The 100 best supernatural and gothic books

The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë lead the 100 best supernatural and gothic books, ranked by literary regard. To start, The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle is the most approachable of the highly regarded books here, about 3.5 hours to read.

Each point of light is one of the 100, placed by how hard it is to read. The brighter, the higher it ranks. The dotted line is one way up.

100
books
707
hours to read
8
free to read here
Start low: The Hound of the BaskervillesSee all 100
Easy5 booksModerate33 booksChallenging46 booksDifficult15 booksVery Difficult1 book

Tap a light to see its book · tap a cluster to keep only its books

No. 1 of 100

The Cask of Amontillado

Edgar Allan Poe · 1846

Difficulty 52/10034 min

Open the book
SortAs rankedEasiest firstShortest first
Readable here · 8

Hours at an average pace

Showing 100 books

About 707 hours for 99 of 100 books with measured lengths. Estimates use 250 words a minute, adjusted for each book's difficulty. At 2 hours a day, about 354 days for those books.

1–10 · 52 hours

  1. One of the most anthologised short stories in English and a standard school text.

    Start this book

  2. No. 2 on this list. Frankenstein

    Mary Shelley · 1818

    Challenging8.8 hours

    Taught in schools: AQA GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK), CSEC English B – Caribbean Examinations Council, Pearson Edexcel GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK)

    Included in: Bibliothèque de la Pléiade

    Frankenstein appears on 6,955 university syllabi according to the Open Syllabus Project, placing it in the 96th percentile of all tracked works. Wikipedia articles exist in 74 languages, with a 79,000-character article carrying dedicated Reception and Adaptations sections. It is taught not only in literature courses but in philosophy, bioethics, and technology studies worldwide.

    Read now

  3. No. 3 on this list. Wuthering Heights

    Emily Brontë · 1847

    Difficult14 hours

    Taught in schools: AQA GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK), CAPE Literatures in English – Caribbean Examinations Council, CSEC English B – Caribbean Examinations Council

    Included in: Bokklubben World Library

    Appears on 4,582 university syllabi (91.5th percentile per Open Syllabus), placing it above most Victorian novels. Wikipedia coverage in 61 languages with dedicated reception and adaptations sections signals global canonical standing. Listed in 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die and the BBC Big Read Top 100.

    Read now

  4. O'Neill dramatized his own family — the morphine-addicted mother, the alcoholic father, the doomed brother — with such lacerating honesty that he ordered the play sealed until twenty-five years after his death. The result is the most autobiographically raw masterpiece in American theater, a four-act cycle of blame and forgiveness that never grants its characters the relief of a resolution.

    Start this book

  5. Ranked by literary regard among eligible works in the current catalogue. This position reflects the available catalogue evidence.

    Start this book

  6. No. 6 on this list. The Turn of the Screw

    Henry James · 1898

    Difficult5.5 hours

    Taught in schools: CSEC English B – Caribbean Examinations Council

    Essential Gothic literature and James studies text; widely taught in ghost story, Victorian, and modernist courses; definitive example of narrative ambiguity and unreliable narration.

    Read now

  7. No. 7 on this list. Pedro Páramo

    Juan Rulfo · 1955

    Difficult3.6 hours

    Taught in schools: Literatura, Diseño Curricular – Provincia de Buenos Aires (Argentina), UNAM Escuela Nacional Preparatoria – programas de Literatura (Mexico)

    Included in: Bokklubben World Library

    Pedro Páramo is the foundational text of Latin American modernism, present in nearly every world literature curriculum globally. Its Wikipedia article spans 26 languages. García Márquez credited it with teaching him how to write One Hundred Years of Solitude — a direct line of influence that alone ensures canonical permanence. Penguin Modern Classics published it in 1961.

