9 Underrated Gothic Novels That Deserve a Night by the Fire

Some books are built for a quiet night. You want a fire in the grate, a blanket over your knees, and a story that makes the wind outside sound a little louder. Gothic novels were made for exactly that kind of night.

The gothic novel is now more than two hundred years old, and it still works. A lonely house. A secret in the family. A heroine who walks down one corridor too many. The best of these books are not just scary. They are sad, strange, and oddly comforting, all at the same time.

This list gathers nine of them, from 1818 to 2020. A few are famous. A few are unfairly forgotten. All nine deserve a night by the fire. Read them in order, or pick the one that calls to you first.

1. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Most people know Frankenstein from films, and the films get it wrong. This is not really a story about a monster. It is a story about a young scientist who runs away from what he made, and a creature who only wants to belong. Mary Shelley was twenty when the book was published in 1818, and she wrote it during a summer of ghost stories with friends in Switzerland.

The gothic heart of the book is loneliness. Victor Frankenstein flees across Europe and into the Arctic ice. The creature follows him everywhere, asking for one thing only, a companion. The wild landscapes match the wild feelings. Storms, ice, and empty mountains fill the pages, and the cold gets into your bones as you read.

The scene that hooks you comes near the end, on the ice. The creature stands over the body of his maker and speaks of his own sorrow. He is not a snarling beast. He is grieving, and he knows he will die alone. It turns the whole book upside down in a few pages.

Read it next if you think you already know this story. You do not. Read it if you like big questions wrapped in a ghost story. It asks what we owe the things we create, and it never gives an easy answer.

2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Wuthering Heights is the wildest book on this list. It was published in 1847, and readers at the time were shocked by it. Emily Bronte wrote only this one novel. She died the year after it came out, aged thirty, and she never knew how famous it would become.

The gothic pull here is the Yorkshire moors. The wind never stops. The house sits alone on the hills, and the people inside it are as harsh as the weather. Heathcliff and Catherine love each other in a way that destroys everyone around them. There are ghosts, graves, and a house full of locked doors.

The scene that hooks you is the night Catherine’s ghost comes to the window. A new tenant is sleeping in her old room when a small cold hand grabs his wrist through the broken glass. She begs to be let in, saying she has been waiting twenty years. It is one of the most chilling moments in all of fiction.

Read it next if you like love stories with teeth. This is not a gentle romance. It is rough, strange, and full of weather. Read it if you want a book that feels like a storm you can hold in your hands.

3. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde wrote only one novel, and he packed it with wit, beauty, and dread. The Picture of Dorian Gray first appeared in 1890. It tells of a young man who stays beautiful while his portrait grows old and ugly instead. Every cruel thing he does marks the painting, not his face.

The gothic twist is simple and perfect. Dorian hides the portrait in a locked room at the top of his house, and he keeps living a life of pleasure downstairs. The house itself becomes a character. The locked room, the covered painting, and the smell of decay all build a slow, creeping horror.

The scene that hooks you is the first time Dorian sees the portrait change. He has done something cruel, and a faint line of cruelty appears around the painted mouth. He stares at it in the candlelight and understands, in a flash, that he has made a terrible bargain. The room suddenly feels very cold.

Read it next if you love clever dialogue and dark ideas. Wilde’s jokes are sharp on every page. Read it if you have ever wondered what your choices would look like if someone else had to carry them for you.

4. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

This is the shortest book on the list, and it may be the most unsettling. The Turn of the Screw was published in 1898. A young governess arrives at a remote country house called Bly to care for two children, Miles and Flora. Soon she starts seeing figures on the grounds who should not be there.

The gothic power of the book is its doubt. Are the ghosts real, or is the governess imagining them? Henry James never tells you. The children are polite and perfect, and that only makes it worse. Every quiet scene feels loaded, as if something is about to step out of the dark.

The scene that hooks you is the figure on the tower. The governess looks up from the lawn and sees a man standing where no one should be. He stares straight back at her. She does not scream. She simply knows, with total certainty, that he is dead. It is a moment of pure, still terror.

Read it next if you like ghost stories that leave you guessing. There is no neat answer at the end, and that is the point. Read it in one sitting, late at night, and see which side you land on.

5. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Rebecca opens with one of the most famous first lines in fiction, about dreaming of Manderley again. It was published in 1938. A shy young woman marries a wealthy widower, Maxim de Winter, and moves into his great house on the Cornish coast. There she finds that his first wife, Rebecca, is everywhere, even though Rebecca is dead.

The gothic magic here is the house itself. Manderley is beautiful and frightening in equal measure. The housekeeper, Mrs Danvers, keeps Rebecca’s rooms exactly as they were, down to the last hairbrush. The new Mrs de Winter feels smaller with every passing day, as if the house is slowly swallowing her.

The scene that hooks you is the visit to Rebecca’s bedroom. Mrs Danvers opens the door to a perfect, untouched room, and shows the narrator Rebecca’s nightdress, her brushes, her letters. The dead woman feels more alive than anyone else in the house. It is quiet, slow, and deeply creepy.

