Books like “The Yellow Wallpaper”

What to read after “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

About “The Yellow Wallpaper”

Another favorite book?

Or start with a well-known book

1
The King in Yellow
Robert W. Chambers · 1895
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
- Unreliable Narrator
A collection of linked horror stories built around a forbidden play, The King in Yellow, that disturbs everyone who reads it. Around it are tales of artists, masks and a lake city where ordinary life slides, without warning, into dread.
2
The Haunting of Hill House
Shirley Jackson · 1959
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “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.
3
Hell House
Richard Matheson · 1971
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
- Psychological Thriller
- Creeping Dread
A dying millionaire funds an expedition to the notorious Belasco House, a mansion in Maine where every previous attempt to study its hauntings ended badly. The group includes a physicist, a medium and two survivors, and the house begins to work on their most private fears.
4
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Shirley Jackson · 1962
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
- Unreliable Narrator
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.
5
House of Leaves
Mark Z. Danielewski · 2000
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
A tattoo artist assembles the scattered notes of a blind old man who wrote a study of a film. The film records a family discovering that their house is larger inside than out, with a hallway that opens onto darkness where the rules of space break down.
6
The Shining
Stephen King · 1977
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
Jack Torrance takes a winter caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel, bringing his wife and young son to its empty corridors. As snow seals them in, the hotel's violent past works on Jack's temper and drinking, while Danny's gift shows him things the family should never have seen.
7
The Turn of the Screw
Henry James · 1898
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
- Unreliable Narrator
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.
8
The Exorcist
William Peter Blatty · 1971
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
- Psychological Thriller
- Creeping Dread
An actress's young daughter falls ill with symptoms no doctor can explain, and the doctors eventually suggest a religious explanation. A priest trained in exorcism is asked to help, and he must confront both the thing in the room and his own wavering faith.
9
Heart-Shaped Box
Joe Hill · 2007
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
- Psychological Thriller
- 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
A Head Full of Ghosts
Paul Tremblay · 2015
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
Fourteen-year-old Marjorie Barrett begins to act strangely, and her family turns first to a priest and then to a reality-television crew. Years later her younger sister tells the story of what happened in the house, though her memory is not entirely trustworthy.
11
The Silence of the Lambs
Thomas Harris · 1988
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
- Psychological Thriller
- Creeping Dread
A young FBI trainee asks a brilliant imprisoned psychiatrist to help catch another serial killer who abducts women. Their bargain-driven conversations become a psychological duel in which every answer carries a price.
12
The Wasp Factory
Iain Banks · 1984
Similar atmosphere: “Psychological Thriller” and “Creeping Dread”
On a remote Scottish island, sixteen-year-old Frank lives by strange rituals and guards family secrets. His routine shifts when his older brother escapes from a hospital and comes home, and the story Frank tells about himself begins to come apart.