mlle ghoul's fairy tales from the shadows @ghoulnextdoor - Tumblr Blog

The world we navigate daily is only the palest precipice at the edge of, well…everything.

Beneath, beyond, between it all lie chasms upon corridors upon catacombs of spatial marginalia we have failed to notice or chosen not to see: the vast, unmeasured wilderness beneath our feet, the vaporous spirit world peering from beyond, the humming, thrumming space between dreams, the distance between newborn and dying stars.

I assembled a companion playlist to my new book, The Art of the Unknown, and it sounds like this: a shimmering sidereal lullaby, jazz noir bleeding into a pulsating wound of ominous dread, the Stendhal syndrome scored for strings, the ritualistic choir of the body in extremis, the echoing reverb of palindromic mirror worlds, the incantatory clocklessness of Afrofuturist jazz. It contains a ballroom that survives the dissolving shipwreck of memory, electronic music built from pure sine waves for a universe in its first three minutes, before matter and light separated, the moment before anything became anything, and twenty-one minutes of slow electronic drift that pools like November fog in an abandoned stairwell. A trombone played in an underground cistern by seeping stone seraphim. A coastal field recording that captures moonlight shadows creeping slow.

A sonic curation for entire worlds — worlds beneath the skin on our bones and the lightless bottom of the ocean, beyond the final named star and the glittering edge of heaven, between the infinite and the unbearably intimate shadow and the soul.

Listen here: Art credit: Linda Westin

Last year, I was featured on eaulalabygenevieve's Shelfie Sunday, and I was delighted to share a bit about my collection. This June, I was invited back to reflect upon what may have changed over the past year! There's a version of collecting that's really about proving something — to yourself, to whoever looks at your shelf, to the concept of yourself as a person with interesting taste. I've done that version. I know what it feels like. The question I'm sitting with now is different: not what do I want to add, but what is this practice actually for. What I keep coming back to is the finding, the thing inside a scent that is specifically, irreducibly mine to locate, the connection nobody else would make, a door nobody else would think to open, a room nobody else would know to look for, the poem nobody else could write. There's always something in there that belongs to me specifically, something only I can find. My collection is not only the occasion for the finding of this thing, but the devoted celebration of it!

#perfume #fragrance #s. elizabeth #midnightstinks

UPDATED! Bargain Bin Romance – Unquiet Things

#esteban maroto #gothic romance #unquietthings.com

UPDATED! Bargain Bin Romance – Unquiet Things

#gothic romance #harry barton #unquietthings.com

UPDATED! Bargain Bin Romance – Unquiet Things

#unquietthings.com #george ziel #gothic romance

UPDATED! Bargain Bin Romance – Unquiet Things

#unquietthings.com #gothic romance #robert mcginnis

I recently wrote about building my own personal curriculum to better understand 1) the ideas and concepts around the term “hauntology,” and 2) wrap my head around Julia Kristeva’s writings. But it occurred to me that I’d be terribly remiss if I didn’t mention my own books in terms of creating some courses for self-learning!

I put together a (hopefully very shareable) slideshow of graphics about how each book might assist in studies of the arcane & esoteric, the darker side of life, and the fantastical, and how you shouldn’t skip the visual component when you’re deepening your understanding of this, that, or the other thing. (Coming from a rather lazy student, I mean obviously more pictures and less words is the way to go hehehe.)

If you’ve been online lately, you’ve probably seen people talking about “personal curriculums,” essentially, self-directed courses of study built around whatever you’re genuinely curious about. Instead of following someone else’s syllabus, you’re creating your own path through a subject, pulling together books, films, essays, art, music, whatever feeds your particular obsession.

It’s a beautiful way to learn, and it’s having a moment because people are hungry for depth, for expertise that comes from genuine interest rather than algorithmic recommendation. You get to be both student and curator of your own education.

I love this concept because it’s exactly how I’ve always learned: following threads of interest across mediums and disciplines, building connections between visual art and literature and history and folklore. It’s also, not coincidentally, how I approach curating my books. (It’s also a good reason to buy new notebooks!)

Which brings me to this: if you’re building a personal curriculum, here’s where my Art in the Margins series fits.

Studying the occult, symbolism, or esoteric art history?

The Art of the Occult belongs in your visual studies. From theosophy and kabbalah to the zodiac and alchemy, from spiritualism and ceremonial magic to the elements and sacred geometry—this book brings together artists who have been drawn to these unknown spheres and created curious artworks that transcend time and place. Whether you’re learning tarot, diving into the history of magical practice, or exploring Hermetic traditions, you need the visual language that goes with it. These works stem from a soul-deep desire for truth and awareness, revealing the hidden rules of nature and our world through imagery that has haunted and inspired across centuries.

Exploring Gothic aesthetics, melancholy, or the beauty of darkness?

