Haunting Classic Novels & Stories by Women Writers
By Taylor Jasmine | On October 26, 2015 | Updated October 26, 2025 | Comments (0)
Every year, as Halloween approaches, literary thoughts turn to Edgar Allen Poe, Bram Stoker, and Stephen King.
Roundups of classic haunting and thrilling stories that appear like clockwork in late October have been pretty male-dominated, even though women have been diving into the uncanny valley since the 19th century (see later in this post).
The following sampling of classic novels and stories by women (by no means exhaustive) will send shivers up your spine while giving your taste for great language a thrill.
More literary terror by women: In the past few years, women have taken a prominent place in the genre of horror and thrillers. This list of contemporary horror stories is decidedly female dominated!
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Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (1818)
It’s hard to imagine a character that has gripped the public imagination more than Frankenstein. While countless Frankenstein monster costumes are trotted out each Halloween, not enough people connect Mary Shelley with the original novel.
Barely twenty-one when the book was published in 1818, she would have been amazed at its staying power, more than 200 years on. Disturbing and beautifully written, it’s the story of the tormented scientist Victor Frankenstein, and the consequences of creating a living being from dead flesh.
The Hollywood movie adaptation of 1931 is the one most emblazoned in the public imagination, but it strayed far from the book, turning an emotionally devastating masterpiece into high camp.
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Behind a Mask or A Woman’s Power
of Louisa May Alcott
Wait, what? Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women and Jo’s Boys? Early in her career, before she wrote the books for which she became famous, Louisa wrote thrillers under a pseudonym because they sold well. Presumably she wrote them in the 1850s and possibly the early 1860s.
As the main support of her parents and sisters, she needed the money, but it seems like she didn’t mind writing what she referred to as her “blood and thunder” tales. These are collected in Behind a Mask or a Woman’s Power (full text) under the pseudonym A.M. Barnard.
While they may not have been as terrifying as The Lottery or The Birds, Louisa May Alcott’s rediscovered thrillers, including A Long Fatal Love Chase and others, reveal a very different side of this beloved author.
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The Giant Wistaria
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1891)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman‘s 1891 short story The Giant Wistaria is less known than The Yellow Wallpaper, a feminist classic. “Wistaria” has in common with “Wallpaper” the underlying themes of patriarchal repression of women’s sexuality and control of the realm of motherhood. What results is a chilling ghost story. You can read the full story here.
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“The Eyes” by Edith Wharton (1910)
Edith Wharton, she of the old New York novels like The Age of Innocence and the New England classic Ethan Frome, also enjoyed writing spooky tales. These were collected by Edith herself in 1937, and reissued in 2021.
Frances Booth writes” “The Eyes” is a tale presented as having been told by a member of a group of educated, rational friends sitting round a convivial but spooky fireplace in the dark, swapping ghost stories, which perhaps refers to the “dark and stormy night” when Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and John Polidori’sThe Vampyre were both conceived. Read “The Eyes” in full.
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“A Haunted House” by Virginia Woolf (1921)
“A Haunted House” by Virginia Woolf (1882 – 1941) was published in her first collection of short fiction, Monday or Tuesday (1921). It later appeared as the lead story of another collection of stories, A Haunted House and Other Short Stories (1944), after Woolf’s death. An analysis by Interesting Literature:
“‘A Haunted House’ by Virginia Woolf both is and is not a ghost story. In less than two pages of prose, Woolf explores, summons, and subverts the conventions of the ghost story, offering a modernist take on the genre … In summary, the narrator describes the house where she and her partner live. Whenever you wake in the house, you hear noises: a door shutting, and the sound of a ‘ghostly couple’ wandering from room to room in the house.”
Read the full text of “A Haunted House” here.
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Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier (1938)
Another by Daphne du Maurier, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more beautifully written psychological thriller than Rebecca. The eponymous mistress of Manderley continues to rule from the grave, assisted by her devoted and supremely creepy housekeeper Mrs. Danvers.
The nameless narrator, the new Mrs. Maxim De Winter, does battle to find her place as the woman of the manor. The story combines thrills, tragedy, pathos, romance, and plenty of twists and turns. The 1940 film version is wonderful, too, though it changes an important plot element. Read the book first!
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The Lottery by Shirley Jackson (1948)
Do you remember reading The Lottery by Shirley Jackson in high school? A kind of precursor to The Hunger Games, it tells of a bizarre ritual of a small village. When it was first published in The New Yorker in 1948, readers were shocked.
Somehow, despite initial revulsion and some attempts to ban it, the story had legs. It’s considered a classic of psychological terror. Similarly, Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and The Haunting of Hill House are designed to both thrill and unsettle. It’s easy to see why Stephen King has long cited Jackson as a prime influence.
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The Birds by Daphne du Maurier (1952)
Daphne du Maurier wrote her share of brilliant psychological thrillers and dark mysteries. Two of her standouts are the novel-length Rebecca , introduced earlier, and the long short story, The Birds.
Both were made into eerie films by Alfred Hitchcock, though the Birds in its 1965 film version was quite altered by the master director of suspense. The film version really freaked me out when I first saw it as a teen. When I see clouds of black birds migrating I can’t help but be taken back to this extraordinarily unsettling movie. Du Maurier’s story, though not one of her best, is taut and thrilling. And best of all, not as scary as the film.
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The Haunting of Hill House
by Shirley Jackson (1959)
Another by Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House is a 1959 novel in the gothic horror genre, though it might be more accurately described as a literary ghost story. It’s a masterful story of psychological terror.
Hill House is a mansion built by Hugh Crain, long passed away. Dr. John Montague, an investigator of the supernatural, wishes to conduct a study there to find existence of spirits. With him are three young companions, of whom Eleanor is the central character. A close reading of the novel is an exploration of her psychological breakdown.
Here are the novels of Shirley Jackson, a master of the psychological thriller.
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Lesser known haunting stories
from literary herstory
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In No Direction Home: The Uncanny in Literature, Francis Booth (a frequent contributor to Literary Ladies) includes plenty of haunting stories by women writers. No Direction Home is available for Nook and from Kobo and other distributors of ebooks.
Francis unearthed some fascinating women who wrote in the genre of the occult, uncanny, and ghost stories from way back when. See this treasure trove in Classic Uncanny Stories by British Women Writers.
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Women’s Weird: Strange Stories by Women, 1890 – 1940
And one more collection, just in time for settling in with a good book in front of the fireplace (or wood stove, or what the heck, even your radiator) on a stormy night, Handheld Press Ltd., based in Bath, England presents Women’s Weird: Strange Stories by Women, 1890 – 1940. This deliciously thrilling collection was released, appropriately, on Halloween — October 31, 2019.
Edited by Melissa Edmundson, this compilation of strange tales by women authors — including some lesser-known gems by some of the classic authors on this site — will be of great interest to readers of literary ghosts stories, the supernatural, and other kinds of thrillers.
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