    Start this book

  8. Pablo Neruda wrote the poems of 'Residence on Earth' during his years as a Chilean consul in Burma, Ceylon, and Java — postings that left him profoundly isolated, surrounded by unfamiliar languages and dissolving heat. What came out was a poetry of radical disorientation: rain that rots wood, flesh that smells of brine, clocks that leak time like a wound. The opening poem, 'Galope Muerto,' begins mid-sensation: 'Like ashes, like oceans populating themselves, in the submerged slowness, in the shapeless.' There is no speaker announced, no situation established. The collection works entirely through image — blood, sea, bone, stone — stacked without logical mortar until the pressure of accumulated sensation becomes its own argument. 'Walking Around' describes a man so disgusted by modern life he wants to throw everything away, the umbrellas and the accountants and the stockings. 'Ode with a Lament' addresses an unnamed woman through images of shipwrecks and salt. The later sections shift toward political fury — odes to Madrid under bombardment, to Stalingrad, to Spain's dead — but even the political poems work through elemental image rather than rhetoric. This is poetry that does not explain itself. Readers who need a narrative thread or an argument will find none. Those willing to receive sensation as meaning will encounter one of the most physically intense bodies of verse written in the 20th century.

    Start this book

  9. No. 9 on this list. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

    Robert Louis Stevenson · 1886

    Challenging1.9 hours

    Taught in schools: AQA GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK), OCR GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK)

    One of the most widely taught Victorian texts in English literature curricula at every level, from secondary school to university. The phrase 'Jekyll and Hyde' has entered common English as a synonym for dual personality. The novella appears on virtually every list of essential 19th-century fiction and is a fixture in Gothic literature, Victorian studies, and psychology-and-literature courses worldwide.

    Read now

  10. No. 10 on this list. The Tell-Tale Heart

    Edgar Allan Poe · 1843

    Moderate32 min

    Taught in schools: Pacific Senior Secondary Certificate – English

    It is recommended reading in the Pacific Senior Secondary Certificate English curriculum and is among the most widely taught American short stories in schools worldwide, comparable to Gatsby's classroom ubiquity in its own form.

    Start this book
11–20 · 45 hours

  1. No. 11 on this list. The Picture of Dorian Gray · Oscar Wilde

    Taught in schools: AQA GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK), Pearson Edexcel GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK)

    Included in: Oxford World's Classics

    The Picture of Dorian Gray is standard reading in Victorian literature and aesthetic movement curricula worldwide. Though the database shows only 16 syllabus appearances due to limited data collection, the novel appears on virtually every canonical survey of English literature and has been in continuous print since 1890. It anchors discussions of aestheticism, decadence, and Victorian moral philosophy in university courses across the globe.

    Challenging8 hours

    Start this book

  2. No. 12 on this list. The Sandman · E.T.A. Hoffmann · 1816

    The Sandman is canonical in German literature courses, Romantic literature surveys, Gothic fiction studies, and psychoanalytic literary criticism worldwide. Freud's 1919 essay 'The Uncanny' uses it as the central specimen, ensuring its presence on psychoanalysis and literary theory syllabi for over a century. While it lacks the broad English-language curriculum presence of Frankenstein or Great Expectations, it is effectively required reading in any serious study of German Romanticism, the Gothic tradition, or the history of uncanny fiction.

    Difficult1.8 hours

    Start this book

  3. No. 13 on this list. Dracula · Bram Stoker · 1897

    Taught in schools: CSEC English B – Caribbean Examinations Council, Leaving Certificate English – NCCA / State Examinations Commission (Ireland), OCR GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK)

    Included in: Bibliothèque de la Pléiade

    Among the most famous novels ever written. Created the modern vampire and generated endless adaptation.

    Moderate11 hours

    Read now

  4. No. 14 on this list. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow · Washington Irving · 1820

    One of the most widely taught early American short stories, regularly anthologized in school and college readers. It sits beside Rip Van Winkle as a foundation of American literature.

    Moderate1.9 hours

    Start this book

  5. No. 15 on this list. The Piano Lesson · August Wilson · 1987

    The Piano Lesson is a fixture in American drama and literature courses, taught alongside O'Neill, Miller, and Williams as a canonical American play. It is the centerpiece of August Wilson's ten-play Pittsburgh Cycle, a sequence now treated as essential reading in university drama programs. Its Pulitzer Prize win and sustained presence in curricula place it well above mid-tier literary works.

    Challenging2.9 hours

    Start this book

  6. No. 16 on this list. The Queen of Spades · Alexander Pushkin · 1834

    The Queen of Spades is a cornerstone of Russian literature curricula worldwide and one of the most-taught short fictions in Slavic studies programs. The Wikipedia article appears in 16 languages, reflecting significant global reach for a short story. Pushkin's tale is included in virtually every survey of Russian literature and in many world literature anthologies alongside Chekhov and Gogol.

