Books like 'Narrow Rooms'
Readers who enjoyed Narrow Rooms by James Purdy also liked the following books featuring the same tropes, story themes, relationship dynamics and character types.
historical horror north-america usa west-virginia lgbtq classics historical-fiction transgressive-mc gothic
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The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
Rated: 4.22 of 5 stars · 33 ratingsThe poetic masterpiece of the great nineteenth-century writer Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil is one of the most frequently read and studied works in the French language... -
![King of Kings by Wilbur Smith]()
King of Kings by Wilbur Smith
Rated: 4.31 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe sequel to Wilbur Smith's worldwide bestseller, The Triumph of the Sun.An epic story of love, betrayal, courage and war that brings together two of Wilbur Smith's greatest families in this long-awaited sequel to his worldwide bestseller, The Triumph of the Sun. Cairo, 1888. A beautiful September day. Penrod Ballantyne and his fiancee, Amber Benbrook, stroll hand in hand...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction action-adventure adult anthologies audiobook fiction -
![The Complete Poetry by Edgar Allan Poe]()
The Complete Poetry by Edgar Allan Poe
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 36 ratingsThe eerie tales of Edgar Allan Poe remain among the most brilliant, enduring, and influencial works in American literature. But Poe is also the author of some of the most haunting poetry ever written--poems of love, death and loneliness that have lost none of their power to enthrall in this unique Signet Classic edition...Categorized as:
classics gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction north-america usa adult anthologies -
![The Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde]()
The Uncensored Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsMore than 120 years after Oscar Wilde submitted "The Picture of Dorian Gray" for publication in "Lippincott's Monthly Magazine," the uncensored version of his novel appears here for the first time in a paperback edition. This volume restores all of the material removed by the novel's first editor.Upon receipt of the typescript, Wilde's editor panicked at what he saw... -
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![Harmony by Jordan L. Hawk]()
Harmony by Jordan L. Hawk
Rated: 4.30 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWhyborne just wants a quiet Christmas Eve at home, but Griffin has other plans.WARNING: Contains spoilers from Bloodline... -
![Hell Screen by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa]()
Hell Screen by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
Rated: 4.25 of 5 stars · 12 ratings"There can be no doubt that Akutagawa had more individuality than any other writer of his time and has left in Japanese literature a mass of artistic work, often grotesque and curious, that, while it undoubtedly angers the proletarian experimenters who now hold the stage and fight with lusty pens and a highly developed class consciousness against all that he stood for, will continue to live as...Categorized as:
classics gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies dark -
![Provinces of Night by William Gay]()
Provinces of Night by William Gay
Rated: 4.19 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsThe year is 1952, and E.F. Bloodworth has returned to his home - a forgotten corner of Tennessee - after twenty years of roaming. The wife he walked out on has withered and faded. His three sons are grown and angry. Warren is a womanising alcoholic; Boyd is driven by jealousy to hunt down his wife's lover; and Brady puts hexes on his enemies from his mother's porch...Categorized as:
classics gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction north-america usa 20th-century 21st-century -
![The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings by Oscar Wilde]()
The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings by Oscar Wilde
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFlamboyant and controversial, Oscar Wilde was a dazzling personality, a master of wit, and a dramatic genius whose sparkling comedies contain some of the most brilliant dialogue ever written for the English stage... -
![Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring]()
Arsenic and Old Lace by Joseph Kesselring
Rated: 4.12 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsThe play is a farcical black comedy revolving around Mortimer Brewster, author who wrights against marriage who must deal with his crazy, homicidal family and local police in Brooklyn, New York, as he debates whether to go through with a honeymoon with the woman he loves and has recently agreed to marry...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction north-america usa 20th-century adult anthologies -
![The Midnight Hour: All Hallows' Brides: A Gothic Regency Historical Romance collection by Kathryn Le Veque, Meara Platt]()
The Midnight Hour: All Hallows' Brides: A Gothic Regency Historical Romance collection by Kathryn Le Veque, Meara Platt
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWhen doors creak and ghostly whispers are heard in the midnight hour, this stunning collection of Gothic Regency Historical Romance is sure to leave you breathless with Poe-inspired, romantic dreams… Welcome to the All-Hallows’ Brides collection... -
![The Cherry Robbers by Sarai Walker]()
The Cherry Robbers by Sarai Walker
Rated: 4.29 of 5 stars · 7 ratingsSarai Walker has done it again. With The Cherry Robbers she upends the Gothic ghost story with a fiery feminist zeal. --Maria SempleThe highly anticipated second novel from Sarai Walker, following her "slyly subversive" (EW) cult-hit Dietland--a feminist gothic about the lone survivor of a cursed family of sisters, whose time may finally be up... -
![The Killing Snows by Charles Egan]()
The Killing Snows by Charles Egan
Rated: 4.14 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsThis book is fiction. The story that inspired it was not. In 1990, a box of very old documents was found on a small farm in the west of Ireland. They had been stored for well over a hundred years and told an incredible story of suffering, of love and of courage. In 1846, a young couple met during the worst days of the Great Irish Famine... -
![Selected European Short Stories (Classic Books on CD Collection) [UNABRIDGED] by Guy de Maupassant, Saki]()
Selected European Short Stories (Classic Books on CD Collection) [UNABRIDGED] by Guy de Maupassant, Saki
Rated: 4.15 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsClassic favorites, include Guy de Maupassant s The Duel and The Umbrella, Saki s The Schartz-Metterklume Method, The Open Window, and The Story Teller, Anton Chekhov s The Scandal Monger and Verochka and Thomas Mann s The Wardrobe...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction adult anthologies audiobook fiction historical -
