Research Guides: Virtual Library Displays: Spooky Season!

Non-Fiction Books

Gender and Contemporary Horror in Television by Steven Gerrard (Editor) "Horror has found a resurgence on television in the post-millennial years. This book will investigate the changing and challenging roles that gender has undergone in TV horror, examining a range of shows, including Hannibal, American Horror Story, The Walking Dead, Penny Dreadful, Supernatural, The Exorcist, iZombie, and Bates Motel."
Italian Gothic Horror Films, 1980-1989 by Roberto Curti "The Italian Gothic horror genre underwent many changes in the 1980s. Horror films proved commercially successful in the first half of the decade, but the rise of made-for-TV products resulted in the gradual disappearance of genre products from the big screen. This book examines all the Italian Gothic films of the 1980s"-- Provided by publisher.
The Birth of the American Horror Film by Gary D. Rhodes "Explains how the American horror movie came into existence. Although early cinema has long been a key area of research in film studies, the origin and development of the horror film has been a neglected subject for what is arguably one of the world's most popular film genres. Using thousands of primary sources and long-unseen illustrations, 'The Birth of the American Horror Film' examines a history that begins in colonial Salem, taking an interdisciplinary approach to explore the influence of horror-themed literature, theatre and visual culture in America, and how that context established an amorphous structural foundation for films produced between 1895 and 1915. Exhaustively researched, bridging scholarship on Horror Studies and Early Cinema, 'The Birth of the American Horror Film' is the first major study dedicated to this vital but often overlooked subject. Suitable for use on courses focusing on Film History, Genre and Horror."
Horror Literature and Dark Fantasy by Mark A. Fabrizi (Editor) "Horror Literature and Dark Fantasy: Challenging Genres is a collection of scholarly essays intended to address the parent whose unreasoning opposition to horror entails its removal from a school curriculum, the school administrator who sees little or no redeeming literary value in horror, and the teacher who wants to use horror to teach critical literacy skills but does not know how to do so effectively. The essays herein are intended to offer opportunities for teachers in secondary schools and higher education to enrich their classes through a non-canonical approach to literary study. This book is a deliberate attempt to enlarge the conversation surrounding works of horror and argue for their inclusion into school curricula to teach students critical literacy skills."
A History of Horror Arranged by decades, this 1-stop sourcebook unearths the historical origins of characters such as Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolfman and their various incarnations in film from the silent era to comedic sequels.
Heaven's Ditch by Jack Kelly Heaven's Ditch by Jack Kelly illuminates the spiritual and political upheavals along this "psychic highway" from its opening in 1825 through 1844.
Kitty Genovese by Kevin Cook Drawing on a trove of long-lost documents, plus new interviews with her lover and other key figures, Cook explores the enduring legacy of the case. His heartbreaking account of what really happened on the night Genovese died is the most accurate and chilling to date.
The Burning of Bridget Cleary by Angela Bourke In 1895, Bridget Cleary, a strong-minded and independent young woman, disappeared from her house in rural Tipperary. At first her family claimed she had been taken by fairies-but then her badly burned body was found in a shallow grave. Combining historical detective work, acute social analysis, and meticulous original scholarship, Angela Bourke investigates Bridget's murder.
The Zodiac Killer by Gary L. Stewart; Susan Mustafa Written with award-winning author and journalist Susan D. Mustafa, The Most Dangerous Animal of All tells the story of Stewart’s decade-long hunt for his father following a complex trail of startling twists and connections. Combing through government records and news reports and through conversations with his father’s relatives and friends, Stewart turns up a host of clues, including forensic evidence, identifying his father as one of the most infamous and still-wanted serial killers in American history.
The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester The making of the OED was one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken. As definitions were collected, the overseeing committee, led by Professor James Murray, was stunned to discover that one man, Dr. W. C. Minor, had submitted more than ten thousand. But their surprise would pale in comparison to what they were about to discover when the committee insisted on honoring him. For Dr. Minor, an American Civil War veteran, was also an inmate at an asylum for the criminally insane.
In Defense of Witches by Mona Chollet; Sophie R. Lewis (Translator); Carmen Maria Machado (Introduction by) Rather than being a brief moment in history, the persecution of witches is an example of society’s seemingly eternal misogyny, while women today are direct descendants to those who were hunted down and killed for their thoughts and actions. With fiery prose and arguments that range from the scholarly to the cultural, In Defense of Witches seeks to unite the mythic image of the witch with modern women who live their lives on their own terms.
The Road to Jonestown by Jeff Guinn By the New York Times bestselling author of Manson, the comprehensive, authoritative, and tragic story of preacher Jim Jones, who was responsible for the Jonestown Massacre—the largest murder-suicide in American history.
The Skeleton Crew by Deborah Halber Citing tens of thousands of missing persons, unidentified remains, and unsolved crimes in America, an introduction to amateur crime solving reveals how everyday concerned citizens can access online resources to help solve cold cases.

