Lilac Sky

Masterpost of Free Gothic Literature & Theory

Classics Vathek by William Beckford Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë The Woman in White  & The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu The Turn of the Screw by Henry James The Monk by Matthew Lewis The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin The Vampyre; a Tale by John Polidori Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson Dracula by Bram Stoker The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Short Stories and Poems An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce Songs of Innocence & Songs of Experience by William Blake The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Pre-Gothic Beowulf The Divine Comedy  by Dante Alighieri A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe Paradise Lost by John Milton Macbeth by William Shakespeare Oedipus, King of Thebes by Sophocles The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster

Gothic-Adjacent Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood Jane Eyre & Villette by Charlotte Brontë Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems by Coleridge and Wordsworth The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens The Idiot & Demons (The Possessed) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas Moby-Dick by Herman Melville The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells

Historical Theory and Background The French Revolution of 1789 by John S. C. Abbott Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth by A. C. Bradley The Tale of Terror: A Study of the Gothic Romance by Edith Birkhead On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle Demonology and Devil-Lore by Moncure Daniel Conway Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism by Inman and Newton On Liberty by John Stuart Mill The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau Feminism in Greek Literature from Homer to Aristotle by Frederick Wright

Afterwit - wisdom or perception that comes after it can be of use.

Antapology - a response to an apology.

Bovarism - a conception of oneself as other than one is to the extent that one's general behavior is conditioned or dominated by the conception.

Cogitabund - given to deep thought; having the appearance of being in deep meditation.

Dolorifuge - something that banishes or mitigates grief.

Doundrins - afternoon drinkings.

Epistemophilia - love of knowledge; specifically: excessive striving for or preoccupation with knowledge.

Estivate - to spend the summer usually at one place.

Eudaemonic - producing happiness.

Eye-servant - one that attends to duty only when watched.

Formication - an abnormal sensation resembling that made by insects creeping in or on the skin.

Hygeiolatry - worship of health; excessive devotion to hygiene.

Nidifugous - leaving the nest soon after hatching.

Obsibilate - to make a whistling noise, as trees stirred with winds.

Undusous - full of surges and waves.

If any of these words make their way into your next poem/story, please tag me, or leave a link in the replies. I would love to read them!

ISTJ: jet black fountain pens and thin wire glasses, illustrated books on lepidology, microscopes with delicate geers, library card-catalogues, neat signatures, the scent of formaldehyde and the art of precision.

ESTJ: shiny black Oxford loafers and white button down shirts, busts of Roman generals, prefect’s badges, sepia maps, grandfather clocks, translating Herodotus, sharp silver letter openers with bloodred handles.

ISTP: leather-banded watches and ships-in bottles, sketched diagrams of bridges, chesterfield coats, bronze protractors and disheveled piles of graph paper, Voltaire quotes, chalk equations, pulling all nighters.

ESTP: roguishly loose striped neckties and crooked grins, varsity sweaters and scraped knees, secret passageways to the rooftops, Beat poetry, the scent of cedar, steam engines barreling through winding mountains.

ESFJ: black monogrammed gloves and red scarves, snowball fights, cups of hot chocolate, angelic choral voices, etiquette books, Jane Austen novels, silk robes, ballet shoes, light through stained glass windows.

ISFJ: cups of Earl Grey and wool button down cardigans, pressed lavender in books of Emily Dickinson poetry, piano sheet music, personalized wax letter seals, watercolor paintings in faded blues and greys.

INFP: Chelsea boots, olive green sweaters and tousled hair, existentialist novels and espresso in rainy cafes, signed postcards and fresh baguettes in bicycle baskets, moving to a new city alone, dried roses and stormy eyes.

ENFP: Disheveled brown corduroy, stradivarius violins, bell towers full of bats, Shakespeare comedies performed for raucous audiences, chai tea, Irish setters, impassioned marginalia, Botticelli curls, ivy creeping over red brick.

ISFP: reading Romantic poetry in grave yards, black turtle-necks, charcoal-stained fingertips, record collections, black and white films on antique projectors, gothic spires through fog, gin cocktails, poker faces.

ESFP: Maps hidden on the backs of paintings, muddy derby shoes, bacchinalia rituals, the scent of pomade, Oscar Wilde essays, crystal goblets and crystal chandeliers, green grapes and purple velvet, curled ram’s horns.

INFJ: tattered paperback copies of Virginia Woolf novels, tower windows, local ghost stories, Faire Isles sweaters, letter-writing by candlelight, flutes, paintings of rosy-cheeked Greek nymphs, pistachio macarons.

ENFJ: reading Whitman aloud, frescos of angels, paisley pocket squares, sumptuous dinner parties, passports and polaroids, oil portraits of royalty, studying multiple languages, plates of pasta, emerald rings.

INTJ: silver cuff links and black umbrellas, antique chess boards, ravens perched on wrought-iron gates, photography dark rooms, anatomical illustrations, suits of armor, stone gargoyles, hedge mazes, horror short stories.

ENTJ: leather-bound planners, tartan scarves, memorized political treatises, debate podiums and briefcases, black coffee, bookstores in the morning, statues of Nike, gold pocketwatches, fresh newspapers, brown berets.

INTP: oversized tweed blazers with elbow patches, tortoises in terrariums, the scent of old books, spiral staircases, stargazing under indigo skies, knee-high socks, Sherlock Holmes stories, breaking secret codes.

"Life is a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS