Books like “We Have Always Lived in the Castle”

What to read after “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” by Shirley Jackson: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
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.
2
The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton
Edith Wharton · 1973
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
A collection of Edith Wharton's ghost stories, written across her career and gathered in one volume. Old houses, railway carriages and country estates hold grudges, apparitions return with unfinished business, and the supernatural creeps into the lives of people who insist they do not believe in it.
3
Melmoth the Wanderer
Charles Robert Maturin · 1820
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Gothic
- Creeping Dread
A scholar finds a manuscript telling of Melmoth, a man who centuries earlier traded his soul for knowledge and an unnaturally long life. Doomed to wander the earth, he appears to people in their worst moments and offers them the chance to take on his burden.
4
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.
5
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.
6
The Hacienda
Isabel Cañas · 2022
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
After her father is killed in Mexico's war of independence, Beatriz marries a widower and moves to his country estate. The housekeeper burns copal and chalks signs on the doorways, and Beatriz begins to fear that her husband's first wife never left.
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
Uncle Silas
J. Sheridan Le Fanu · 1864
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
Orphaned heiress Maud Ruthyn is sent to Bartram-Haugh, the remote house of her uncle Silas, a man once suspected of murder. Isolated there with him, his strange son and a governess, she slowly realises the household is closing in on her.
10
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.
11
Rebecca
Daphne du Maurier · 1938
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
A shy young woman marries the widowed Maxim de Winter and arrives at Manderley, his grand estate by the sea. There she is measured against his first wife, the beautiful Rebecca, whose presence lingers in every room, in the servants' loyalty and in a secret nobody will speak.
12
The Yellow Wallpaper
Charlotte Perkins Gilman · 1892
Similar atmosphere: “Creeping Dread”
- Creeping Dread
- Unreliable Narrator
A woman is confined to an upstairs room by her physician husband and told to rest. Cut off from work and company, she becomes fixated on the yellow wallpaper, convinced that a figure is trapped behind its pattern and that she must set it free.