This classic gothic novella follows a young governess who takes charge of two children at a remote English estate. Her sense of dread grows as she becomes convinced the children are being corrupted by the malevolent ghosts of their former governess and her lover, Peter Quint.
James masterfully builds psychological suspense through an unreliable narrator, leaving the reader to question whether the haunting is real or a product of the governess’s fracturing sanity.
In this Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, the legacy of slavery manifests as a literal haunting. Sethe, a woman who escaped enslavement, is visited by a mysterious young woman named Beloved, who is the physical embodiment of the daughter Sethe killed to save her from a life of bondage.
The novel powerfully explores themes of memory, trauma, and maternal love, using a ghost to confront the unspeakable horrors of the past and the desperate need for healing.
Four individuals gather at the notoriously strange Hill House to investigate its paranormal history. The novel focuses on the fragile Eleanor Vance, whose psychological vulnerabilities seem to make her a target for the house’s oppressive influence.
Jackson’s genius lies in her ambiguity, blurring the line between a genuine haunting and Eleanor’s mental collapse, creating a landmark work of psychological horror that questions the nature of fear itself.
A classic exercise in gothic terror, this novel follows Arthur Kipps, a young lawyer sent to a desolate English coastal town to settle the estate of a deceased client. He soon discovers the town is haunted by the vengeful specter of a woman who lost her child in the nearby marshes.
Hill employs an isolated setting, creeping dread, and chilling set pieces to create a truly terrifying and atmospheric ghost story about grief and vengeance.
This highly original novel unfolds in a cemetery on the night of Abraham Lincoln’s young son, Willie, being laid to rest. Willie’s spirit enters the “bardo,” a transitional realm populated by a chorus of ghosts who are unable to move on.
Composed of historical accounts and the fragmented voices of the dead, the novel is a profound and experimental meditation on grief, empathy, and the human connections that transcend death.
When Jack Torrance becomes the winter caretaker at the isolated Overlook Hotel, the building’s violent past and malevolent spirits begin to prey on his sanity and alcoholism. His son, Danny, who possesses a psychic ability called "the shining," can see the hotel’s ghostly residents and the evil they intend.
King’s novel is a terrifying exploration of addiction, family dysfunction, and the way malevolent places can amplify personal demons.
A physicist, his wife, and two mediums are hired to investigate the infamous Belasco House, a place of extreme depravity and violence where all previous investigators have died or gone insane. The novel is a brutal and unflinching depiction of a haunting, pitting scientific skepticism against overwhelming supernatural force.
Matheson explores themes of evil, desire, and psychological weakness in a story that is both visceral and terrifying.
In post-WWII Warwickshire, Dr. Faraday is called to Hundreds Hall, the crumbling ancestral home of the Ayres family. As the family’s fortunes decline, a subtle but sinister presence begins to manifest, causing a series of disturbing and tragic events.
Waters masterfully blends gothic suspense with social commentary, leaving it ambiguous whether the haunting is supernatural or a psychological projection of the characters' anxieties about class and decline.
Aging rock star and collector of morbid memorabilia, Judas Coyne, buys a ghost online—specifically, a suit haunted by the spirit of a dead man. He quickly learns the ghost is not a mere curiosity but a vengeful entity determined to destroy him and everyone he loves.
The novel is a relentless and modern horror story about confronting the consequences of past actions, weaving a compelling tale of guilt and redemption.
The quintessential tale of yuletide redemption, this novella is fundamentally a ghost story. The miserly Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the chained ghost of his former business partner, Jacob Marley, followed by three spirits who show him visions of his past, present, and future.
Through these supernatural encounters, Dickens explores themes of social responsibility, compassion, and the possibility of transformation.
Narrated by fourteen-year-old Susie Salmon from her personal heaven, the novel follows the aftermath of her brutal murder. She watches over her grieving family and her killer as they struggle to move on and find justice.
By giving a voice to the victim, Sebold crafts a unique and poignant story that explores grief, hope, and the enduring bonds of family from a perspective beyond the grave.
After the sudden death of his wife, novelist Mike Noonan retreats to their lakeside home in Maine, suffering from writer’s block and crippling grief. He soon finds himself embroiled in a local custody battle and haunted by the ghost of a 1930s blues singer named Sara Tidwell.
King blends a traditional ghost story with themes of racism, legacy, and buried community secrets in this atmospheric and emotional novel.
The Silver House in Dover has a mind of its own, and it doesn't like strangers. The novel centers on Miranda Silver, whose family has lived in the house for generations. After her mother’s death, the house’s strange tendencies—and its resident ghosts—intensify.
Oyeyemi uses a unique narrative voice, including that of the house itself, to explore themes of heritage, xenophobia, and mental illness in this deeply unsettling and lyrical gothic tale.
