In the mid-nineteenth century, early psychiatrists (or ‘alienists’) began to analyse the mind and its psychoses. A host of literature about horror, the Uncanny and hauntings appeared. Writers in the Gothic genre often choose to exploit binaries when they start plotting: good/ evil; innocence/ experience; past/ present; youth/ age; dead/ alive. Psychoanalytic readings are really not surprising given these stories often involve things that have been hidden or repressed: secrets, sins, treasures, sexuality, relationships, fears, knowledge.
Several of these eight works have been adapted for stage, television, film, animation and radio.
Where an online version is available I have added links in case you want to read on…
A first person narrator, who is unreliable and may or may not be sane, is haunted by guilt and confesses to have meticulously planned the murder of an old man. It’s a horrifying tightly-controlled short story which haunts the reader with the memorable motifs of a ticking clock, a death watch beetle and a hammering heartbeat.
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (1898, serialised)
A young, innocent governess is tasked with caring for two small children, Flora and Miles. Faced with the ghosts of Peter Quint and Miss Jessel, two mysterious former employees of the secluded estate of Bly, she becomes unable to protect her charges. The novella divides readers – some appreciate its creepy ambiguity; others are left unsettled, wanting certainty about what actually happens.
M. R. James was a mediaeval scholar and used this knowledge in his ghost stories. This famous short story is set in Burnstow, a fictionalised portrait of Felixstowe. It features a Cambridge professor who finds an ancient bronze whistle while exploring a Knights Templar burial site that has been exposed to coastal erosion. The whistle sets free a terrifying supernatural force when it is blown.
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (1959)
A group of psychic researchers meet at Hill House, in an indeterminate location, at the invitation of Dr John Montague, an investigator into the supernatural. His guests have been chosen because of their experiences of the paranormal. Chilling disturbances occur in the house: the suggested influence is a poltergeist. There is mention of telekinesis, séances and spirit writing. The queer elements in the book may remind readers of The Turn of the Screw.
John and Laura take a trip to try to recover following the death of their five-year-old daughter, Christine. The couple hope to lay the ghost of their beloved child to rest. Getting lost in the winding canals and streets of disintegrating Venice becomes a metaphor for their grief. They meet adult twins, one of whom is blind, but apparently, has a psychic gift. This unnerving encounter leads to a dangerous unravelling.
Beyond Black by Hilary Mantel (2005)
This novel is both deeply sinister and satirically funny. A peripatetic psychic appears to be happy as she travels around suburban towns around London, putting her susceptible clients in touch with their deceased loved ones. In fact the medium, Alison, has been traumatised and is being haunted by dark demons: ghosts and memories from her own childhood.
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (2009)
The setting is a crumbling eighteenth-century estate belonging to an aristocratic family who are financially anxious. The focus sharpens to consider hierarchy and class divisions in post-World War II middle England (Warwickshire). The novel includes supernatural occurrences, PTSD and shocking violence. The narrative rattles along, gripping a reader with a sense of the Uncanny.
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry (2016)
The novel is set in 1893. Cora Seaborne, a young widow, moves with her young son, Francis, from London to Essex. She is intrigued by the rumour that an earthquake has roused the mythical Essex sea serpent. She wishes to apply rationality to the situation but encounters local residents’ superstitious fears of the Blackwater Beast that haunts the edges of their coast, threatening to attack.
Desert Island choices are limited to eight but, following Brian Morron’s lead and cheating a little, these works made my long list: Jane Austen’s satirical Northanger Abbey (written in 1803); Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol (1843); Oscar Wilde’s A Picture of Dorian Gray (1890); Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black (1983) and Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987).
If you want more haunting reading try works by Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, Mary Shelley, Charlotte Brontë, Sheridan Le Fanu, Robert Louis Stevenson, Bram Stoker, Arthur Conan Doyle, Anne Rice, Margaret Atwood, Stephen King, Donna Tartt and Helen Oyeyemi.
Gill Lowe
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