Today’s creepy novel, also mentioned as “horrid” in Northanger Abbey, is The Necromancer; or, The Tale of the Black Forest (1794) written by Carl Friedrich Kahlert (under pseudonym) and translated by Peter Teuthold.
Quote: “…a dreadful chilliness seized us, we felt the grasp of the icy fangs of horror, being in a burying vault surrounded by rotten coffins. Skulls and mouldered bones rattled beneath our feet, the grisly phantom of death stared in our faces from every side, with a grim, ghastly aspect. In the centre of the vault we beheld a black marble coffin, supported by a pedestal of stone, over it was suspended to the ceiling a lamp spreading a dismal, dying glimmering around.”
Some of the Gothic works deemed “horrid” by Jane Austen in 1817’s Northanger Abbey (“are you sure they are all horrid?”) are available online, so let’s shift this countdown to those dark and delicious novels. (One is The Children of the Abbey, already covered on Day 7.)
Today’s title is The Castle of Wolfenbach (1793) by Eliza Parsons.
Quote: “My Lord came here once or twice, but the ghosts made such a noise he could not stay. Several gentry have slept here at times, but no body would stay a second night, and so we have all to ourselves by day, and the ghosts, or what they be, have got all the rooms by night and then they be quiet enough.”
We’ve reached the last post in the portion of this countdown devoted to the creepy Gothic books beloved by the women working in 19th-century mills in Lowell, Massachusetts. Today’s entry is the controversial autobiography of Maria Monk (1836).
Another dark and dreadful novel that women working in 19th-century mills in Lowell, Massachusetts reported enjoying was Alonzo and Melissa (aka The Asylum) by Isaac Mitchell (1804/1811).
Read here (the later version attributed to Daniel Jackson, Jr.).
Quote: The person in her room then uttered a horrible groan, and gliding along by her bed, took his stand behind the curtains, near the foot. The noises below, the cry of murder, the firing of the second pistol, and the running up stairs, were all corresponding scenes to impress terror on her imagination. The pretended ghost then advanced in front of her bed, while lights were slowly introduced, which first shone faintly, until they were ushered into the room by the private door, exhibiting the person before her in all his horrific appearances. On her shrieking, and shrinking into the bed, the lights were suddenly extinguished, and the person, after commanding her to be gone in a hoarse voice, passed again to the foot of the bed, shook it violently, and made a seeming attempt to get upon it, when, perceiving her to be springing up, he fled out of the room by the secret door, cautiously shut it, and joined his companions.
Another Gothic novel that was a favorite with women working in 19th-century mills in Lowell, Massachusetts was The Three Spaniards (1801) by George Walker.
Quote: “That unhappy phantom will ever pursue Fernando, till he shall be pacified. He ever attends him invisible, and at this moment sits at the foot of the corpse of Almira.”
The Inquisitors and the prisoners shuddered, and turned their eyes towards the spot; but they could see nothing, except the pale body of the murdered maid.
“… I will command this unhappy spirit to become visible, and say what are his particular desires, and how he shall be tranquilized in the grave; then shall Fernando enjoy that uninterrupted repose he so well merits.”
Another Gothic title very popular with women working in 19th-century mills in Lowell, Massachusetts wasThe Children of the Abbey (1796) by Regina Maria Roche.
Quote: The horrors of my mind I cannot describe; I seemed to stand alone in the world, without one friendly hand to prevent my sinking into the grave, which contained the dearest objects of my love.
Quote: “… I am not so much afraid of faeries, as of ghosts, and they say there are a plentiful many of them about the castle; now I should be frightened to death, if I should chance to see any of them. But hush! ma’amselle, walk softly! I have thought, several times, something passed by me.”
Another title very popular with women working in 19th-century mills in Lowell, Massachusetts was The Romance of the Forest (1791) by the mother of the Gothic, Ann Radcliffe.
Quote: “She saw herself surrounded by the darkness and stillness of night, in a strange place, far distant from any friends, going she scarcely knew whither, under the guidance of strangers, and pursued, perhaps, by an inveterate enemy.”