In the 1950s, glamorous socialite Noemí Taboada travels to a remote mansion in the Mexican countryside to check on her recently married cousin. She finds a decaying English family, a sinister patriarch, and a house plagued by disturbing visions and a pervasive, creeping sense of dread.
The haunting here is biological and fungal, a unique twist on the classic gothic haunted house story that explores themes of colonialism, eugenics, and decay.
Following the funeral of a family matriarch, two Alabama families are forced to spend a summer at a pair of remote, dilapidated Victorian houses on the Gulf Coast. One of the houses is slowly being consumed by sand, and it is haunted by a terrifying and physically manipulative entity.
McDowell excels at creating a uniquely Southern Gothic atmosphere of heat, decay, and suffocating dread in this masterpiece of quiet horror.
Every nine years, down a mysterious alleyway in London, a small black door appears. Those who enter Slade House are invited in by its strange residents, only to find themselves victims of a pair of psychic vampires who consume their souls.
Told in five parts across several decades, this slim, terrifying novel is a tightly plotted and inventive story of a uniquely malevolent haunting.
This satirical novella cleverly inverts ghost story tropes when a practical American family moves into an English manor and refuses to be frightened by its resident ghost, Sir Simon de Canterville. Instead, they play pranks on the ghost and treat him as a nuisance.
Wilde uses the story to humorously critique American materialism and British aristocracy, ultimately crafting a charming tale about cultural clashes, empathy, and redemption.
Brother and sister Roderick and Pamela Fitzgerald fall in love with a beautiful, empty seaside house in Devon and purchase it for a low price, only to discover it is haunted. The spectral presence seems to be two-fold—one benevolent and sorrowful, the other cold and malevolent.
Their investigation into the house’s tragic past becomes a classic of the genre, known for its atmospheric tension and compelling mystery.
When newly widowed Elsie is sent to her late husband's crumbling country estate, she discovers a locked room containing a wooden figure—a “silent companion”—painted to look exactly like her. Soon, more of these unsettling figures appear, and their eerie presence seems to coincide with a series of terrifying events.
Set in the Victorian era, this is a chilling gothic novel about madness, secrets, and supernatural menace.
After his family is murdered, a toddler wanders into a nearby graveyard where he is adopted and raised by the ghosts who reside there. Known as Nobody “Bod” Owens, he learns the ways of the dead while navigating the dangers of the living world, particularly the man who killed his family.
This charming and inventive novel is a coming-of-age story that uses a supernatural setting to explore themes of life, death, community, and family.
American twins Julia and Valentina inherit a London flat overlooking Highgate Cemetery from their estranged aunt Elspeth, who died of cancer. As they move in, they discover that their aunt’s spirit has not left the apartment, leading to a complex and haunting story about identity, grief, and the porous boundary between life and death.
The novel is deeply atmospheric, with the famous cemetery serving as a powerful backdrop.
Fourteen-year-old Marjorie Barrett begins to display signs of acute schizophrenia, but her desperate family, influenced by their local priest, comes to believe she is possessed by a demon. They agree to have their ordeal documented by a reality TV show, with horrific results.
Told fifteen years later by Marjorie's younger sister, the novel brilliantly plays with ambiguity, leaving the reader to doubt what was real and what was manufactured for the cameras.
In 1937, a young, down-on-his-luck man named Jack joins a scientific expedition to a remote, uninhabited bay in the Arctic. As the endless winter night descends, his companions depart one by one, leaving him utterly alone—or so he thinks.
Paver uses the extreme isolation and oppressive darkness of the setting to build an unbearable sense of dread, crafting a terrifying ghost story about loneliness and fear.
Following a family tragedy, Angela Toussaint returns to her late grandmother's house in Washington state—a place the locals call "the good house." She soon discovers that a malevolent entity, connected to her family’s past and her grandmother’s voodoo-like practices, has been awakened.
Due masterfully blends family drama with supernatural horror, creating a rich and terrifying story rooted in ancestral secrets and African-American spiritual traditions.
A young family moves into a modern apartment building that seems like a perfect bargain, but with one major flaw: it is bordered on three sides by a cemetery, a crematorium, and a Buddhist temple. They soon find themselves the last remaining tenants as a malevolent force from below begins to terrorize them.
This classic of Japanese horror is an exercise in escalating dread and claustrophobia.
College student Devin Jones takes a summer job at a North Carolina amusement park, where he learns that the Horror House is haunted by the ghost of a murdered girl named Linda Gray.
Blending a coming-of-age story, a murder mystery, and a touching ghost story, Joyland is one of King’s more sentimental and nostalgic works, exploring themes of first love, heartbreak, and confronting mortality.
Though presented as a true story, this book functions as one of the most influential haunted house novels ever written. The Lutz family buys their dream home in Amityville, New York, for a steal, knowing it was the site of a mass murder.
