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Tags: goth and gothic

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  Johnny the Homicidal Maniac

  by Jhonen Vasquez

  Mayhem and violence rule in this collection of issues one through seven of Jhonen Vasquez's Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, as well as material seen before only in Carpe Noctem magazine. Dark and disturbingly funny, JTHM follows the adventures of Johnny (you can call him Nny), who lives with a pair of styrofoam doughboys that encourage his madness, a wall that constantly needs a fresh coat of blood, and--oh,... (more)
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  Coraline

  by Neil Gaiman

  The day after they moved in, Coraline went exploring. In Coraline's family's new flat are twenty-one windows and fourteen doors. Thirteen of the doors open and close. The fourteenth is locked, and on the other side is only a brick wall. At least, that's what it seems to be. Until one day, when Coraline unlocks the door to find a passage to another flat in another house just like her own. Only it's... (more)
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  Child of God

  by Cormac McCarthy

  In this taut, chilling novel, Lester Ballard--a violent, dispossessed man falsely accused of rape--haunts the hill country of East Tennessee when he is released from jail. While telling his story, Cormac McCarthy depicts the most sordid aspects of life with dignity, humor, and characteristic lyrical brilliance.
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  The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy

  And Other Stories

  by Tim Burton

  From breathtaking stop-action animation to bittersweet modern fairy tales, filmmaker Tim Burton has become known for his unique visual brilliance -- witty and macabre at once. Now he gives birth to a cast of gruesomely sympathetic children -- misunderstood outcasts who struggle to find love and belonging in their cruel, cruel worlds. His lovingly lurid illustrations evoke both the sweetness and the tragedy of... (more)
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  The Other

  by Thomas Tryon

  Entranced and terrified, the reader of THE OTHER is swept up in the life of a Connecticut country town in the thirties-and in the fearful mysteries that slowly darken and overwhelm it. Originally published in 1971, THE OTHER is one of the most influential horror novels ever written. Its impeccable recreation of small-town life and its skillful handling of the theme of personality transference between... (more)
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  The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction

  by Jerrold E. Hogle

  Fourteen world-class experts on the Gothic provide thorough accounts of this haunting-to-horrifying genre from the 1760s to the end of the twentieth century. Essays explore the connections of Gothic fictions to political and industrial revolutions, the realistic novel, the theater, Romantic and post-Romantic poetry, nationalism and racism from Europe to America, colonized and post-colonial populations, the rise of... (more)
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  Vathek

  by William Beckford

  Written in 1782 by the near-legendary hedonist William Beckford, Vathek was the first Oriental-Gothic horror novel in English literature. It tells the story of Vathek, the debauched and pleasure-seeking ninth Caliph of the Abassides, who decides to build a great tower to "penetrate the secrets of heaven." The appearance of an Indian magician arouses Vathek’s thirst for knowledge and he is willing to go to any... (more)
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  Outer Dark

  by Cormac McCarthy

  Outer Dark is a novel at once fabular and starkly evocative, set is an unspecified place in Appalachia, sometime around the turn of the century. A woman bears her brother's child, a boy; he leaves the baby in the woods and tells her he died of natural causes. Discovering her brother's lie, she sets forth alone to find her son. Both brother and sister wander separately through a countryside being scourged by... (more)
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  The Loved One

  An Anglo-American Tragedy

  by Evelyn Waugh

  The more startling for the economy of its prose and plot, this novel's story, set among the manicured lawns and euphemisms of Whispering Glades Memorial Park in Hollywood, satirizes the American way of death and offers Waugh's memento mori.
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  The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales

  by Chris Baldick

  Brimming with tales of terror, suspense, and the uncanny, this work offers the first collection devoted to the Gothic genre. Each story contains the common elements of the gothic tale--a warped sense of time, a claustrophobic setting, a link to archaic modes of thought, and the impression of a descent into disintegration. Yet taken together, they reveal the progression of the genre from stories of feudal villains... (more)
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  Goth Chic

  A Connoisseur's Guide to Dark Culture

  by Gavin Baddeley

  Due to its passionate, extreme aesthetic, Goth culture remains both vibrant and vibrantly loved, and continually inspires new developments in pop culture. Both a starting place for newcomers and a source of incisive insights for veterans, Goth Chic examines this dark culture from multiple angles. Each chapter of this lavishly illustrated guide dissects a distinct aspect of the Goth genre, including movies, music,... (more)
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  Blackwell Guides to Literature

  The Gothic

  by David Punter, Glennis Byron

  This guide provides an overview of the most significant issues and debates in Gothic studies. Provides an overview of the most significant issues and debates in Gothic studies. Explains the origins and development of the term Gothic. Explores the evolution of the Gothic in both literary and non-literary forms, including art, architecture and film. Features authoritative readings of key works, ranging... (more)
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  On Ugliness

  by Umberto Eco

  In the mold of his acclaimed History of Beauty , renowned cultural critic Umberto Eco’s On Ugliness is an exploration of the monstrous and the repellant in visual culture and the arts. What is the voyeuristic impulse behind our attraction to the gruesome and the horrible? Where does the magnetic appeal of the sordid and the scandalous come from? Is ugliness also in the eye of the beholder? Eco’s encyclopedic... (more)
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  Let the Right One In

  by John Ajvide Lindqvist

  It is autumn 1981 when the inconceivable comes to Blackeberg, a suburb in Sweden. The body of a teenage boy is found, emptied of blood, the murder rumored to be part of a ritual killing. Twelve-year-old Oskar is personally hoping that revenge has come at long last---revenge for the bullying he endures at school, day after day. But the murder is not the most important thing on his mind. A new girl has moved in next... (more)
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  Kwaidan

  Stories and Studies of Strange Things

  by Lafcadio Hearn

  Kwaidan translates from the Japanese as weird tales, which perfectly describes these haunting stories. This collection of supernatural tales includes a musician called upon to perform for the dead, man-eating goblins, and insects who uncannily mimic human behavior. A perfect treat for fans of the strange and otherworldly.
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  Frankenstein (A Norton Critical Edition)

  by Mary Shelley, J. Paul Hunter

  The text of this Norton Critical Edition is that of the 1818 first edition, published in three volumes by Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, and Jones, in which only obvious typographical errors have been corrected. This text represents what Frankenstein's first readers encountered and is the text favored by scholars. A special critical section, Composition and Revision, includes essays by M. K. Joseph and Anne... (more)
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  The Turn of the Screw (Norton Critical Edition)

  by Henry James

  The Turn of the Screw remains one of Henry James's most remarkable narratives, one whose popularity when it was published is matched by its power to stir readers today. It is one of James's most teachable texts, an indispensable reference point for such critical concerns as point of view and unreliable narration. As such, it is an invaluable introduction to the intricacies of James's style and technique in the... (more)
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  Don't Look Now and Other Stories

  by Daphne du Maurier

  The title novella of this collection features John and Laura who are on holiday in Venice. But it is a dangerous place for them as they are being followed by two old sisters and there is a killer on the loose.
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  We Have Always Lived in the Castle

  by Shirley Jackson

  Taking readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is a deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the struggle that ensues when a cousin arrives at their estate.
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  Nightmare on Main Street: Angels, Sadomasochism, and the Culture of Gothic

  by Mark Edmundson

  Once we've terrified ourselves reading Anne Rice or Stephen King, watching Halloween or following the O. J. Simpson trial, we can rely on the comfort of our inner child or Robert Bly's bongos, an angel, or even a crystal. In a brilliant assessment of American culture on the eve of the millennium, Mark Edmundson asks why we're determined to be haunted, courting the Gothic at every turn-and, at the same time,... (more)