    Moderate32 min

    Start this book

  7. No. 17 on this list. Wise Blood · Flannery O'Connor · 1952

    A landmark of Southern Gothic fiction and American literature, widely taught and critically analyzed. One of the defining novels of postwar American fiction.

    Moderate3.5 hours

    Start this book

  8. No. 18 on this list. The Hound of the Baskervilles · Arthur Conan Doyle · 1902

    Taught in schools: CSEC English B – Caribbean Examinations Council

    Sir Charles Baskerville dies on the Dartmoor moors, terror on his face, a giant hound's footprints nearby. A family curse tells of a spectral hound hunting the Baskervilles since the seventeenth century. Dr. Watson investigates while Holmes stays in London—or so it seems. The moor is fog-bound, treacherous, Gothic; the solution is pure Holmesian reason. Doyle killed Holmes at Reichenbach Falls in 1893 and resisted resurrection. This novel, serialized in 1901-02, is set before the death and doesn't quite bring Holmes back. But the public devoured it, and Holmes returned in full the following year. The Hound works both as mystery and Gothic atmosphere—the moor becomes a character, the hound hovers between supernatural and rational explanation until the last act. This is Doyle's most novelistic Holmes story, and many readers consider it the best.

    Easy3.5 hours

    Read now

  9. No. 19 on this list. The Mystery of Edwin Drood · Charles Dickens · 1870

    The Mystery of Edwin Drood appears regularly on Victorian literature and Dickens course syllabi at universities worldwide, taught both as a late Dickens text and as a unique object — a canonical novel frozen in its own incompletion. The unfinished mystery has been a pedagogical touchstone for discussions of narrative, authorship, and closure since Dickens's death. Its Wikipedia article exists in over 40 languages and includes dedicated sections on adaptations and reception, indicating significant global cultural reach beyond English-language scholarship.

    Challenging6.9 hours

    Read now

  10. No. 20 on this list. The Haunting of Hill House · Shirley Jackson · 1959

    The Haunting of Hill House is widely recognized as the definitive American haunted-house novel and one of the finest works of Gothic fiction in the English language. It has been continuously in print since 1959 and is regularly taught in university courses on American literature, Gothic studies, and the horror genre. Stephen King called its opening paragraph the finest in the history of horror fiction. It appears on virtually every serious list of essential horror and Gothic novels and has been adapted for film (twice) and television (the acclaimed 2018 Netflix series).

    Challenging4.7 hours

    Start this book
21–30 · 53 hours

  1. No. 21 on this list. Blow-Up and Other Stories · Julio Cortázar · 1967

    A landmark collection in Latin American literature and Cortázar's most widely read short fiction in English. The title story is anthologized constantly.

    Moderate5.8 hours

    Start this book

  2. No. 22 on this list. The Bloody Chamber · Angela Carter · 1979

    Taught in schools: OCR GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK)

    The Bloody Chamber is among the most-taught works of feminist fiction in British and American university literature programs, appearing on A-level and undergraduate syllabi across the English-speaking world for over four decades. It anchors feminist fairy tale criticism as a field and appears on most 20th-century fiction retrospective lists. Its canonical standing exceeds Infinite Jest (78) in terms of institutional adoption.

    Difficult7.2 hours

    Start this book

  3. No. 23 on this list. The Yellow Wall-Paper · Charlotte Perkins Gilman · 1892

    It is a fixture of American literature and women's studies courses and widely anthologized. Its place sits just below the great canon, and the Open Library record lists it among open syllabus project works.

    Moderate6.2 hours

    Start this book

  4. No. 24 on this list. The Lottery and Other Stories · Shirley Jackson · 1949

    The title story 'The Lottery' is one of the most anthologized and taught short stories in the American canon, appearing in virtually every introduction-to-fiction textbook. The collection itself appears regularly on American short-story syllabi. Jackson's work has experienced a major critical reassessment since the 2010s, elevating her from genre curiosity to recognized American master.