Within 28 days, they are driven out by a series of terrifying paranormal events, from swarms of flies and disembodied voices to demonic visitations. It remains a cornerstone of the haunted house genre.
Maggie Holt returns to Baneberry Hall, the house her family fled in the middle of the night twenty-five years ago. Her father wrote a bestselling, non-fiction book about their paranormal experiences there, but Maggie doesn't remember any of it and believes he made it all up.
As she renovates the house for sale, she must confront the possibility that the ghosts her father wrote about might actually be real.
Told in dual timelines, the novel connects a modern-day journalist investigating a cold case with a group of girls at Idlewild Hall, a boarding school for "troubled" young women in the 1950s. The school is rumored to be haunted by a vengeful ghost, Mary Hand.
The novel skillfully weaves together a murder mystery and a ghost story, exploring themes of sisterhood, trauma, and giving a voice to forgotten women.
No list of ghost stories is complete without M. R. James, the master of the antiquarian ghost story. This collection brings together his chilling tales, which typically feature a reserved, academic protagonist who unwittingly unearths a malevolent object or entity from the past.
James avoids gore in favor of suggestion and atmosphere, perfecting a style of quiet, creeping dread that has influenced generations of horror writers.
A year after their young son disappears, the Caleigh family relocates to Crickley Hall in Devon to escape their grief. They soon discover the house is intensely haunted by the spirits of children who were abused and died there during World War II, as well as the cruel spirit of their tormentor.
The novel is a chilling and emotional story about loss, cruelty, and the battle between good and evil.
A clever homage to The Turn of the Screw, this gothic thriller is narrated by Florence, a hyper-literate but neglected twelve-year-old orphan in a remote New England mansion.
When a new governess arrives and seems to threaten her younger brother Giles, Florence becomes convinced the woman is a malevolent spirit and resolves to protect him at any cost. The result is a tense and ambiguous tale of an unreliable narrator.
This foundational work of Japanese horror follows a journalist investigating the mystery of a cursed videotape that supposedly kills the viewer one week after they watch it. The haunting is rooted in the tragic story of Sadako Yamamura, a psychic girl whose vengeful spirit is embedded in the tape.
The novel is a chilling blend of supernatural horror, viral technology, and detective work.
Iris Villarca is the last of her line, raised in isolation at her family’s crumbling estate, Rawblood, on Dartmoor. She is bound by a family curse: a ghost, known as “her,” that attaches to anyone a Villarca loves and drives them to madness and death.
Spanning generations, this is a lush and terrifying modern gothic novel about inherited trauma, loneliness, and the destructive power of love.
With his career on the decline, true-crime author Lucas Graham gets a tip to investigate the past of a charismatic cult leader, Jeffrey Halcomb. He decides to interview Halcomb in prison, unaware that the cult’s sinister influence and a powerful supernatural entity are still active.
The novel explores obsession and faith, blending a dark mystery with genuine supernatural terror.
Four bestselling horror authors agree to spend Halloween night in the notoriously haunted Finch House, as part of a publicity stunt. They expect a few creaks and bumps, but they instead awaken a dormant, malevolent entity that follows them home.
The novel is a modern and meta take on the haunted house story, exploring how real horror differs from the fiction these authors create.
Julie and James move to a new house in a small town, hoping to leave their troubled past behind. But their new home has other plans. They begin to experience strange phenomena—unexplained bruises, bizarre noises, and shifting rooms—that strain their relationship and sanity.
The novel is a disorienting and claustrophobic tale of psychological unraveling, where the true horror lies in the ambiguity of the haunting and the couple’s eroding trust.
After being hypnotized at a party, an ordinary man named Tom Wallace awakens a latent psychic ability. He is suddenly bombarded with disturbing visions and begins to perceive the ghost of a woman who disappeared from his neighborhood months earlier.
Tom becomes obsessed with solving her murder, even as his new abilities alienate his family and threaten his grasp on reality.
A couple, Hattie and Nathan, decide to build their own home from scratch on a piece of land in rural Vermont. They soon learn their property is legendary for being haunted, the site where a woman named Hattie Breckenridge was hanged for witchcraft centuries ago.
As they build, strange occurrences and historical parallels begin to blur the line between past and present, suggesting that Hattie’s spirit wants to be invited in.
Homeless and on the run, Keira takes refuge in the seemingly peaceful town of Blighty, where she is offered the job of groundskeeper at the local cemetery. She soon realizes she has the ability to see and speak with the ghosts of those buried there, who are desperate for her help in solving their mysterious deaths.
The novel is an atmospheric and suspenseful mystery with a strong supernatural core.
In the dying town of Milburn, New York, four elderly men—the Chowder Society—gather to share ghost stories. But they are haunted by a real ghost from their past, a dark secret they have kept for fifty years.
When a series of mysterious deaths begin to plague the town, they realize that a vengeful, shape-shifting entity has returned for its revenge. A complex and literary horror epic, it is considered a modern classic of the genre.
