“dark nights; decaying, haunted castles; menacing forests; pervasive gloom; ancient prophecies; damsels in distress (or at least at the wrong place in the wrong time); blood-curdling screams…stories with atmosphere so thick you could cut it with a knife.”

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artwork by Jennifer Gordon. Isn’t it beautiful?)

Presented like this… How could I not do the RIP challenge? So sure, it’s been on forever, but I just discovered it (via So Many Books – one of my favorite blogs and a frequent exclamation of mine). So let me jump on the bandwagon now!

 The challenge is initiated by Carl V. of Stainless Steel Droppings (another great blog… So Many Blogs! So Little Time!). What better to read than dark fantasy, gothic, horror and supernatural stories in the months leading to Halloween? My favorite genres in my favorite season… I’m tingling with excitement.

As soon as I’m done publishing the reviews of recently finished books, I’ll dive into the following stories(picked from my long list):

  • Wilde’s The portrait of Dorian Grey
  • Marlowe or Goethe’s Faust**
  • Shakespeare’s McBeth
  • Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights
  • Gaston Leroux with The Phantom of the Opera*
  • Balzac’s Peau de Chagrin (The Magic Skin or The Wild Ass’s Skin, says Wikipedia)…
  • … and Gautier’s La morte amoureuse*

Half of these would in fact be re-reads (I’ve marked with a * the books I’ve never read), but it is fair play within the context of my project for this blog. They’re probably more classic than what most other participants are reading, so it will be interesting to compare notes.

I could not resist adding two extra books: Ann Radcliffe’s The Mysteries of Udolpho and Poppy Z. Brite’s Lost Souls. I’ve wanted to read both these writers forever and never gotten around to it, so that’s an excuse.

I’m not promising to read everything on this list for October 31st, but I’ll try to go for 5 of them. Let there be dark!