Starting Octber 1, I wrote short reviews and thoughts about 31 different Gothic tales that I have enjoyed through the years. I did this in no particular order, choosing a new one every day from my bookshelf. My reading is skewed heavily toward things published decades ago; the most recent one here is Roger Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October, from 1993, with the oldest being Anne’s Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho from 1794. Thirteen of these were written before 1900. The breakdown, when I looked at it, went like this:

1700s: 1 1800s: 12 (1890s: 5, 1810s, 2, 1830s, 2 1840s 1 1860s 2) 1930s: 1 1940s: 1 1950s: 4

1960s: 2 1970s: 4 1980s: 5 1990s: 1

The entire list, with links, is below, for anyone interested. My reading habits in general skew this way, as well. For whatever reason I am not usually in the habit of reading contemporary things or bestsellers, with some exceptions, which you can see on the list. I recall many years ago a creative writing professor damning me with faint praise by saying my writing style was ‘old fashioned,’ which I took as a badge of honor.

This was a fun project, and I may do a more limited one of holiday tales in December.

1. The October Country by Ray Bradbury, 1955
2. Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1835
3. The Sketch-book of Geoffrey Crayon by Washington Irving, 1819
4. A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny, 1993
5. The Case Against Satan by Ray Russell, 1962
6. The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, 1971
7. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, 1959
8. Fevre Dream by George RR Martin, 1982
9. The Body by Stephen King, 1982
10. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, 1954
11. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, 1818
12. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, 1898
13. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 1892
14. A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor, 1953
15. Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice, 1976
16. In Dark New England Days by Sarah Orne Jewett, 1890
17. Ma’ame Pelagie by Kate Chopin, 1894
18. The Moonstone Mass by Harriet Prescott Spofford, 1868
19. The Phantom Coach by Amelia Edwards, 1864
20. The Refugee by Jane Rice, 1943
21. Ghost Story by Peter Straub, 1979
22. Mort by Terry Pratchett, 1987
23. The Halloween Tree by Ray Bradbury, 1972
24. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury, 1962
25. The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike, 1984
26. The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe, 1839
27. The Cask of Amontillado by Poe, 1846
28. Dracula by Bram Stoker, 1897
29. The Mysteries of Udolpho by Anne Radcliffe, 1794
30. The Stress of Her Regard by Tim Powers, 1989
31. At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft, 1936