A young man known only as A. inherits a mysterious estate in Virginia from a distant relative he never knew. He and his companion Niamh, a mute teenage girl, discover that the house is the site of a decades-old secret society and that its last resident died under cryptic circumstances.
Told through journal entries, letters, and video transcripts, the novel is a clever and spooky puzzle box about a haunted legacy.
Cas Lowood is a teenage ghost hunter who travels the country with his witch mother, killing the violent dead. He takes on the case of Anna Korlov, a ghost who has murdered every person who has dared to enter her former house.
But when Cas confronts her, Anna spares him, forcing him into an unlikely alliance as they uncover the dark secrets behind her death and curse.
The Harcourt family thinks they have found their dream home when they move into Cold Hill House, a dilapidated Georgian manor in the Sussex countryside. But their dream quickly turns into a nightmare as they experience a series of escalating paranormal events.
Based on the author’s own experiences in a haunted house, the novel is a classic, tech-savvy ghost story for the modern age.
In 1928, Freddie Watson is still grieving the loss of his brother in World War I. While traveling through the French Pyrenees, he becomes stranded in a small village where he is drawn into a tragic local history from centuries past.
He encounters a beautiful woman and a spectral haunting that connects the traumas of his present with the lingering sorrows of a much older tragedy.
In Victorian England, Constance Langton inherits a country estate with a troubled history of séances and ghostly apparitions. As she tries to uncover the truth behind her mother's past and the mysterious deaths at the manor, she becomes entangled in the world of spiritualism.
Harwood’s novel is a meticulously crafted gothic mystery filled with unreliable narrators, family secrets, and a deeply unsettling atmosphere.
A classic ghost story for younger readers, the novel follows Ashley, who moves into a new house with her widowed mother. In the overgrown garden, she finds a buried antique doll and soon begins to have visions of a sickly girl from the past named Louisa.
Ashley must unravel the mystery of the doll to help bring peace to the lonely ghost child who still haunts the property.
While primarily a tale of tragic love and revenge, Brontë’s novel is framed by the supernatural and steeped in a ghostly atmosphere. The story is famously haunted by the ghost of Catherine Earnshaw, whose spirit wanders the moors after her death.
Heathcliff’s obsession with her extends beyond the grave, and their story is one where love is so powerful it defies death itself, creating a palpable haunting that endures across generations.
In 1890s Colonial Malacca, Li Lan is asked to become a “ghost bride” for the wealthy Lim family’s recently deceased heir.
When her own spirit is drawn into the Chinese afterlife, a vibrant but dangerous world of ghosts, vengeful spirits, and bureaucratic demons, she must navigate its complex politics to uncover a murder and find her way back to the world of the living.
When the wealthy Walker family patriarch dies, his estranged children, wife, and ex-wife gather at the family’s ancestral home. Their tense reunion is observed by two ghosts, Alice and Sandra, who have long inhabited the house.
Told from the shifting perspectives of the living and the dead, the novel explores how family secrets, grief, and memory haunt the inhabitants of a house long after people are gone.
Harper Raine moves with her family into a new house, but her younger brother Michael soon begins acting strangely, talking to an imaginary friend and suffering from night terrors. Harper, with the help of her grandmother, learns that the house is haunted and that she comes from a line of shaman-like "spirit hunters."
The novel is a suspenseful middle-grade story that blends Korean folklore with a classic haunted house mystery.
In the quiet town of Smiths Hollow, people have a habit of disappearing, especially near the old woods. When Lauren’s father is found brutally murdered, she discovers that her sleepy town is hiding a monstrous secret tied to a monstrous tree and that the ghosts of its victims are all around her.
The novel blends small-town horror, folk magic, and a murder mystery into a chilling and gory tale.
In an alternate London plagued by a ghostly epidemic known as "the Problem," only children have the psychic sensitivity to fight ghosts. The story follows the agents of Lockwood & Co., a small psychic investigations agency, as they take on a case involving a dangerous artifact—a bone mirror—and are saddled with a mysterious talking skull in a jar.
This second book in the series is a thrilling and witty supernatural adventure.
George Davies is a new father, but instead of joy, he is overcome with a paralyzing fear that he will harm his son. He is forced to confront his own childhood, particularly his friendship with a strange boy and the terrifying events that led to a violent exorcism.
The novel is a chilling work of psychological and supernatural horror about a man haunted by what may be a demon, or may be the trauma of his own past.
After her husband’s scandalous death, Julia Bishop impulsively takes a job as the companion to a famous, reclusive author at her sprawling estate on Lake Superior. The author, Amaris Sinclair, claims that her home is haunted by the ghost of her husband, a man who mysteriously vanished a decade ago.
Webb creates a modern gothic mystery where Julia must uncover whether the ghosts are real or part of a more human deception.