Fiction: E-Books

Brute Force by Dominic Lennard "It's always been a wild world; humans started telling stories of killer animals as soon as they could tell stories at all. Movies are an especially popular vehicle for our fascination with fierce creatures. In Brute Force, Dominic Lennard takes a close look at a range of cinematic animal attackers, including killer gorillas, sharks, snakes, bears, wolves, and spiders--even a few dinosaurs. Lennard argues that animal horror is not so much a focused genre as it is an impulse, tapping into age-old fears of being hunted. At the same time, these films expose conflicts and uncertainties in our current relationship with animals. Movies considered include King Kong, Jaws, The Grey, Them!, Arachnophobia, Jurassic Park, Snakes on a Plane, An American Werewolf in London, and many more. Drawing on insights from film studies, art history, cognitive science, and evolutionary psychology, Brute Force is an engaging critical exploration--and appreciation--of cinema's many bad beasts"-- Provided by publisher
The complete stories of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe "Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is sometimes considered the inventor of the detective fiction genre. He is further credited with contributing to the emerging genre of science fiction. His fiction spans multiple genres, including horror fiction, adventure, science fiction, and detective fiction, a genre he is credited with inventing. These works are generally considered part of the Dark romanticism movement. His most recurring themes deal with questions of death, including its physical signs, the effects of decomposition, concerns of premature burial, the reanimation of the dead, and mourning. Though known as a masterful practitioner of Gothic fiction, Poe did not invent the genre; he was following a long-standing popular tradition."
The Call of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft
Northanger Abbey by Jane. Austen "Catherine, a seventeen year old girl, travels with her family to Bath and makes many new acquaintance, including two young men who pursue her. She is invited to visit the country estate of one, and makes the journey with high expectations of Gothic drama, her head being full of Mrs Radcliffe's The Mystery of Udolpho . This was the first novel completed by Austen, but was only published posthumously. It is a delightful, light-hearted comment by Austen on the reading and writing of novels."
Blood Thirst by Leonard Wolf
Frankenstein, or, The modern Prometheus : the 1818 text by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Tales by Robert Louis Stevenson "Stevenson's short novel, published in 1886, became an instant classic. It was a Gothic horror originating in a feverish nightmare, that has thrilled readers ever since. Also included in this edition are a number of short stories and essays of the 1880s and extracts from writings on personality disorder that set the works in their historical context"-- Publisher's description.
Have Fun in Burma by Rosalie Metro "Adela Frost wants to do something with her life. When a chance encounter and a haunting dream steer her toward distant Burma, she decides to spend the summer after high school volunteering in a Buddhist monastery. Adela finds fresh confidence as she immerses herself in her new environment, teaching English to the monks and studying meditation with the wise abbot. Then there's her secret romance with Thiha, an ex-political prisoner with a shadowy past. But when some of the monks express support for the persecution of the country's Muslim minority, Adela glimpses the turmoil that lies beneath Burma's tranquil surface. While investigating the country's complex history, she becomes determined to help stop communal violence. With Thiha's assistance, she concocts a scheme that quickly spirals out of control. Adela must decide whether to back down or double down, while protecting those she cares about from the backlash of Buddhist and Muslim extremists. Set against the backdrop of Burma's fractured transition to democracy, this coming-of-age story weaves critiques of voluntourism and humanitarian intervention into a young woman's quest for connection across cultural boundaries."--Provided by publisher.
Searching for Sycorax by Kinitra D. Brooks "Searching for Sycorax highlights the unique position of Black women in horror as both characters and creators. Kinitra D. Brooks creates a racially gendered critical analysis of African diasporic women, challenging the horror genre's historic themes and interrogating forms of literature that have often been ignored by Black feminist theory. Brooks examines the works of women across the African diaspora, from Haiti, Trinidad, and Jamaica, to England and the United States, looking at new and canonized horror texts by Nalo Hopkinson, NK Jemisin, Gloria Naylor, and Chesya Burke. These Black women fiction writers take advantage of horror's ability to highlight U.S. white dominant cultural anxieties by using Africana folklore to revise horror's semiotics within their own imaginary. Ultimately, Brooks compares the legacy of Shakespeare's Sycorax (of The Tempest) to Black women writers themselves, who, deprived of mainstream access to self-articulation, nevertheless influence the trajectory of horror criticism by forcing the genre to de-centralize whiteness and maleness."

