Reading path
The Dark Mirror
Literature that goes to the places most people would rather not look. The darkness in human nature, examined without flinching. These works unsettle and haunt, leaving images that don't fade easily. Horror, the gothic, the uncanny, the morally unbearable: all of it serves a single purpose. Not comfort. Truth. The kind that can only be reached by going through the dark rather than around it.
In the app a path keeps your place, marks what you have read, and hands you the next work when you are ready for it.
The first button needs the app on this device; the second gets it there.
The route
- 1. FrankensteinMary Shelley, 1818
- 2. The Bride Of LammermoorSir Walter Scott, 1819
- 3. The Fall of the House of UsherEdgar Allan Poe, 1839
- 4. The Tell-Tale HeartEdgar Allan Poe, 1843
- 5. My Last DuchessRobert Browning, 1842
- 6. Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr HydeRobert Louis Stevenson, 1886
- 7. The Picture of Dorian GrayOscar Wilde, 1890
- 8. The Scarlet LetterNathaniel Hawthorne, 1850
- 9. Heart of DarknessJoseph Conrad, 1899
- 10. The MetamorphosisFranz Kafka, 1915
- 11. A Hunger ArtistFranz Kafka, 1922
- 12. The Street of CrocodilesBruno Schulz, 1934
- 13. NightwoodDjuna Barnes, 1936
- 14. The LotteryShirley Jackson, 1948
- 15. GormenghastMervyn Peake, 1950
- 16. A Good Man Is Hard to FindFlannery O'Connor, 1953
- 17. Pedro PáramoJuan Rulfo, 1955
- 18. Under the VolcanoMalcolm Lowry, 1947
- 19. The Woman in the DunesKōbō Abe, 1962
- 20. Where Are You Going Where Have You Been?Joyce Carol Oates, 1966
- 21. Blood MeridianCormac McCarthy, 1985
- 22. The Talented Mr. RipleyPatricia Highsmith, 1955
- 23. BlondeJoyce Carol Oates, 2000
- 24. RebeccaDaphne du Maurier, 1938
- 25. The Haunting of Hill HouseShirley Jackson, 1959
- 26. CrashJ.G. Ballard, 1973
- 27. American PsychoBret Easton Ellis, 1991
- 28. Gone GirlGillian Flynn, 2012
- 29. The Castle of OtrantoHorace Walpole, 1764
- 30. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified SinnerJames Hogg, 1824
- 31. The Turn of the ScrewHenry James, 1898
- 32. Interview with the VampireAnne Rice, 1976
- 33. The Blind OwlṢādiq Hidāyat, 1937
- 34. Hurricane SeasonFernanda Melchor, 2017
- 35. Picnic at Hanging RockJoan Lindsay, 1967
- 36. The Seven MadmenRoberto Arlt, 1929
- 37. ArmadaleWilkie Collins, 1866
- 38. VictoryJoseph Conrad, 1915
- 39. The CenciPercy Bysshe Shelley, 1819
- 40. Doctor GlasHjalmar Soderberg, 1905