Everything for a Gothic unit in one place: the novels with their study guides and quizzes, a ghost-story writing challenge modelled on Byron's in 1816, classroom activities, and a research project on where horror comes from. All free; the books are in the Library in full.
Students: see Studying the Gothic.
Each book has the full text with chapter summaries, analysis, notable quotations, a character map and a six-page study guide (introduction, structure, context, craft, themes and further reading), plus online quizzes with every answer explained.
The first Gothic novel: a usurper, a prophecy, a giant helmet that falls from the sky, and a castle that will not let its secrets lie.
A heroine trapped in a mountain castle, a black veil, and a natural explanation for almost every terror.
Radcliffe's opposite: a celebrated monk, a bargain with the Devil, and nothing explained away.
The Gothic laughed at: a heroine who has read too much Radcliffe visits a real abbey.
Born from a ghost-story contest in 1816: a young scientist makes a living being, and runs from it.
Scrooge, three spirits and one long night: the most famous ghost story in English.
A governess, a brooding master, and a laugh from the locked third storey.
A foundling, a passion that outlives death, and a ghost at the window on the moors.
A lonely girl in a Styrian castle and a beautiful, languid guest: the vampire story Stoker knew well.
A respectable doctor, a brutal stranger, and the secret that binds them.
A young man stays beautiful while his portrait records every sin.
An experiment on a girl's brain, and the deaths that follow it through London society.
A shipwrecked man on an island where a scientist is turning animals into men.
A vampire comes to London, and a band of friends hunts him with typewriters, telegrams and the oldest weapons of faith.
A governess, two children and two ghosts who may not be there at all.
Coming next: Edgar Allan Poe's tales of terror. The full plan is in the Gothic lineage.
In June 1816 Lord Byron told his guests, "We will each write a ghost story." One of them wrote Frankenstein. Set your class the same challenge. Start with the story of that summer.
Each works in one or two lessons, and every one sends students back to the text.
Give groups one chapter each from a Library book. They find every Gothic convention in it, with a quotation for each, and report back. Build a class chart across all three books.
Ann Radcliffe said terror expands the mind and horror freezes it. Students sort short passages into the two and defend their choices.
Who is responsible for the deaths of William, Justine, Clerval and Elizabeth? Assign prosecution, defence, witnesses (including the Creature) and a jury. Every claim must cite the text.
Dracula is a file of documents. Students write one missing document in a character's voice (a telegram, a newspaper report, a ship's log entry) that fits the novel's dates and facts.
Read the account of Polidori's Lord Ruthven on the Diodati page, then Dracula's first appearance. What does each vampire make readers of his time afraid of?
Pliny's Athens house (c. 100 CE), Otranto (1764), the House of Usher (1839): use the lineage to compare what each house hides and why the dead come back.
Otranto turns on a riddling prophecy. Students predict what it means after Chapter I, then check their predictions as the novel unfolds.
Draw Frankenstein's nested narrators as boxes inside boxes. Who is speaking on any given page, and who is listening? What does each narrator have reason to hide?
Twelve topics for short presentations, in pairs or small groups, with two guiding questions each. The audience takes notes using the general questions at the end. Starting points: the Gothic lineage, the Diodati page, and each book's context page in the Library.