Because we mentioned The Castle of Otranto yesterday, let’s show some love for the dark reimagining of Walpole’s novel by Clara Reeve, The Old English Baron (1778). Reeve called it Otranto’s “literary offspring.”
Quote: …he thought he saw a glimmering light upon a staircase before him. “If,” said he, “this apartment is haunted, I will use my endeavours to discover the cause of it; and if the spirit appears visibly, I will speak to it.”
He was preparing to descend the staircase, when he heard several knocks at the door by which he first entered the room; and, stepping backward, the door was clapped to with great violence. Again fear attacked him, but he resisted it, and boldly cried out, “Who is there?”
We have even more evidence of which Gothic novels the women who worked in 19th-century mills in Lowell, Massachusetts read and enjoyed. The posts for the next few days will highlight these titles.
One of the most popular titles was The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole (1764).
Quote: …and then the figure, turning slowly round, discovered to Frederic the fleshless jaws and empty sockets of a skeleton, wrapt in a hermit’s cowl.
“Angels of peace protect me!” cried Frederic, recoiling.
Another Gothic title very popular with women working in 19th-century factories in Manchester and Lancashire, UK, was The String of Pearls; or The Barber of Fleet Street (aka Sweeney Todd) (1846-1847) by James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest.
Quote: “How still everything was in those vaults of old St. Dunstan's. Were there no spirits from another world—spirits of the murdered, to flit in horrible palpability before the eyes of that man who had cut short their thread of life? Surely if ever a visitant from another world could have been expected, it would have been to appear to Todd to convince him that there was more beyond the grave than a forgotten name and a mouldering skeleton.”
Since 2005, I’ve been observing a Halloween countdown on whatever social media I was using at the time with a daily post throughout October. These days I am primarily on Mastodon (so if you're in the Fediverse, or connected to it via Threads or some other means, please say hi!), but I also post on Tumblr (the best place to see my Halloween countdown posts with their full graphics), my Goodreads blog, and here on Dreamwidth, among other places.
I look forward to sharing October with you! Happy Countdown to Halloween 2024!
This year I will focus on Halloween-friendly texts (long and short) available for free online. I will try to lean away from the usual suspects and, I hope, bring you some treats that you will enjoy!
This countdown will have several separate parts. The first part is inspired by Bridget M. Marshall’s excellent 2021 work Industrial Gothic: Workers, Exploitation and Urbanization in Transatlantic Nineteenth-Century Literature. In her book, Marshall notes that dark and dreadful Gothic novels were very popular with the “mill girls” who worked in 19th-century factories. I’d like to start the countdown by recommending some of the shiver-inducing texts these women reported reading and savoring.
Here begins the Day 1 post!
One of the most popular titles with women working in factories in Manchester and Lancashire, UK, was Mysteries of London (1844-1845) by G.W.M. Reynolds.
Quote: “Perhaps there is no other cry in the world, save that of ‘fire!’ more calculated to spread terror and dismay, when falling suddenly and unexpectedly upon the ears of a party of revellers, than that of ‘A corpse! a corpse!’”
I hope you've enjoyed this year's countdown, and I hope you have a fabulous Halloween!
Dark Academia novel:When All the Girls Are Sleeping by Emily Arsenault (2021)
Quote: Most of the girls had simply heard the same things about the Winter Girl over their years at Windham that I had: that her name might be Sarah. That she haunted in January or February. That she knocked on doors or could be seen in a white nightgown in the hallway if you got up and ventured to the bathroom after midnight. That she was to blame for the various weird noises in the building on winter nights. That she had been spurned by a young man and killed herself in her room. One girl said something I hadn’t heard before, though: Some girls say that she’s looking for her replacement. That she’s tired of being a ghost, that she’ll strangle or smother you in your bed if you’re not careful. And then you’re the ghost.
Dark Academia novel:Don’t Forget the Girl by Rebecca McKanna (2023)
From the cover: We never remember the dead girls. We never forget the killers.Â
Quote: Sometimes it seems like an answer – any answer – to what happened to Abby that night is what Bree needs to move on.
