting in the Virginia hills, and a heroine in a dangerous pickle.

Originally published in 1971, it is out of print now but find a copy if you can. You won’t regret it.

Do you want the gritty, pungent beauty of Paris during the heyday of the Romantics—the 1830s? You want perversion, decadence, a crazy, kinky plot revolving around sex, dominance, Sapphic passion, murder, and intrigue, set in the Trocadero neighborhood? Only Honoré de Balzac could dream up something this wild and get away with it. One of the wonders of this short novel is how, through casual descriptions, Paris comes to life. It’s not a picture-postcard version of the city. Au contraire. It’s a seamy, real place I recognize after 35 years living there. While I was reading The Girl with the Golden Eyes, I actually went out and found the locations. The city has changed less than you’d think in 190 years. Above all, the seamy, perverse side remains.

“I wanted to be alone in my room and glad over it all to myself.” In the framing story, two Victorian gents struggle to decipher the hidden meanings of a teenage girl’s diary they have recently uncovered. Partially written in a secret language, that could equally derive from folklore sayings or teen slang, the contents appear to hint at an inauguration into pagan rituals and witchcraft in the nearby woods. A unique attempt to conjure a dark magic out of the missing memories of childhood, this novella explores both the excitement and peril of keeping your first secrets. “I was afraid something had happened to me…”

It’s quite possibly the scariest book ever written. Much scarier than most adult horror books. Adult horror books rely on cheap shock value to elicit cheaper scares. It provides the same (or greater) level of unease without resorting to the gratuitous.

I cannot fathom how this book managed to pull that off. But I can say that this book has more to offer adults than it can give to children. An adult can see the subtext of a story where a child disappears because a stranger offers them candy and toys, as well as the implication that such strangers may not be entirely human.

And I can’t tell you what makes it so great without spoiling the whole story. I was so engrossed in this story that it practically kidnapped me. I can’t recommend it enough.