20 Romantic Ghost Stories of Desire, Jealousy, Love, & Loss to Read this Valentine's Day
Romance has always had a dark side: something sinister, possessive, even fatal lurks behind the desire to attract and be attracted. For centuries something spiritual – even supernatural – has been suspected in the ways of lovers in the night. Shakespeare called love-making “the beast with two backs”; in many ages the monomaniacal lust of a man for one woman has been blamed on witchcraft; the French refer to the sleep that follows intercourse as “le petite mort” – the little death. There is a night-side to our amours: a dark, animalistic release that takes place when we are alone with our love, drenched with shadows and candlelight.
Something vestigial and primitive about romance returns us to our less civilized forms, and for some of us, it is one of the few moments that we can genuinely sense our relationship to infinity and the realm of spirits. Consequently, romance has become one of the most prominent themes in Gothic fiction: from “Dracula” to “The Phantom of the Opera,” from “Wuthering Heights” to “The Raven,” nothing bridges the gap between reality and imagination, the physical and the spiritual, quite so nimbly as carnal attraction; and no genre is more capable of deconstructing these emotions quite so nimbly as horror.
As a result, for some people there is nothing quite so romantic as a darkened castle or a windy moor: the idea of guttering candles, the flash of a white negligee slipping down a dark hallway, the distant peal of subterranean organ music. If this is how you'd like to spend your Valentine's Day, then eschew the chocolates and roses and sit down with these classic stories of desire, jealousy, love, and loss from the masters of classic horror.
20. THE WOMAN’S GHOST STORY
– ALGERNON BLACKWOOD
One of the most sensual ghost stories ever written, this tale features a spirited, female ghost hunter who stuns an audience of men with her account of being trapped in a room with a tormented male ghost. Although her experience is initially terrifying, it eventually becomes transcendental and spiritually purifying, as she frees them both from fear.
19. OLALLA
– ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
A classic vampire story, “Olalla” is set in the dusty plains of 19th century Spain, where a wounded soldier falls in love with an aristocratic girl in spite of her demented, inbred family. They make plans to flee her Gothic manor together, but when he accidentally cuts his hand in front of her mother, a dormant family curse comes to life.
18. THE WAY IT CAME
– HENRY JAMES
Doesn’t everyone know two friends who would be a great couple if they ever met? In this Henry James story, the planned setup by the mutual friends of a man and woman are delayed over several years (both are interested, but the timing is never right), but when the young woman dies unexpectedly, her spirit decides to heed their meddling friends, and she appears to the still-living man, leading to the strangest, shortest blind date.
17. THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM
– WASHINGTON IRVING
