There’s a reason so much horror these days is set in the past: nothing is quite as creepy as the unfamiliar and unknown. For so much of human history, we’ve worked on hunches and guesswork to explain the world around us. Out of this guesswork grew the myths we all know and love today about vampires and werewolves and witches. But these creatures weren’t always viewed as myth. For much of history, they were believed to be very real. Even today, unexplained phenomena remain situated somewhere between science and magic, with paranormal explanations filling in the gaps until we can ascertain the truth of the things happening all around us.
Without artificial lighting, without medical knowledge, without near-instant mass communication, the known and unknown sat so much more closely side by side, which is exactly why history and horror go so well together in my mind. There’s nothing quite as atmospheric as a cliff-side gothic mansion, and there’s nothing quite as horrifying as a tale that defies all logic and reason. These historical horror novels, full of monsters both manmade and mythic, are proof of exactly that. Read them if you dare, and be thankful you at least can turn on a light to scare the shadows away.
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The Fright Stuff
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She Made Herself a Monster by Anna Kovatcheva
A traveling con artist claiming to be a vampire slayer in nineteenth-century Bulgaria meets an orphan girl on the verge of womanhood being blamed for all her village’s problems. Together, they conjure up a monster terrible enough to help Anka escape. But when their plan grows horrible legs of its own, they’ll have to decide exactly far they’re willing to take this scheme of theirs in order to take back control.
The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo
Drenched in history and Chinese folklore, this novel from the author of The Night Tiger and The Fox Wife follows a young woman from a bankrupt family with few prospects until she receives a strange proposal to become the ghost bride of a wealthy family’s dead son. Though rarely practiced, ghost marriages in British-colonized Malaya are occasionally performed to settle restless spirits. But even as she discusses the possibility of this ghost marriage with the Lim family, Li Lan is drawn into the afterlife night after night. She’ll have to uncover the darkest secrets of the Lim family—and her own—or else remain trapped in the underworld forever.
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The most horrifying tales of all are those that draw on the darkest parts of humanity’s past, just as Toni Morrison does in this American classic. Sethe may have escaped from the plantation where she was once enslaved, but the unthinkable cruelties she experienced haunt her still. Her memories aren’t the only thing haunting her and her family, though. The ghost of the unnamed baby she lost has a grip on them, too—and it won’t let Seethe, or her daughter Denver, go without a fight.
Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Silvia Moreno-Garcia is the unchecked Queen of historical horror at this point, between her bestselling hits Mexican Gothic and The Daughter of Doctor Moreau. In Silver Nitrate, Moreno-Garcia delves into the dark world of Nazi occultism through the eyes of Mexican horror films. When a cult horror director asks overlooked sound editor Montserrat and her best friend, soap star Tristán, to help him finish the occult Nazi film he claims cursed him, they agree. But soon, they each feel dark and deranged presences following them. If magic isn’t only the stuff of movies, they may be about to experience this curse firsthand.
Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito
An unusual governess attends to two children in the house of a Victorian man obsessed with phrenology. She is trying very hard to be on her best behavior, but she’s not doing a very good job of it. For starters, her jokes about eating children aren’t going over terribly well with her charges, Drusilla and Andrew. The house staff also seems to suspect there’s something sinister hiding behind her watery eyes, and Mrs. Pounds absolutely loathes her—but not in an exciting sort of way. The more stifled she feels, the more her violent fantasies take flight until they explode out of her on Christmas morning.
Need even more historical horror novels to keep you up at night? We’ve got you covered, never fear:
20 Must-Read Historical Horror Novels
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