The Art of Darkness is your visual companion. This book celebrates artists who have been obsessed with darkness throughout history—creating works that haunt and horrify, mesmerize and delight, and play on our innermost fears. From dreams and nightmares to matters of mortality, from depravity and destruction to gods and monsters, these artworks indulge our greatest fears while asking: what comfort can be found in facing our demons? Why are we tempted by fear and the grotesque? If you’re studying Victorian mourning culture, exploring Gothic traditions, or simply trying to understand why certain aesthetics speak to something deep within you, this is your sourcebook. Denial of our darkness leads us to fear it….better to create a connection with our shadows and revel in all the inspiration and wonder we may find there!

Deep-diving into fantasy worldbuilding, mythology, or the fantastic?

The Art of Fantasy gives you the visual language. Artists have explored imaginary worlds and fantastical creatures for centuries, expressing the unreal and impossible, the mystical and mythical through paint and illustration. This book presents a compendium of artworks inspired by myth, fantasy, and the unreal—from beasts and beings to forgotten realms and wonderlands, from dreams and magic to faith and philosophy. If you’re studying folklore, reading epic fantasy, learning about mythological traditions across cultures, or working on your own creative worldbuilding, these visual flights of fancy and imagination show you how artists have conveyed the vast swathe of hopes and dreams in our collected hearts. Fantasy is not simply an escape from reality…it is the irresistible impulse that reveals hope and wonder in us all.

Whatever you’re studying, visual art deepens your understanding in ways that text alone cannot. It shows you how ideas manifest aesthetically, how concepts become tangible, how symbolism operates visually. The artists in these books are thinking deeply about their subjects, creating work that’s in conversation with history, mythology, spirituality, and culture across centuries.

If you’re building your own curriculum for any of these subjects, please don’t skip the visual component! These books are resources, and they’re meant to be referenced, returned to, absorbed alongside whatever else you’re studying.

And if you’re building a curriculum around something else entirely? Tell me about it. I want to know what you’re learning, what threads you’re following, what obsessions are driving your self-directed education. That’s always been my favorite kind of conversation!

#personal curriculum #self-directed study #the art of the occult #the art of darkness #the art of fantasy

In the gloaming of a haunted forest, Dante Gabriel Rossetti(1828–82) stages an encounter with existential terror: meeting your exact double while on a romantic stroll. (‘So… come here often?’ suddenly becomes a deeply unsettling question.) Twomedieval lovers stumble upon their exact replicas, creating a mirrored quartet of supernatural dread. The woman on the right swoons dramatically, while her companion draws his sword against this impossible apparition. The doubled figures aren’t reflections but solid presences, glowing with eerie phosphorescence against the darkening woods. Rossetti calledthis his ‘Bogie drawing’ and paintedseveral versions over the years. Rossetti reportedly used himself and his wife, Elizabeth Siddal, as models for the imperiled couple, painting one version during their honeymoon, of all times. Folk beliefs hold thatencountering one’s doppelgängerportends imminent death, lendingthis woodland date a macabre edge. What terror might we feel, meeting ourselves in the flesh, our secret selves made manifest?

Leaf-like spirits spiral through the air while a lone figure sits among wildflowers, witnessing the hidden face of the breeze. Robert James Enraght Moony (1879–1946), influenced by Symbolists and Pre-Raphaelites, believed the natural world harbored invisible forces that revealed themselves only to patient observers. Magic doesn’t require remote wilderness; sometimes it’s waiting for someone willing to sit still and really look. His 1938 oil painting is essentially about how the world is constantly doing amazing things right in front of us, but we’re all too busy scrolling on our phones to notice. (Well, they didn’t have phones in 1938, but you get the idea.) We’ve all experienced this: you’re sitting in some random place when, suddenly, the air feels electric, like the world just reminded you that it’s a miracle, that you’re a miracle, that this ordinary day in 1938, or right now, is actually the most extraordinary thing that’s ever happened.

A woman floats in dark waters, her reflection staring back with eerie ambivalence, both versions seemingly unbothered by their impossible arrangement. Leonor Fini(1908–96) paints a doubled existence where neither face claims to be the original – they simply coexist, calm as you please, while three skulls drift past and dried leaves cling to a barren branch. The Argentine-born artist gives us feminine power at the end of the world (or perhaps its beginning – the title suggests both), yet her subject appears utterly untroubled by the apocalyptic scenery. The cracked, aged texture makes the woman feel ancient, eternal, as if she’s been taking this same leisurely soak since the lake first formed. In the distance, buildings shudder under a moody sky touched with orange and green – civilization reduced to a faint silhouette on the horizon. But why worry? The water’s fine, the company’s quiet, and there’s something marvelously peaceful about having your own reflection as your only companion at the end of everything.