    Moderate5.3 hours

    Start this book

  5. No. 25 on this list. Sanctuary · William Faulkner · 1931

    Taught in schools: CSEC English B – Caribbean Examinations Council

    Sanctuary appears on 92 university syllabi (49th percentile on Open Syllabus) and Wikipedia carries articles in 29 languages. Library of America and NYRB Classics both publish it in prestige editions. It is taught consistently in American modernism and Southern Gothic courses, though overshadowed on syllabi by The Sound and the Fury and As I Lay Dying.

    Challenging7.4 hours

    Start this book

  6. No. 26 on this list. Mourning Becomes Electra · Eugene O'Neill · 1931

    Included in: Great Books of the Western World

    Widely regarded as O'Neill's masterwork alongside 'Long Day's Journey Into Night' and a defining achievement of American theater. The trilogy appears consistently in academic curricula for American drama and 20th-century literature. It represents the apex of O'Neill's ambitious attempt to transplant Greek tragedy onto American soil, and its exploration of psychological realism through classical form remains influential. While perhaps less universally known than some novels, it holds unquestioned status as a landmark of serious American theatrical literature.

    Challenging4.4 hours

    Start this book

  7. No. 27 on this list. Aura · Carlos Fuentes · 1962

    Aura is assigned in Latin American literature courses across universities globally and anthologized alongside Pedro Paramo and One Hundred Years of Solitude as a defining text of the Latin American Boom. Its brevity makes it a frequent entry point for students encountering Fuentes or magical realism. It does not appear on as many syllabi as García Márquez's major novels but is among the most-taught works in comparative world literature curricula.

    Difficult1.4 hours

    Start this book

  8. No. 28 on this list. Hawksmoor · Peter Ackroyd · 1985

    Hawksmoor holds significant position in postmodern British fiction and is widely taught in university literature courses. While not quite at the level of Ulysses or Beloved, it is consistently included in surveys of contemporary British literature and discussions of historiographic metafiction. The novel appears regularly on critical reading lists for postmodernism, Gothic revival, and late 20th-century British fiction, establishing its place in the extended literary canon.

    Challenging9.4 hours

    Start this book

  9. No. 29 on this list. The Blind Owl · Sadegh Hedayat · 1937

    The Blind Owl is the most celebrated Persian-language novel of the twentieth century and the foundational text of Iranian modernist fiction, required reading in Iranian high schools and universities for generations. Its Wikipedia article exists in over 30 languages. In Western academic contexts it appears regularly on world literature syllabi, though with nothing like the penetration of canonical European modernist texts.

    Difficult4.4 hours

    Start this book

  10. No. 30 on this list. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde · Robert Louis Stevenson

    Taught in schools: CSEC English B – Caribbean Examinations Council, Pearson Edexcel GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK)

    No syllabus or Wikipedia data has been collected for this record yet, but the novella is a fixture of English curricula from secondary school through university, and "Jekyll and Hyde" has become common shorthand for a divided personality—cultural saturation on par with Frankenstein and Dracula.

    Moderate1.7 hours

    Start this book
31–40 · 83 hours

  1. No. 31 on this list. Sing, Unburied, Sing

    Jesmyn Ward · 2018

  2. No. 32 on this list. Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka

    Nikolai Gogol · 1832

  3. No. 33 on this list. At the Mountains of Madness

    H.P. Lovecraft · 1936

  4. No. 34 on this list. Something Wicked This Way Comes

    Ray Bradbury · 1962

  5. No. 35 on this list. The Castle of Otranto

    Horace Walpole · 1764

  6. No. 36 on this list. Rebecca

    Daphne du Maurier · 1938

    Taught in schools: AQA GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK)

  7. No. 37 on this list. Cromwell

    Victor Hugo · 1827

  8. No. 38 on this list. 1Q84

    Haruki Murakami · 2009

  9. No. 39 on this list. The Invention of Morel

    Adolfo Bioy Casares · 1940

    Taught in schools: Literatura, Diseño Curricular – Provincia de Buenos Aires (Argentina)

