Books like “The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton”

What to read after “The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton” by Edith Wharton: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
M. R. James · 1904
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
Eight ghost stories in which scholars and clergymen uncover things better left alone. An old manuscript, a whistled tune and a locked country house each hold a presence that follows the people who found it back into ordinary life.
2
The Turn of the Screw
Henry James · 1898
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
A young governess takes charge of two children at a remote country house and soon notices figures watching from the grounds and the tower. She becomes convinced the children are being influenced by something from beyond the grave, though no one else confirms what she sees.
3
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Shirley Jackson · 1962
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
Eighteen-year-old Merricat lives with her sister and uncle in a large house outside a village that despises them, after the rest of the family died years earlier from poison. When a cousin arrives hoping to claim the estate, the careful order of Merricat's world is broken.
4
Ghost Story
Peter Straub · 1979
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Ghost Story
- Creeping Dread
Four elderly friends in a small New York town have spent a lifetime telling each other ghost stories at their club. Now something from a winter forty years earlier, a death they all helped to hide, has returned to collect the debt.
5
The Woman in Black
Susan Hill · 1983
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
A young London lawyer is sent to a remote house to sort the papers of a dead client. In the town nearby he meets an unfriendly silence, a sea mist that cuts him off, and a woman dressed in black whose appearances are followed by the deaths of children.
6
The Haunting of Hill House
Shirley Jackson · 1959
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
An investigator of psychic phenomena invites several people to stay at Hill House, a building with a long history of death and madness. Among them is the fragile Eleanor, and as the house begins to single her out, the group's stay becomes a struggle to keep hold of sanity.
7
Dracula
Bram Stoker · 1897
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
A young solicitor journeys to a remote castle in the Carpathians to settle a client's estate, only to find his host is no ordinary nobleman. As the count travels to England, letters and diaries record a creeping sickness spreading from Whitby to London.
8
The Mysteries of Udolpho
Ann Radcliffe · 1794
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
After her parents die, Emily St. Aubert is left to the care of an aunt who marries an Italian nobleman. Taken to the gloomy castle of Udolpho, she is surrounded by unexplained sounds, sealed rooms and sinister men, while she tries to keep her love and her safety.
9
Heart-Shaped Box
Joe Hill · 2007
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Ghost Story
- Creeping Dread
Aging rock star Judas Coyne collects macabre curiosities. When he buys a haunted suit online, the dead man tied to it begins to stalk him and the women in his life. To survive, Jude must confront the violence in his own past. A supernatural horror about guilt and revenge.
10
What Moves the Dead
T. Kingfisher · 2022
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
Alex Easton travels to the Ushers' decaying manor to see a childhood friend who is dying. Madeline's body is changing in ways the doctors cannot explain, down to the hairs on her arms, the local hares behave strangely, and the tarn beside the house seems to be watching.
11
The Beetle
Richard Marsh · 1897
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Gothic
- Creeping Dread
A strange, insect-like creature arrives in London bent on revenge against a member of Parliament, and its powers reach into the lives of everyone near him. The story is told through several witnesses who each encounter the being and try to stop it.
12
The Elementals
Michael McDowell · 1981
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
Two related families spend a summer at Beldame, a lonely stretch of Alabama coast where three Victorian houses face the Gulf. The third house is slowly drowning in sand, and something inside it has been waiting for the children since they were small.