WHAT IS GOTHIC FICTION?
Gothic fiction is a horror subgenre categorized by spooky, often decrepit environments like crumbling castles or old estates; the threat of the supernatural; and the intrusion of the past upon the present.
Often, Gothic literature also presents moral questions, exploring taboos surrounding sexuality, family structure, gender, religion, and philosophy. Gothic stories often take place in once abandoned or otherwise bleak settings in which the main characters have to contend with hauntings (sometimes literal ones) from the past, and reconcile their own modern problems with the dark history of their surroundings and its ramifications.
The earliest Gothic novel was The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, published in 1764. Gothic literature became incredibly popular in the Victorian era less than a hundred years later, and remains popular today. In recent history, many Gothic subgenres have emerged, such as Gothic romance or Southern Gothic, and the genre has adapted itself to modern settings and contemporary social issues.
GOTHIC CLASSICS:
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
The first self-named Gothic novel, this is the story of Manfred, lord of the castle, and his family.
Ebook: https://www.hoopladigital.com/ebook /14620292
The Monk by Matthew Lewis
Shocking, erotic, and violent, The Monk is the story of Ambrosio, torn between his spiritual vows and the temptations of physical pleasure. His internal battle leads to sexual obsession and murder, yet this book also contains knowing parody of its own excesses as well as social comedy.
Ebook: https://www.hoopladigital.com/ebook/ 14117282
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Charlotte Brontë tells the story of orphaned Jane Eyre, who grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, enduring loneliness and cruelty. This troubled childhood strengthens Jane's natural independence and spirit - which prove necessary when she finds employment as a governess to the young ward of Byronic, brooding Mr. Rochester. As her feelings for Rochester develop, Jane gradually uncovers Thornfield Hall's terrible secret, forcing her to make a choice. Should she stay with Rochester and live with the consequences, or follow her convictions - even if it means leaving the man she loves?
Book: https://bit.ly/47WoX6U
Ebook: https://www.hoopladigital.com/ebook /15334664
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
After an eerie encounter on a moonlit London road, Walter Hartright becomes embroiled in the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde and his 'charming' friend Count Fosco, who has a taste for white mice, vanilla bonbons, and poison. Pursuing questions of identity and insanity along the paths and corridors of English country houses and the madhouse, this is the first and most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism.
Book: https://bit.ly/3NeFA4A
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde’s only novel is the dreamlike story of a young man who sells his soul for eternal youth and beauty.
Book: https://bit.ly/3Uk4qE7
Ebook: https://www.hoopladigital.com/ebook /11947563
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
A very young woman's first job: governess for two weirdly beautiful, strangely distant, oddly silent children, Miles and Flora, at a forlorn estate... An estate haunted by a beckoning evil. Half-seen figures who glare from dark towers and dusty windows- silent, foul phantoms who, day by day, night by night, come closer, ever closer. With growing horror, the helpless governess realizes the fiendish creatures want the children, seeking to corrupt their bodies, possess their minds, own their souls. But worse-much worse- the governess discovers that Miles and Flora have no terror of the lurking evil. For they want the walking dead as badly as the dead want them.
Ebook: https://www.hoopladigital.com/ebook/12533934
NEW GOTHIC FICTION:
The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
Set on the obligatory English moor, on an isolated causeway, the story has as its hero Arthur Kipps, an up-and-coming young solicitor who has come north from London to attend the funeral and settle the affairs of Mrs. Alice Drablow of Eel Marsh House. The routine formalities he anticipates give way to a tumble of events and secrets more sinister and terrifying than any nightmare: the rocking chair in the deserted nursery, the eerie sound of a pony and trap, a child's scream in the fog, and most dreadfully--and for Kipps most tragically--The Woman In Black.
Book: https://bit.ly/3Ydp4rP
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
A beloved gothic tale of a peculiar girl named Merricat and her family’s dark secret.
Book: https://bit.ly/3Bu1oq5
The Girl from Rawblood by Catriona Ward
In 1910, eleven year old Iris Villarca lives with her father at Rawblood, a lonely house on Dartmoor. Iris and her father are the last of their name. The Villarcas always die young, bloodily. Iris knows it’s because of a congenital disease which means she must be strictly isolated. Iris makes her father a promise: to remain alone all her life. But when she’s fifteen, she breaks it. The consequences of her choice are immediate and horrific.
Book: https://bit.ly/47VGBYG
The Death of Jane Lawrence by Caitlin Starling
Practical, unassuming Jane Shoringfield has done the calculations, and decided that the most secure path forward is this: a husband, in a marriage of convenience, who will allow her to remain independent and occupied with meaningful work. Her first choice, the dashing but reclusive doctor Augustine Lawrence, agrees to her proposal with only one condition: that she must never visit Lindridge Hall, his crumbling family manor outside of town. Yet on their wedding night, an accident strands her at his door in a pitch-black rainstorm, and she finds him changed. Gone is the bold, courageous surgeon, and in his place is a terrified, paranoid man—one who cannot tell reality from nightmare, and fears Jane is an apparition, come to haunt him. By morning, Augustine is himself again, but Jane knows something is deeply wrong at Lindridge Hall, and with the man she has so hastily bound her safety to.
Book: https://bit.ly/4eyx8Js
What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
A gripping and atmospheric retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's classic "The Fall of the House of Usher."
Book: https://bit.ly/4eyx5gK
The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas
A supernatural suspense novel, set in the aftermath of the Mexican War of Independence, about a remote house, a sinister haunting, and the woman pulled into their clutches.
Book: https://bit.ly/4eHlLOW