Spooky season is officially upon us, and there’s definitely no better time to cosy up with a book than Halloween! With the darker, colder nights and a touch of spookiness in the air, here are some of the best classics to read on Halloween.
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
A very obvious pick, but a great one nonetheless for Halloween. If you studied this book at GCSE, you may have a slightly tainted opinion of it. But if you didn’t, you should pick it up this Halloween! Frankenstein is all about a monster created by a man named Victor Frankenstein.
Victor essentially breaks scientific conventions by creating life. Unfortunately, he doesn’t think about the dangerous consequences of this. There are lots of great themes in this book that will get you thinking as well as keeping you scared this Halloween.
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Again, another slightly obvious one. This time, with vampires! If you’ve ever fancied fighting off a Transylvanian vampire in the 1800s, get lost in the world of Dracula this Halloween. This story is all about the infamous Count Dracula. He moves from Transylvania to England in the search for new victims. A group of men and women try to stop him.
Dracula has blood, gore, love and vampires. What more could you want on Halloween? There’s a reason so many people dress as vampires on that night.
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
A less obvious one to finish this list. The Picture of Dorian Gray isn’t an outright horror or terrifying classic. Yet I find it pretty scary! Written by Oscar Wilde, this book is all about the beauty of youth and the consequences of it. Dorian Gray has a portrait commissioned by a friend in which he looks youthful and beautiful. He essentially sells his soul to keep the looks from the portrait in real life. The result? The picture scarily decays, and things turn nasty rather quickly.
This book will definitely give you the creeps on a dark Halloween night.
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