  10. No. 40 on this list. Carmilla

    Sheridan Le Fanu · 1872

41–50 · 93 hours

  1. No. 41 on this list. The Mysteries of Udolpho

    Ann Radcliffe · 1794

  2. No. 42 on this list. The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes

    Neil Gaiman · 1998

  3. No. 43 on this list. The Call of Cthulhu and Other Stories

    H.P. Lovecraft · 1928

  4. No. 44 on this list. Of Love and Other Demons

    Gabriel García Márquez · 1994

  5. No. 45 on this list. The Ballad of the Sad Café

    Carson McCullers · 1951

  6. No. 46 on this list. The Monk

    Matthew Gregory Lewis · 1796

  7. No. 47 on this list. Ironweed

    William Kennedy · 1984

  8. No. 48 on this list. It

    Stephen King · 1986

  9. No. 49 on this list. The Witches of Eastwick

    John Updike · 1984

  10. No. 50 on this list. The Ghost Road

    Pat Barker · 1995

51–60 · 97 hours

  1. No. 51 on this list. Child of God

    Cormac McCarthy · 1973

  2. No. 52 on this list. The Sandman, Vol. 2: The Doll's House

    Neil Gaiman · 1995

  3. No. 53 on this list. Black Hole

    Charles Burns · 2005

  4. No. 54 on this list. Kafka on the Shore

    Haruki Murakami · 2001

  5. No. 55 on this list. Löwensköld Trilogy

    Selma Lagerlöf · 1925

  6. No. 56 on this list. 62: A Model Kit

    Julio Cortázar · 1968

  7. No. 57 on this list. The Shining

    Stephen King · 1977

  8. No. 58 on this list. House of Leaves

    Mark Z. Danielewski · 2000

  9. No. 59 on this list. The Birds and Other Stories

    Daphne du Maurier · 1952

  10. No. 60 on this list. The City We Became

    N.K. Jemisin · 2020

61–70 · 76 hours

  1. No. 61 on this list. Under the Sun of Satan

    Georges Bernanos · 1926

  2. No. 62 on this list. The Great God Pan

    Arthur Machen · 1894

  3. No. 63 on this list. Outer Dark

    Cormac McCarthy · 1968

  4. No. 64 on this list. Her Body and Other Parties

    Carmen Maria Machado · 2017

  5. No. 65 on this list. The Italian

    Ann Radcliffe · 1796

  6. No. 66 on this list. Coraline

    Neil Gaiman · 2002

  7. No. 67 on this list. Solenoid

    Mircea Cărtărescu · 2025

  8. No. 68 on this list. Gideon the Ninth

    Tamsyn Muir · 2019

  9. No. 69 on this list. Felicia's Journey

    William Trevor · 1994

  10. No. 70 on this list. The Little Stranger

    Sarah Waters · 2009

    Taught in schools: Pearson Edexcel GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK)