Read it next if you love atmosphere more than action. This book builds its fear one small detail at a time. Read it if you have ever felt like an outsider in someone else’s home, and wondered what came before you.

6. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Shirley Jackson called Hill House not sane, and the house lives up to the warning. The Haunting of Hill House was published in 1959. Four people stay in the house to study its hauntings. One of them is Eleanor, a lonely young woman who has spent her life caring for her sick mother. The house seems to choose her.

The gothic strength of this book is how little it shows. There is no blood, no monster in the hallway. Instead there are cold spots, doors that will not stay shut, and noises in the night that sound almost like knocking, but not quite. The fear grows inside Eleanor’s head, and Jackson lets you live there with her.

The scene that hooks you is the night of the pounding. Something beats on the doors of the bedrooms, moving from room to room, while Eleanor holds a hand in the dark. In the morning she asks whose hand she was holding. No one answers. The question hangs over the rest of the book.

Read it next if you want dread without gore. This is a ghost story for people who scare easily and love it. Read it if you have ever stayed in a strange house and listened to it settle at night.

7. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

The Thirteenth Tale was Diane Setterfield’s first novel, published in 2006, and it became a number one bestseller. It is a love letter to the gothic novels of the past. Margaret Lea, a bookseller’s daughter, is hired by the famous author Vida Winter to write her true life story, after a lifetime of lies.

The gothic pull is Angelfield House, the ruined mansion at the heart of Vida’s story. Twin sisters grow up there in the wilds of Yorkshire, neglected and strange. There are fires, lost children, and a garden gone to seed. Setterfield writes about books and ghosts with equal tenderness, and the two threads wind together beautifully.

The scene that hooks you is Margaret’s first arrival at Angelfield. She walks through the ruined house as Vida’s story unfolds around her, and the past feels close enough to touch. A burnt-out room, a child’s garden, and a name carved in a wall all land like clues in a mystery.

Read it next if you love Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. This book knows those novels by heart, and it plays with their pieces in clever ways. Read it if you like stories about stories, and secrets that take a whole lifetime to tell.

8. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

The Little Stranger was published in 2009 and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It is set in postwar England, in a crumbling mansion called Hundreds Hall. Dr Faraday, a country doctor, is called to the house to treat a servant girl, and he slowly becomes tangled in the life of the Ayres family.

The gothic sadness here is the decline of the house itself. Hundreds Hall was once grand, and now its paint peels and its gardens run wild. Strange things begin to happen. Marks appear on the walls. Bells ring with no one at the other end. Waters never tells you plainly whether the house is haunted, or whether the family is haunting itself.

The scene that hooks you is the evening the family gathers in the drawing room and the house seems to turn on them. Small cruelties pile up. A dog snaps. A glass breaks. The air feels charged, as if the walls themselves are listening. It is slow dread, and it is very hard to put down.

Read it next if you like ghost stories that take their time. This is a long, slow burn, and the payoff is worth it. Read it if you enjoy books about class, loss, and old houses that refuse to die quietly.

9. Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Mexican Gothic is the newest book on this list, published in 2020, and it proves the gothic is alive and well. Noemi Taboada is a glamorous socialite from Mexico City. When her cousin sends a desperate letter from a remote mansion called High Place, Noemi travels into the misty mountains to find out what is wrong.

The gothic twist is the setting. This is not an English moor or a Cornish cliff. It is 1950s Mexico, with marigolds, mushrooms, and a decaying family that has ruled its valley for too long. The Doyles are pale, strange, and polite in a way that makes your skin crawl. The house itself seems to breathe.

The scene that hooks you is Noemi’s first dinner at High Place. The food is strange. The conversation is stranger. The family watches her the way collectors watch a new specimen. She smiles, she charms, and she quietly starts to plan her escape. The tension never lets up after that meal.

Read it next if you want the gothic with fresh eyes. This book takes the old formula and plants it in new soil. Read it if you like brave heroines, creepy families, and endings that go gloriously strange.

That is the list. Nine novels, two centuries, and one shared promise. Each of them will keep you company on a dark night, and each of them will leave something behind when you close the cover.

The gothic novel survives because it tells the truth about fear. Old houses fall apart. Families keep secrets. The past never quite leaves. But the best of these books also tell the truth about courage. The heroines walk into the dark rooms anyway. They open the locked doors. They ask the questions no one wants asked.

So light the fire, pour something warm, and pick one. Start with the book that scares you a little, or the one that sounds like home. Either way, you will not be alone in the dark. You will have very good company.

John Smith

John Smith is the founder and CEO of Karaoke Machines Guru. He is a karaoke tutor and karaoke enthusiast and has been passionate about karaoke since he was a child. He also writes about karaoke-related tips, guides, and product reviews on this website.
He overlooks the whole website and makes sure that everything is running smoothly. Learn more!