Genre

Gothic & Horror

The Gothic tradition runs from Horace Walpole's castle in 1764 through Mary Shelley, Sheridan Le Fanu and Bram Stoker to the weird fiction of the early twentieth century. The books here are the ones that defined the genre's conventions: the isolated setting, the secret in the past, the creature that is also a mirror.

Where to start: Short and intense: The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Carmilla, The Yellow Wallpaper. Long and atmospheric: Dracula, Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights.