Curl up with a candle, a cup of tea, and the sound of rain against old library windows. This list gathers stories filled with ivy-covered halls, secret societies, brooding characters, and hauntingly beautiful prose. Whether you’re looking for a class...
Sections
4
🕰️ The Classics of Dark Academia
✒️ Modern Takes with Gothic Flair
🕯️ Haunting & Atmospheric
📖 Academic but Whimsical
🕰️ The Classics of Dark Academia
the book that defined the genre. Murder, elitism, and a chilling academic setting.
The Secret History By Donna Tartt
Shakespeare, theatre kids, and a tragedy that feels inevitable.
If We Were Villains: A Novel By M. L. Rio
friendship, beauty, and longing set against Oxford tradition.
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
moody, introspective, and full of repressed desire.
Villette by Charlotte Brontë
beauty, corruption, and the philosophy of decadence.
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
✒️ Modern Takes with Gothic Flair
sapphic, spooky, and dripping in atmosphere.
Plain Bad Heroines: A Novel By Emily Danforth
surreal, unsettling, and deliciously weird.
Bunny: A Novel By Mona Awad
secret magical societies and morally gray academics.
The Atlas Six (B&N Exclusive Edition) By Olivie Blake
Yale secret societies with a supernatural edge.
Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo
🕯️ Haunting & Atmospheric
gothic suspense at its finest.
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
lush, eerie, and unsettling.
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
dreamy, labyrinthine libraries and hidden stories.
The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern
📖 Academic but Whimsical
the power of words and passion.
Dead Poets Society (film-to-book novelization) by N.H. Kleinbaum
an eerie boarding school that holds dark secrets.
Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas
philosophy, magic, and a heavy dose of existential dread.
