It wasn’t too long ago that summer came to an end. The shorter days, cooler temperatures (well, maybe not exactly in California!), and a change in nature’s hues from green to shades of red, yellow, and brown are signs that fall is upon us. With Halloween just right around the corner, it’s a perfect time for a spooky story about supernatural happenings, dreadful things, and the macabre.

A perennial favorite, especially around Halloween time, the gothic novel has a long literary history that can be traced back to the publication of Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto in 1764. With its tale about a lord and his castle and ominous forebodings and strange events that surround it, the novel conveys an ambiance of darkness and dread that has become a defining aspect of the gothic genre.

Gothic literature may have been a reaction to the intellectual movement of the 18th century known as Enlightenment, which emphasized reason, rational thought, empiricism, and the scientific method in understanding humanity and the world around us. Gothic fiction veers from these ideas and instead focuses on the fantastical and imaginative with its emphasis on the supernatural, the unknown, irrational fears, and the emotional experience of being frightened.

The modern gothic novels we know and love today such as Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, Diane Setterfield’s The Thirteenth Tale, and Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic are the descendants of Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto and many early gothic fiction. Here are six classics that continue to enthrall us with stories about the unknown and our darkest fears.

Vathek by William Beckford

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Vathek was written when the gothic genre was still quite new and authors were experimenting with characters and imagery. It’s no surprise, then, that Beckford’s 1786 novel comes across as a strange tale of the perverse and the grotesque yet also of beauty and exoticism. Set in the exotic lands of Arabia, the story is about a caliph named Vathek who is a wicked tyrant hungry for knowledge and power. In exchange for these things, he makes a deal with a stranger with supernatural powers; he must renounce his faith and do his bidding. To what lengths will Vathek go to fulfill his side of the deal to acquire this great power? If you’re familiar with Goethe’s Faust or Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, then you might know what the consequences are for making a deal with the devil!

Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

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Frankenstein is often cited as being the first science fiction novel, but it’s also one of the first gothic novels with its imagery of the grotesque and themes of mortality and death and good versus evil. Modern science replaces magic in this dark tale about a scientist named Victor Frankenstein who can revive dead tissues and uses his understanding of chemistry and biology to create a giant creature from body parts. Frightened by his monstrous creation, he abandons it, and the creature is forced to survive on its own. Like an orphaned child, it seeks companionship and acceptance but is rejected because of its hideous appearance. The terrible treatment and rejection it receives from other people eventually turn it into the “monster” that it was perceived to be. The novel brings up a philosophical question of who is the real monster in Frankenstein?

Dracula by Bram Stoker

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No novel and perhaps no character in literature represents gothic horror better than Dracula. It’s the quintessential gothic novel with its tale of vampires, creepy castles, and the dark. Written in the style of an epistolary novel, the story is told through letters and journal entries of various people. It begins with an English lawyer named Jonathan Harker traveling to the remote castle of Count Dracula, who is interested in purchasing a house in London. It wasn’t very long until Harker discovers that his client has a few terrible secrets and soon finds himself a prisoner in the castle. However, after some horrifying events, he escapes and returns to London, but Dracula follows him. Bizarre incidents unfold after Dracula arrives in England. When a close friend of Harker’s wife falls victim to the Count, a group of people lead by Abraham Van Helsing go on a hunt to find the vampire and destroy it. How will they kill Dracula? With garlic, silver bullets, a stake through the heart, a crucifix, or sunlight? Pick up a copy of Dracula and find out!

The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis

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Published in 1796, The Monk is a scandalous and perverse early gothic fiction that was hugely popular in its time for the same reason that twisted stories are popular today. It’s about a pious monk, Ambrosio, who is seduced by a mysterious woman who gains entrance to the monastery disguised as a man. She awakens his lust and pride, and he quickly succumbs to forbidden desires. It’s a dark tale of lust, murder, sorcery, and depravity. His fall from grace is made complete when he makes a demonic pact, and we all know what happens when you make a deal with the devil—it usually doesn’t end well.

The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Inspired by the Salem witch trials that occurred in 1692 and 1693, The House of the Seven Gables is a literary work that’s representative of American Romanticism and the American gothic tradition. At the center of this story is an old New England mansion with seven gables built on land that once belonged to Matthew Maule, who was falsely accused of witchcraft and hanged. At the gallows he cursed the man who stole his land, Colonel Pyncheon, and his descendants. With the property’s dark legacy, strange and unfortunate events begin to happen to generations of the Pyncheon family after the mansion was built. But will the curse be lifted with the arrival of a cheerful young girl named Phoebe? With a name that means shining, maybe her presence will dispel the gloomy atmosphere of the Pyncheon ancestral home.

The Tell-Tale Heart and Other Tales by Edgar Allen Poe

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Poe was a master of the short story and a pioneer in gothic horror. The leading story in this small anthology is about a man’s descent into madness, which is a recurring theme in many of Poe’s works. “The Tell-Tale Heart” begins with an unnamed narrator who insists he is sane after murdering an old man whose “vulture-like” blue eyes haunted him. For seven nights he stalked the sleeping man, but on the eighth night the old man opened his eyes and the narrator suffocated him. What he does after the murder is a twisted tale of obsession, paranoia, and a study in psychosis. Poe’s short stories always have elements of psychological horror, and this collection includes “The Cask of Amontillado,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and “The Pit and the Pendulum.”