… for one second, she sees the moment in exact detail: Abby crying under the statue of the Black Angel in her Hermione Halloween costume, snowflakes collecting on her coppery hair. Chelsea and Bree watching her, not putting their arms around her, letting her walk away. Her footprints in the snow leading down that blacktop path. The last trace of her they ever saw.
Dark Academia novel:Fraternity by Andy Mientus (2022)
From the cover: Be careful what you pledge.
Quote: How to make a Perfect Storm:
1. Allow terrible, unholy powers to find their way into the hands of children. See that those children only half-translate their conjurations, missing key protective details.
2. Have them perform those conjurations at the very height of autumn, the dying of the year, when the veil between worlds is at its thinnest. Make sure they are coming to the work not soberly but at an emotional breaking point, dripping blood, hungry for violence. Aim their violence at another child.
Dark Academia novel:All These Beautiful Strangers by Elizabeth Klehfoth (2018)
Quote: There was a story on campus about a student who had died many years ago—so long ago that no one remembered anymore what his name was or how he had died exactly, but there were reports every now and again of a sighting of his ghost. Some said he'd hanged himself in the showers of the senior boys' dormitory over a broken heart; others said he'd overdosed on pills and fallen into an eternal slumber in his dorm bed over a failing exam grade. It was bad luck if you saw him, a harbinger of terrible things to come. Bryce Langston had reported seeing the ghost on his way home from the library one night. The next morning, he got a rejection letter from Harvard. Everyone had thought he would be a shoo-in, and he hadn't even gotten on the waiting list. The next year, Amanda King supposedly saw the ghost right before she got in a fatal car accident. I always thought about the ghost when I was walking around campus at night by myself. I imagined seeing a white smear in the corner of my vision, but every time I turned my head, there was nothing there.
Dark Academia novel:The Other Lives of Miss Emily White by A. J. Elwood (2023)
Quote: It’s a ghost… a ghost of her.
I saw her again, standing in the entrance hall, dripping to the parquet; her hair a damp rope, her face pale, her eyes cast into darkness. I pushed my blanket away as if it were a shroud, smothering and heavy, weighting me into a grave. I felt cold right through. Emily was young and vibrant and alive. She was here. She’d touched my arm. She’d smiled at me and I had lived in that smile, just for a time. She couldn’t simply stop, couldn’t vanish…
I peered into the corners of the room, where the shadows lay deepest. I half expected a figure to be standing there, darkness spooling from its heart, like paint spiralling from a brush in a jar of water. I fervently wished it away.
Dark Academia novel:A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid (2023)
Quote: And Effy had walked right into the center of it, into this sinking house at the edge of the world.... When Effy was able to move her numb legs again, she ran down the stairs and hurled herself out the door, into the blackness of the night, heart pounding like church bells. She was not afraid of the ghost. But she was horribly, wretchedly afraid of whatever had killed the woman it had once been.
Dark Academia novel:The Sea of Lost Girls by Carol Goodman (2020)
Quote: Every year the coast guard holds an assembly about the dangers of crossing the causeway that only seems to increase its appeal.
When I get out of the car I can hear the dense pines that stand sentinel over the peninsula creaking in the salt-laced wind… and something else.
A sound like a girl crying.
I freeze and listen. It could just be the wind in the trees or the mournful sigh of the tide retreating over the rocks below the coastal path, but then, peering through the fog, I catch a glimpse of something white that looks like a girl running... I remember the ghosts who are said to haunt these woods.
Dark Academia novel:The Ravens by Kass Morgan and Danielle Paige (2020)
From the cover: These sorority girls are real witches.
Quote: That was when she noticed the single tarot card positioned nearly at the head of her bare mattress, as if placed there by a careful hand.
It was the Death card her mother had given her.
The skeleton leered up at her with a gruesome smile, and for a moment, it almost looked like the eyes glowed red. Vivi shivered, despite knowing that it was a trick of the light. I told you. Westerly isn’t a safe place, not for people like you...
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