Classic Gothic Literature

The Hunchback of Notre Dame (originally titled Notre Dame de Paris) is a Gothic novel by Victor Hugo, published in 1831. It focuses on the unfortunate story of Quasimodo, the Gypsy street dancer Esmeralda and Quasimodo's guardian the Archdeacon Claude Frollo in 15th century Paris. The novel sought to preserve values of French culture in a time period of great change, which resulted in the destruction of many French Gothic structures. The novel made Notre Dame de Paris a national icon and served as a catalyst for renewed interest in the restoration of Gothic form.

The author of the New York Times Notable The Great Glass Sea (“The most unexpected second book by a writer of note to appear in years.” —John Freeman, The Boston Globe) returns with a gripping adventure story that probes the expansive, shifting wilds of the Sierra Nevada during the Gold...

"With the roar of thunder and the speed of a galloping horse comes the tide to Mont St. Michel", goes the old nursery song. So when the aged patriarch of the du Rocher family falls victim to the perilous tide, even the old man's family accepts the verdict of accidental drowning. But too quickly, this "accident" is followed by a bizarre discovery in the ancient du Rocher chateau: a human skeleton, wrapped in butcher paper, beneath the old stone flooring. Professor Gideon Oliver, lecturing on forensic anthropology at nearby St. Malo, is asked to examine the bones.

Our story begins in 1785 when a young seafarer, Captain Thornhill, disappears while visiting the shop of a barber in London, a certain Sweeney Todd whose shop in Fleet Street is situated by St. Dunstan's church, just round the corner from the famous and popular meat pie shop run by Mrs. Lovett. Thornhill was carrying a string of pearls as a gift for Johanna Oakley, the sweetheart of his friend Mark Ingestrie who is missing, presumed lost at sea.

A condemned man's final confession. A beloved pet turns into an instrument of terror. A crime that cannot stay buried. Edgar Allan Poe pens one of the most psychologically devastating tales ever written—now brought to life in a chilling dramatic narration that will haunt you long after the final words fade.

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.

Als Jonathan Harker nach Transsylvanien reist, um Graf Dracula zu treffen, überkommen ihn schon bei der Ankunft in den Karpaten schlimme Vorahnungen. Graf Dracula zwingt Harker gegen seinen Willen, in seinem Schloss zu bleiben. Doch das wahre Grauen beginnt erst als er fliehen kann und nach London zurückkehrt. Denn sein unheimlicher Gastgeber hat sich schon auf dem Weg dorthin gemacht...

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.

The tale of murder and terror, told by a nameless homicidal madman, influenced later stream-of-consciousness fiction and helped secure the author’s reputation as master of the macabre. The narrator relates with relish his murder and dismemberment of an old man. Poe’s revelation of the narrator’s madness is a classic study in psychopathology.

I racconti qui presentati, "Tè verde", "Il giudice Harbottle" e "Carmilla", appartengono alla raccolta "In a Glass Darkly". Composti in momenti differenti e pubblicati su varie riviste e poi riuniti nel 1872, i singoli racconti, benché diversissime siano le storie ivi riportate, possono essere considerati parti di un'unica narrazione, fatta di oscure risonanze e di sinistri riflessi. Elemento esterno unificante è la figura-cornice del Dottor Hesselius, medico, psicologo, mistico e metafisico tedesco, primo "detective dell'occulto" della letteratura europea.

A London lawyer named Gabriel John Utterson who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll, and the evil Edward Hyde. The work is commonly associated with the rare mental condition often called "split personality", referred to in psychiatry as dissociative identity disorder, where within the same body there exists more than one distinct personality. In this case, there are two personalities within Dr. Jekyll, one apparently good and the other evil.

Henry Fleming is a young private in the Union army during the American Civil War - a farm boy untested by battle. Faced with charging rebels, he flees. With his ideals shattered and his heart burdened by shame, Henry seeks an opportunity to redeem himself, even hoping for a wound - a "red badge of courage" - to prove his bravery.

Penguin Audio presents E.M. Forster's Where Angels Fear to Tread, adapted for listening and now available as a digital audiobook as part of the Penguin English Library series. This abridged version is read by Stephen Fry. 'I had got an idea that everyone here spent their lives in making little...

The first English translation of a prize-winning novel set in the American Midwest by Indonesia’s celebrated writer of absurdist realism In Bloomington, Indiana, the indistinguishable Fanton Drummond’s life changes when he encounters Olenka Danton in an elevator. Fanton is infatuated at...

Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1835-1915), little known now, but a renowned writer in her time, gives us five tales of the "weird" as she might herself have said. Here we have five of her better known stories, peopled with jilted lovers, blood thirsty old ladies, and grand, old houses whose restless ancestors refuse to abandon them! The five tales: "The Cold Embrace", "The Shadow in the Corner", "At Chrighton Abbey", "Good Lady Ducayne", and "Eveline's Visitant".

NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORKER AND NPR Through the scrim of fading memory, an elderly woman confronts a lifetime of secrets and betrayal, under the mysterious skies of her island home Off the coast of Georgia, near Savannah, generations have been tempted by strange blue lights...

A baffling series of incidents at the majestic Paris Opera sparks frightening rumors about a mysterious opera ghost. Performers are ill-at-ease when they sit alone in their dressing rooms, alleging to have seen the enigma in evening clothes moving about in the shadows. Then a young and beautiful prima donna is visited by a masked "Angel of Music" who teaches her to sing and jealously demands her devotion—but with a price. With an increasing pattern of fear and violence, the phantom of the opera begins to strike, but always with a beautiful young performer at the center of his deadly desires.

This audiobook includes unabridged recordings of 13 of H. P. Lovecraft's most well-renowned stories, read by Audie-Award winner Jonathan Keeble. The stories included here are: 'The Colour Out of Space', 'The Dunwich Horror', 'The Whisperer in the Darkness', 'The Haunter of the Dark', 'Call of Cthulhu', 'The Rats in the Walls', 'From Beyond; Dagon', 'At the Mountains of Madness', 'In the Vault', 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth', 'The Dreams in the Witch House', 'The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath'.

They were best friends. Now they are murderer and witness. Pearl Day has always lived in the background - companion to her childhood friend, the dazzling and unpredictable Lady Eleanor Nicholson. Their bond was forged at Alderleigh, Eleanor's crumbling country estate, but now they share a sleek...

The Moonstone, a yellow diamond looted from an Indian temple and believed to bring bad luck to its owner, is bequeathed to Rachel Verinder on her eighteenth birthday. That very night the priceless stone is stolen again and when Sergeant Cuff is brought in to investigate the crime, he soon realizes that no one in Rachel's household is above suspicion.