Gothic Classics

Charlotte Perkins Gilman's powerful and unsettling story of a young woman descending into psychosis. Confined to her attic bedroom by her husband to ensure rest and recuperation after having her baby, and with nothing else to occupy her mind, the woman slowly becomes obsessed with the old yellow wallpaper covering the walls until she loses her grip on reality, imagining herself and others imprisoned behind the wallpaper.

Robert E. Howard’s "Pigeons from Hell" is a chilling Southern Gothic horror tale blending supernatural terror with a grim, oppressive atmosphere. It follows two travellers, John Branner and Griswell, who become stranded in the deep South and take refuge in an abandoned plantation house, the decaying remnants of the Blassenville family estate. The house is eerily silent, save for the presence of strange pigeons roosting in the rafters.

I tre racconti che compongono "Il diavolo nella bottiglia" appartengono alla serie di racconti polinesiani, scritti quando Stevenson, minato dalla tisi, si era trasferito definitivamente nelle isole Samoa. Affascinato dall'esotismo del paesaggio e dal carattere della popolazione locale, lo scrittore ne riproduce i tratti caratteristici in una narrazione che unisce ai toni della favola la forte connotazione morale che aveva contraddistinto le sue opere precedenti.

Although Wuthering Heights is now a classic of English literature, contemporaneous reviews were deeply polarised; it was controversial because of its unusually stark depiction of mental and physical cruelty, and it challenged Victorian ideas about religion, morality, class, and woman's place in society.

A gothic melodrama full of subtle impression and epigram, which tells a story about moral corruption. The Picture of Dorian Gray touches on many of Wilde's recurring themes, such as the nature and spirit of art, aestheticism and the dangers inherent to it.

Ghost stories became hugely popular during the 19th century, and the Victorians became the masters of the genre. This deliciously chilling collection of Classic Hallowe'en Stories includes authors such as Charles Dickens, Edith Wharton, Edgar Allen Poe, Elizabeth Gaskell, Henry James, Bram Stoker, H. P. Lovecraft, Algernon Blackwood, Arthur Machen, M. R. James and Vernon Lee.

This is a story from the Fall of the House of Usher collection. The horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, with its dungeon of death, and the overhanging gloom on the House of Usher demonstrate unforgettably the unique imagination of Edgar Allan Poe. Unerringly, he touches upon some of our greatest nightmares: Premature burial, ghostly transformation, words from beyond the grave. Written in the 1840s, they have retained their power to shock and frighten even now.

Naomi Feldman has never understood the strange energy that hums beneath her senses. But when she comes across an ancient artifact that seems to beckon to her, she may finally find the answers she's been seeking. Alaric, a centuries-old vampire, lives a solitary life by choice. When he's assigned to protect Naomi, long dormant emotions stir to life. Pursued by a dangerous enemy and battling their growing attraction, Naomi and Alaric follow the mystery of the artifact from the museums of Athens, the streets of London, toward a confrontation that will decide the fate of two worlds...

Sullo sfondo della brughiera battuta dai venti, una ragazza umile ma volitiva trova lavoro come istitutrice nella casa di un uomo aspro e malinconico. Tra di loro nascerà inaspettata una grande passione, che dovrà però fare i conti con un segreto scabroso. Un capolavoro di una modernità dirompente, un cult che continua ad affascinare generazione dopo generazione.

Mary W. Shelley (1797-1851)Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin nació el 30 de agosto de 1797 en Londres (Inglaterra). Era hija única del filósofo William Godwin y la escritora feminista Mary Wollstonecraft. Mary creció y se educó en un ambiente intelectual y progresista, que marcaría fuertemente su personalidad.

First published in the English literary anthology annual The Keepsake in 1833 by Mary Shelly, master of Gothic fiction, The Invisible Girl is a story about the turbulence of secret love. Like much of her work, Shelly blends the dark and the supernatural with elements of romance and intimacy and unravels this story within a story with aplomb, and the setting of rural Wales in the early 19th century lends to the foreboding and bittersweet tone of the tale.

Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens, first serialised in All the Year Round from December 1860 to August 1861. The action of the story takes place from Christmas Eve 1812, when the protagonist is about seven years old, to the winter of 1840. Great Expectations is written in a semi-autobiographical style, and is the story of the orphan Pip, tracing his life from his early days of childhood until adulthood.

Es ironico que de las decenas de obras que escribiera el novelista frances Gaston Leroux la que le ha dado inmortalidad es el clasico del horror llamado El fantasma de la opera, la historia de un artista desfigurado que se oculta en las catacumbas de la Opera de Paris para vengarse contra el mundo, hasta el dia que se enamora de una bella cantante, que cambia por completo el curso de su vida.

A masterpiece of Gothic horror and suspense that inspired such writers as H. P. Lovecraft, The Three Impostors is Machen’s famous collection of “weird tales” - a string of shocking short stories woven together with a fine narrative thread. The three impostors of the title are members of a secret society devoted to debauched pagan rites who weave a web of deception in the streets of London as they search for a missing Roman coin commemorating an infamous orgy by the Emperor Tiberius and close in on their prey: “the young man with spectacles”.

A "Bluebeard" story in which a young woman marries a man whom she discovers has killed his previous wives and is trying to kill her as well.

In a failed attempt to turn him into an ageless lover, the evil, not-quite-a-vampire Lamia DuLaine poisoned hunky Druid high priest Julian Talbot on his wedding day. The Seelie Fae transported Julian to their realm for treatment and captured DuLaine, but not before she brutally murdered his new wife, Maxine.

El horror de Dunwich narra la historia de Wilbur Whateley, hijo de Lavinia Whateley, una mujer albina deformada, los acontecimientos suscítados vienen como consecuencia del nacimiento de Wilbur Whateley. Todo lo que rodea a la familia Whateley está marcado por el misterio y los rumores del pueblo que afirman que el viejo Whateley, padre de Lavinia, practica la brujería.

Northanger Abbey fu il primo romanzo di Jane Austen ad essere pubblicato anche, se in precedenza erano già state stese delle versioni di Orgoglio e pregiudizio e di Ragione e Sentimento. Il suo titolo originario, Susan (nome della protagonista che fu poi mutato in Catherine) fu rivisto per la stampa dalla Austen nel 1803, e venduto ad un editore che decise poi di non pubblicarlo.

A masterpiece of the horror genre, Dracula also illuminated dark corners of Victorian sexuality. When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to advise Count Dracula on a London home, he makes a horrifying discovery. Soon afterwards, a number of disturbing incidents unfold in England: an unmanned ship is wrecked at Whitby; strange puncture marks appear on a young woman's neck; and the inmate of an asylum raves about the arrival of his 'Master', while a group of adversaries prepares to face the terrifying Count.

"The Murders in the Rue Morgue" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1841. Poe referred to it as a "tale of ratiocination" featuring the brilliant deductions of C. Auguste Dupin; it is today regarded as one of the first detective stories and is almost certainly the first locked-room mystery. Auguste Dupin is a man in Paris who solves the mystery of the brutal murder of two women.