Although this is by no means an exhaustive list, I’ve tried to keep this confined to monstrous, supernatural, and mythological narratives; I wanted writing that ‘felt’ like Halloween. The only exceptions really occur with the poetry I’ve listed. For works that don’t fall under those guidelines, you can find my autumn book recommendations here. Be fair warned that trigger warnings (specifically body horror, violence, & death) apply for pretty much all of these works, they’re dark & twisty & just right for curling up under a throw on a stormy night; check their summaries to decide if they’re right for you. Enjoy & Happy Halloween!
Classical, Medieval, & Early Modern Periods
Homer, ‘The Odyssey’ [transl. Fargles] (x)
Ovid, ‘The Metamorphoses’ (x)
Anonymous, ‘Beowulf’ [transl. Heaney] (x)
Dante Alighieri, ‘Divine Comedy’ (x)
Christopher Marlowe, ‘Doctor Faustus’ (x)
William Shakespeare, ‘Macbeth’ (x) and ‘The Tempest’ (x)
John Milton, ‘Paradise Lost’ (x)
Romantic, Gothic, & Victorian Periods
Bram Stoker, ‘Dracula’ (x)
Mary Shelley, ‘Frankenstein’ [1818 ‘uncensored’ text] (x)
Percy Bysshe Shelley, ‘Prometheus Unbound’ (x)
Oscar Wilde, ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ (x)
Wilkie Collins, ‘The Woman in White’ (x)
J. Sheriden Le Fanu, ‘Carmilla’ (x)
James Hogg, ‘The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner’ (x)
Ann Radcliffe, ‘The Italian’ (x)
Robert Louis Stevenson, ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde’ (x)
Lewis Carroll, ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and ‘Through the Looking-Glass’ (x; both texts)
Henry James, ‘The Turn of the Screw’ (x)
Modern, Postmodern, & Contemporary Periods
Guy Endore, ‘The Werewolf of Paris’ (x)
J.R.R. Tolkien, ‘The Hobbit’ (x), ‘The Lord of the Rings Trilogy’ (1, 2, 3), and ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ and his translation of ‘Beowulf’
Mervyn Peake, ‘The Gormenghast Trilogy’
Agatha Christie, ‘And Then There Were None’ (x)
Richard Matheson, ‘I Am Legend’ (x)
Franz Kafka, ‘The Metamorphosis’ (x)
Ronald Dahl, ‘The Witches’ (x)
Ray Bradbury, ‘Something Wicked This Way Comes’ (x)
J.G. Ballard, ‘High-Rise’ (x)
Michael Crichton, ‘Jurassic Park’ (x)
John Gardner, ‘Grendel’ (x)
Anne Rice ‘The Vampire Chronicles’ but especially ‘Interview With the Vampire’, ‘The Tale of the Body Thief’, and ‘The Vampire Lestat’; she also has ‘The Wolf Gift Chronicles’ and ‘The Lives of the Mayfair Witches’ series
Robert McCammon, ‘Swan Song’ and ‘Boy’s Life’
Cormac McCarthy, ‘The Road’ and ‘Blood Meridian’
Stephen King, ‘It’, ‘The Green Mile’, and ‘The Stand’
John Ajvide Lindqvist, ‘Let the Right One In’
Neil Gaiman, ‘Coraline’ and ‘American Gods’ and [with Terry Pratchett] ‘Good Omens’
Terry Pratchett, ‘Thief of Time’ and ‘Discworld’ but especially ‘Wyrd Sisters’ (x) and ‘Witches Abroad’
Catherynne M. Valente, ‘Deathless’
Susanna Clarke, ‘Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell’
Click the jump to continue with poetry, short fiction, & nonfiction (essays on monsters, etc.)!
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