What Wenzel Hablik (1881–1934) achieves in this magnificent artwork makes the word ‘attempt’ in his titles seem almost comically modest. In Starry Sky, Attempt (1909), this visionary Czech artist transforms the cosmos into a pulsing, living thing. Planets hang at eye level, stars cluster and swarm like bees, and the very fabric of space seems encrusted with crystalline light. This crystalline quality was no accident – a chance discovery of a crystal fragment in his childhood sparked Hablik’s lifelong obsession with geometric forms and luminous patterns. Against a backdrop of deepest midnight, his celestial bodies pulse and throb with impossible colors. Crimson planets hang like ripe fruit, violet nebulae swirl like smoke, and countless stars burn in constellations of gold, azure, and white. That Hablik called this a mere‘attempt’ speaks volumes – as if this breathtaking cosmic vision were just a preliminary sketch rather than the universe reimagined in its full glory.

#The Art of the Unknown #Wenzel Hablik

A smattering of artful tidbits from the chapters of my forthcoming book, The Art of the Unknown: A Visual Treasury of the Esoteric, Uncanny and Unexplained, due into this world on September 1 and available for preorder now. Francisco Goya (1746–1828)wrestled this nocturnal apparition onto canvas in under half an hour, working with such urgency that he skipped preliminary sketching entirely. Rediscovered in 2016 after vanishing for 90 years, this small painting emerged from Goya’s post-illness period, when deafness had turned him towards darker visions. The horned specter, draped in darkness, face barely suggested, hovers menacingly before human witnesses rendered in nothing more than quick strokes against ochre darkness. Two centuriesbefore death metal or dungeonsynth existed, Goya had alreadypainted the perfect album cover. Art historian Arturo Ansón Navarro declared it unlike anything else from its era, a raw transmission rather than a considered composition. Was this Goya’s private demon made manifest? A hallucination born from illness? Or something he actually witnessed during sickness, when strange things become visible to those suffering?

Last night, in a sleepless delirium of fever, it occurred to me that I have a book coming out in four months’ time and I am out here thinking about posting dumb personal stuff like a gormless chump — when I should be hyping up my newest artsy fartsy book offering!

So, here's a thing I made for social media book marketing, and I am afraid I must subject it to you all, as well. (Mostly because it took me about four hours to make the above graphic in Canva, hehehe! A designer, I am not.)

Are YOU drawn to the art and imagery at the edges of things? The unexplained? The esoteric? The forces that persist just beyond the threshold of ordinary reality?

Do you find yourself awake at 3am thinking about parallel worlds? Visionary states? Liminal spaces? Cosmic mysteries? Restless souls? Forgotten knowledge? Sacred cycles? Corporeal energies?

Friends. FRIENDS. Have I got the book for you.

Introducing The Art of the Unknown: nearly 200 works by artists across the centuries who looked at what science couldn’t explain and picked up a brush. Painting. Photographing. Diagramming. Their way toward forces and phenomena that defy comprehension.

But WAIT. There’s more.

For the low, low price of whatever your local bookseller is charging, you too can own a visual treasury of the esoteric, the uncanny, and the unexplained. That’s right. It could be yours.

And if you order in the next fifteen minutes ...okay well, you can’t, it’s not out until September, but the preorder link is here, and I cannot stress enough how much I would like you to click it.

Call now. Operators are standing by. I am the operator. I am also standing by.

(This unhinged inanity brought to you by the very busy graphic I made that reminded me of late 80s infomercials for paranormal book collections and psychic hotlines. And also the woo woo advertising nostalgia I remember for things like the Pure Moods cd, which incidentally, I listened to while I was visiting Philly.)

#the art of the unknown

Intermediate Eyeball Fodder (The Hidden Thread Edition!) – Unquiet Things

artist: Anna Mond

The Art of the Unknown: A Visual Treasury of the Esoteric, Uncanny, and Unexplained is my fourth book, out September 1st from Frances Lincoln/Quarto, and it grew directly from years of frustration at people captioning things as “artist unknown” and shrugging at mystery instead of leaning into it, and a deep, abiding belief that wonder is one of the most incredible aspects of being human. Also Richard Bober (iykyk.)

The front cover is Linda Westin’s staggeringly sublime work. Infrared photography revealing colors that exist beyond human sight. A shadowy Swedish forest where the branches create a perfect oculus. A lush, kaleidoscopic vortex of a thing that feels less like a photograph of a forest and more like what a forest dreams about itself.

The back cover is Nona Limmen whose photographs arrive like transmissions from memory or dream, impossible to recount and equally impossible to forget.

I’m sharing the full story of the what and the why of this book on my blog today.

I hope you’ll consider preordering The Art of the Unknown wherever you preorder books from! Preorders are super important so help a ghoul out, y’all!

Every Creature with a Purpose, Every Purpose Shrouded in Mystery: The Mythological Universe of machumaYu – Unquiet Things

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mlle ghoul's fairy tales from the shadows