31) THE GHOST CLUB: AN UNFORTUNATE EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF NO.5010, John Kendrick Bangs (1894)
"I looked at him a minute, and then I said, 'But, Hawley, I thought you were dead.'
'I am,' he answered. 'But why should a little thing like that stand between friends?'" #GothicAdvent

30) THE GIANT WISTARIA, Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1891)
"He strode heavily across the porch, till the loose planks creaked...his brows fiercely knit above his iron mouth. Overhead the shadows flickered mockingly across a white face among the leaves, with eyes of fire"#GothicAdvent

29) WARNED BY THE WIRE, Louis Glass (1895)
"Could it be possible be that I was asleep? I got up and walked over...Everything was too clear to me and the ominous click typed out the following sentence: Spike-driver Catton will be killed in the new cut tomorrow" #GothicAdvent

28) YOUNG GOODMAN BROWN, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1835)
The cry of grief, rage, and terror, was yet piercing the night…There was a scream, drowned immediately in a louder murmur of voices, fading into far-off laughter, as the dark cloud swept away" #GothicAdvent

27) THE BLIZZARD, Luke Sharp (1888)
"An astonishing sight met his eyes...A skeleton sat on a stump looking at him, if the eyeless sockets can be said to look, and on the fallen log beside the stump sat a second skeleton with its skull resting in its bony hands" #GothicAdvent

26) AN UNSCIENTIFIC STORY, Louise J Strong (1903)
"The creature - it was plainly a living creature - had grown, and taken shape, even in those few moments. It lived! It breathed! It moved! And his the power that had given it life!" #GothicAdvent

25) A CHRISTMAS CAROL, Charles Dickens (1843)
"The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley’s Ghost; some...were linked together; none were free." #GothicAdvent

24) THE LADY’S WALK, Margaret Oliphant “I stood and listened with a something of excited feeling which I could not control: the sound of this third person, whose steps were not to be mistaken though she was unseen, made my heart beat” #GothicAdvent

23) LA VILLE VAMPIRE, Paul Féval (1874)
"The young girl was on her knees on the back of her horse. She threw away her garland, threw away her veils…she made a touching sight. Suddenly, the spider trapped her in its web…There was a sound of grinding bones." #GothicAdvent

22) THE HIGHER LIFE, Mary E Braddon (1907)
"out of the darkness rushed the demon pack, the spectral hounds that hunt the souls of sinful men - the evil spirits of the air, implacable, fierce, inexorable tormentors, who chase unhallowed souls that have escaped" #GothicAdvent

21) THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY, Oscar Wilde (1890)
"Lying on the floor was a dead man...with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was." #GothicAdvent

20) THE OLD HOUSE IN VAUXHALL WALK, Charlotte Riddell (1882)
"The fire was not quite out, and at that moment shot up a last tongue of flame. By the light, transient as it was, he saw that the figure pressed a ghostly finger to its lips" #GothicAdvent

19) OH, WHISTLE, & I'LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD, M R James (1904)
"a horrible, an intensely horrible, face of crumpled linen. What expression he read upon it he could not or would not tell, but that the fear of it went nigh to maddening him is certain" #GothicAdvent

18) A WICKED VOICE, Vernon Lee (1890)
"a sapphire engraved with cabalistic signs presented to him one evening by a masked stranger, in whom wise folk recognized that great cultivator of the human voice, the devil" #GothicAdvent

17) THE VAMPYRE, John Polidori (1819)
"[it's] punishment after death, for some heinous crime committed whilst in existence, that the deceased is not only doomed to vampyrise, but compelled to confine his infernal visitations solely to those beings he loved most" #GothicAdvent