Gothic Literature

21st-Century Gothic by Danel Olson (Editor) "Selected by a poll of more than 180 Gothic specialists, the fifty-three original works discussed in 21st-Century Gothic represent the most impressive Gothic novels written around the world between 2000-2010."
Gothic Writers by Douglass H. Thomson (Editor)
Gothic Incest by Jenny DiPlacidi "The first full-length study of incest in the Gothic genre, this book argues that Gothic writers resisted the power structures of their society through incestuous desires. It provides interdisciplinary readings of incest within father-daughter, sibling, mother-son, cousin and uncle-niece relationships in texts by authors including Emily Brontë, Eliza Parsons, Ann Radcliffe and Eleanor Sleath. The analyses, underpinned by historical, literary and cultural contexts, reveal that the incest thematic allowed writers to explore a range of related sexual, social and legal concerns. Through representations of incest, Gothic writers modelled alternative agencies, sexualities and family structures that remain relevant today."
The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe "he Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) is the archetypal Gothic novel. A young woman, Emily St. Aubert, suffers the death of her father, followed by worsening physical and psychological death, mirrored in a landscape of crumbling castles and emotive Alps."
Vathek by William Beckford "Vathek is one of the earliest and most influential Gothic novels. Its hero is the Caliph Vathek who renounces Islam in a hedonistic quest for supernatural powers, which leads to his downfall. Beckford's genius was in marrying Orientalism with the Gothic, both sources of fascination and delight to reading audiences of the time"
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins "The Woman in White is the first and greatest `Sensation Novel'. Walter Hartright's mysterious midnight encounter with the woman in white draws him into a vortex of crime, poison, kidnapping, and international intrigue. This new critical edition is the first to use the manuscript of the novel. John Sutherland examines Collins's contribution to Victorian fiction, traces his practices as a creator of plot, and provides a chronology of the novel's complicated events."
Twenty-First-Century Gothic by Maisha Wester (Editor) "This resource in contemporary Gothic literature, film, and television takes a thematic approach, providing insights into the many forms the Gothic has taken in the twenty-first century"-- Provided by publisher.

Fiction

The Original Folk and Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm by Jacob Grimm; Wilhelm Grimm; Jack Zipes (Edited and Translated by); Andrea Dezsö (Illustrator)
The Shining by Stephen King
It by Stephen King
There's No Way I'd Die First by Lisa Springer A spine-tingling contemporary horror-comedy novel that follows a scary-movie buff as she hosts an elaborate Halloween bash but soon finds the festivities upended when she and her guests are forced to test their survival skills in a deadly game
American Fantastic Tales: From Poe to the Pulps by Peter Straub Horror stories by American authors of the 20th Century.
H. P. Lovecraft: Tales by H. P. Lovecraft; Peter Straub (Editor) the very best of H. P. Lovecraft's fiction in a treasury guaranteed to bring fright and delight both to longtime fans and to readers new to his work.
Firestarter by Stephen King Andy McGee and Vicky Tomlinson were once college students looking to make some extra cash, volunteering as test subjects for an experiment orchestrated by the clandestine government organization known as The Shop. But the outcome unlocked exceptional latent psychic talents for the two of them—manifesting in even more terrifying ways when they fell in love and had a child. Their daughter, Charlie, has been gifted with the most extraordinary and uncontrollable power ever seen—pyrokinesis, the ability to create fire with her mind.
Shirley Jackson: Novels and Stories by Shirley Jackson; Joyce Carol Oates (Editor) The essential works of Shirley Jackson, the novels and stories that, from the early 1940s through the mid-1960s, wittily remade the genre of psychological horror for an alienated, postwar America.
Mr. Bones by Paul Theroux; Paul Theroux Mr. Bones is a series of characteristically dark and sharply focused snapshots from the world that Paul Theroux has observed—and invented.”
Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state—called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo—a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie’s soul. President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, ...despite predictions of a recovery, dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery.
The Dog Killer of Utica by Frank Lentricchia
Ex detective Eliot Conte hits the streets once more when one of his students disappears, possibly in connection to a rash of dog-killings in Utica, NY