For your seasonal reading pleasure, we suggest 13 works that embrace the supernatural.
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The Turn of the Screw
By Henry James
Looking for a fast scare? How about a young governess, two children, and a mysterious manor? This classic quick-read reveals the fears of the Victorian age, but it is none the worse for being more than 100 years old.
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Beloved
By Toni Morrison
Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel about slavery lays bare our haunted history. In it, a protagonist is haunted by her own past and, no matter where she goes, her ghosts seem inescapable.
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The Woman In White
By Wilkie Collins
Originally a serialized horror, this Victorian page-turner was written by a pal of Charles Dickens. This was a genre-bridging story in its time, and has influenced mysteries and horror ever since.
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Frankenstein
By Mary Shelley
It’s been retold so many times that this book needs no introduction, but if you’ve only seen the movie, now is the time to read the book! There’s more to this monster story than you may know.
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Dracula
By Bram Stoker
This original vampire story is still on of our favorites (it sure bites, we mean beats, Twilight.) The story of Dracula is over one hundred years old, but (like Dracula himself) its appeal seems to live forever.
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Remember Me
By Fay Weldon
A superbly razor-tongued feminist ghost rips marriage—and her ex—in Weldon’s kickass comedy.
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Rebecca
By Daphne Du Maurier
Speaking of marriage, could there be one more haunted than that of the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter? If you shiver when you think of Hitchcock’s interpretation of Manderley, the book is sure to send a chill down your spine.
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The Haunting of Hill House
By Shirley Jackson
The author of “The Lottery” also wrote this masterwork of supernatural and psychological terror. In it, two men and two women will enter the infamous Hill House together for four very different reasons, but the house itself has powers beyond what any one of them imagined.
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The Hill of Dreams
By Arthur Machen
The Welsh writer’s gorgeously written semiautobiographical novel blends in elements of the occult and supernatural. It tells the story of a young man whose struggle to find beauty and rid himself of shadowy hallucinations becomes a terrifying, mystical journey.
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A Face at the Window
By Dennis McFarland
This gorgeously literary novel set in a haunted hotel tells the story of a man who, upon meeting a young girl’s ghost, is a bit too eager to escape into the story of her life, and into the past.
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The Shining
By Stephen King
And speaking of haunted hotels…we’d be remiss without including the master of horror on any Halloween list, and his story of the Torrance family is a classic.
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Best Ghost Stories
By J.S. LeFanu
These classic Victorian ghost stories are terrific bedtime reading if you’d like to be up all night. Among many others, this collection by the extraordinary LeFanu includes “The Familiar,” “Carmilla,” and “Green Tea.”
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The Ghost Stories
By Edith Wharton
Yes, her novels of manners are haunting, but the author of The House of Mirth wrote real ghost stories too. This collection contains eleven stories, all supernatural, weird, chilling, and inspired by our deepest fears.