71–80 · 51 hours

  1. No. 71 on this list. The Mermaid of Black Conch

    Monique Roffey · 2020

  2. No. 72 on this list. The Willows

    Algernon Blackwood · 1907

  3. No. 73 on this list. Don't Look Now

    Daphne du Maurier · 1971

  4. No. 74 on this list. Annihilation

    Jeff VanderMeer · 2014

  5. No. 75 on this list. Things We Lost in the Fire

    Mariana Enriquez · 2016

  6. No. 76 on this list. Titus Groan

    Mervyn Peake · 1946

  7. No. 77 on this list. Fever Dream

    Samanta Schweblin · 2017

  8. No. 78 on this list. The Weird and the Eerie

    Mark Fisher · 2017

  9. No. 79 on this list. Get in Trouble

    Kelly Link · 2016

  10. No. 80 on this list. The Fisherman

    John Langan · 2016

81–90 · 81 hours

  1. No. 81 on this list. Interview with the Vampire

    Anne Rice · 1976

  2. No. 82 on this list. Ghosts

    César Aira · 1990

  3. No. 83 on this list. Vathek

    William Beckford · 1786

  4. No. 84 on this list. Strange Pilgrims

    Gabriel García Márquez · 1992

  5. No. 85 on this list. The Empusium

    Olga Tokarczuk · 2022

  6. No. 86 on this list. The Romance of the Forest

    Ann Radcliffe · 1791

  7. No. 87 on this list. Her Fearful Symmetry

    Audrey Niffenegger · 2010

  8. No. 88 on this list. North Woods

    Daniel Mason · 2023

  9. No. 89 on this list. Melmoth the Wanderer

    Charles Maturin · 1820

  10. No. 90 on this list. The Lifted Veil and Brother Jacob

    George Eliot · 1864

91–100 · 76 hours

  1. No. 91 on this list. Reading in the Dark

    Seamus Deane · 1996

  2. No. 92 on this list. The Sentence

    Louise Erdrich · 2022

  3. No. 93 on this list. The Children of the Dead

    Elfriede Jelinek · 1995

  4. No. 94 on this list. My Favorite Thing Is Monsters

    Emil Ferris · 2017

  5. No. 95 on this list. Beyond Black

    Hilary Mantel · 2005

  6. No. 96 on this list. The Hundred Secret Senses

    Amy Tan · 1995

  7. No. 97 on this list. The Dangers of Smoking in Bed

    Mariana Enriquez · 2009

  8. No. 98 on this list. Mouthful of Birds

    Samanta Schweblin · 2009

  9. No. 99 on this list. Ruby

    Cynthia Bond · 2016

  10. No. 100 on this list. The King in Yellow

    Robert W. Chambers · 1895

About this list

These 100 books are the highest-scoring eligible supernatural and gothic books currently in the catalogue. About 707 hours of reading in all, for the 99 with measured lengths. Difficulty runs from 50 to 65 out of 100 for the middle half of the list; the summit is 62: A Model Kit at 87.

This list is ranked by literary regard, with a consistent order for equal scores. Membership follows authors and co-authors, not translators or editors. A book is here when ReadingRate files it under The Supernatural & Gothic as one of its primary reading domains, at a confidence of 0.8 or more. Catalogue coverage and the historical canon both limit what this list can represent.

When we matched the Canons dataset to our catalogue in October 2026, our canonical-status scores rose with the number of school curricula, publisher series and lists in it that cite a work: the median score was 72 for books one such source cites, 84 at two, 88 at three, 92 at four and 93 at five or more. Prizes are left out of that count. Outside the state curricula, the dataset’s sources choose mostly from what has been translated into English or French, so it is a weaker check on other literatures. Source: Canons (Andrew Piper), CC BY 4.0

Questions people actually ask

What are the best supernatural and gothic books?
By literary regard, which weighs canonical status, critical standing and influence: The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill and The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. ReadingRate ranks 100 such books, each with a difficulty score and a reading-time estimate.
Which supernatural and gothic books should I read first?
Start from difficulty, not from rank. The most approachable books on this list that still carry top literary regard are The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (about 3.5 hours), The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving.
What are the shortest of the best supernatural and gothic books?
Among the top 25, the shortest are The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe (about 34 min), The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe (about 32 min) and The Queen of Spades by Alexander Pushkin (about 32 min), at an average pace of 250 words a minute adjusted for each book's difficulty.
Which of the best supernatural and gothic books are the established classics?
By canonical status, how firmly a book sits in curricula, anthologies and the canon: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, Dracula by Bram Stoker and The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe.
Can I read any of these supernatural and gothic books for free?
8 of the 100 open in ReadingRate's reader with a free account, from public-domain editions: Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, The Turn of the Screw, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Dracula and 3 more.
How long would it take to read the top ten?
About 52 hours, at an average pace of 250 words a minute adjusted for each book's difficulty: 26 days at two hours a day. Set your own pace on the page and the list's reading times change to it.
How hard are supernatural and gothic books to read?
Most of this list sits between 50 and 65 on ReadingRate's 100-point difficulty scale, where 40 to 55 is moderate. The summit is 62: A Model Kit at 87. Every entry carries its own score, so a reader can pick a great book at a difficulty they will finish.
How is this list ranked?
On literary-regard data: how canonically established a work is, its critical standing, and its influence on later writing. It is not a readers’ poll, which is why recent bestsellers rarely appear. Membership follows authors and co-authors, not translators or editors. Lists by country, author, period, theme or difficulty keep to literature (fiction, poetry, drama and philosophy), their novels, poems and plays first and their philosophy after them; a list of a kind of book, such as memoir or criticism, keeps every book of that kind. Every list holds at most three works by one author. A book is here when ReadingRate files it under The Supernatural & Gothic as one of its primary reading domains, at a confidence of 0.8 or more.