![Masquerade by Joel Abernathy]()
Masquerade by Joel Abernathy
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsAn MM Phantom of the Opera RetellingWe all wear masks. He came to me like a ghost singing songs of the past… An angel, promising redemption. Now I know the truth of the man behind the mask, and Erik’s soul is more broken and twisted than I ever imagined. ~ Even an angel’s wings can be broken. The moment I heard his voice, I knew he was mine. Mine to teach. Mine to mold. Mine to possess... -
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![The Woman Who Had Two Navels and Tales of the Tropical Gothic by Nick Joaquín, Gina Apostol]()
The Woman Who Had Two Navels and Tales of the Tropical Gothic by Nick Joaquín, Gina Apostol
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsNick Joaquin is widely considered one of the greatest Filipino writers, but he has remained little-known outside his home country despite writing in English. With the post-colonial sensibilities of Junot Diaz, Teju Cole, and Jhumpa Lahiri and an ironic perspective of colonial history resonant with Marques and Llosa, Joaquin is a long-neglected writer ready to join the ranks of the world classics...Categorized as:
classics gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult anthologies fiction -
![Ancient Mariner; Kubla Khan and Christabel by Samuel Taylor Coleridge]()
Ancient Mariner; Kubla Khan and Christabel by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThis scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages...Categorized as:
classics gothic literary-fiction fiction action-adventure horror 20th-century university -
![Father of Frankenstein by Christopher Bram]()
Father of Frankenstein by Christopher Bram
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThis is a novel by the author of Hold Tight... -
![The Phantom of the Opera by Diane Namm, Gaston Leroux]()
The Phantom of the Opera by Diane Namm, Gaston Leroux
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsThe lights dim at the Paris Opera House. The exquisite Christine Daaé enraptures the audience with her mellifluous voice. Immediately, Raoul de Chagny falls deeply in love. But the legend of the disfigured "opera ghost" haunts the performance, and as Raoul begins his pursuit of Christine, he is pulled into the depths of the opera house, and into the depths of human emotions... -
![Dark Spring by Unica Zürn]()
Dark Spring by Unica Zürn
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsDark Spring is an autobiographical coming-of-age novel that reads more like an exorcism than a memoir. In it author Unica Zurn traces the roots of her obsessions: The exotic father she idealized, the "impure" mother she detested, the masochistic fantasies and onanistic rituals which she said described "the erotic life of a little girl based on my own childhood...Categorized as:
classics literary-fiction transgressive-mc 20th-century adult book coming-of-age female-author -
![The Long Home by William Gay]()
The Long Home by William Gay
Rated: 4.07 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsIn a literary voice that is both original and powerfully unsettling, William Gay tells the story of Nathan Winer, a young and headstrong Tennessee carpenter who lost his father years ago to a human evil that is greater and closer at hand than any the boy can imagine - until he learns of it first-hand...Categorized as:
gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction north-america usa 20th-century adult audiobook -
![The Heavenly Table by Donald Ray Pollock]()
The Heavenly Table by Donald Ray Pollock
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 18 ratingsFrom Donald Ray Pollock, author of the highly acclaimed The Devil All the Time and Knockemstiff, comes a dark, gritty, electrifying (and, disturbingly, weirdly funny) new novel that will solidify his place among the best contemporary American authors.It is 1917, in that sliver of border land that divides Georgia from Alabama... -
![The Queen of Spades and Other Stories by Alexander Pushkin]()
The Queen of Spades and Other Stories by Alexander Pushkin
Rated: 4.10 of 5 stars · 32 ratingsThis volume contains new translations of four of Pushkin's best works of fiction. The Queen of Spades has long been acknowledged as one of the world's greatest short stories, in which Pushkin explores the nature of obsession. The Tales of Belkin are witty parodies of sentimentalism, while Peter the Great's Blackamoor is an early experiment with recreating the past... -
![Maldoror and Poems by Comte de Lautréamont]()
Maldoror and Poems by Comte de Lautréamont
Rated: 4.18 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsInsolent and defiant, the Chants de Maldoror, by the self-styled Comte de Lautréamont (1846-70), depicts a sinister and sadistic world of unrestrained savagery and brutality... -
![The Complete Plays by Christopher Marlowe]()
The Complete Plays by Christopher Marlowe
Rated: 4.08 of 5 stars · 26 ratingsMarlowe's seven plays dramatise the fatal lure of potent forces, whether religious, occult or erotic. In the victories of Tamburlaine, Faustus's encounters with the demonic, the irreverence of Barabas in THE JEW OF MALTA, and the humiliation of Edward II in his fall from power and influence, Marlowe explores the shifting balance between power and helplessness, the sacred and its desecration...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction adult anthologies drama early-modern -
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![Deathtrap by Ira Levin]()
Deathtrap by Ira Levin
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 16 ratingsSeemingly comfortably ensconced in his charming Connecticut home, Sidney Bruhl, a successful writer of Broadway thrillers, is struggling to overcome a "dry" spell which has resulted in a string of failures and a shortage of funds... -
![Abbadón el exterminador by Ernesto Sábato]()
Abbadón el exterminador by Ernesto Sábato
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 14 ratingsSabato poeta del apocalipsis, no es un profeta como San Juan, sino su testigo ocular, Obra grandiosa y alucinante, una introducción al reino de los demonios, que esta dentro y fuera de nosotros. English Translation: Sabato poet of the apocalypse, isn t prophet as San Juan, but its eyewitness, huge and hallucinating Work, an introduction to the kingdom of the demons, who this inside and outside us... -
![Born of No Woman by Franck Bouysse, Lara Vergnaud]()
Born of No Woman by Franck Bouysse, Lara Vergnaud
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 12 ratingsIn this gothic tale reminiscent of Faulkner's Light in August, a young woman's journals divulge the horrible secrets of a wealthy family in late nineteenth-century rural France. Before he is called to bless the body of a woman at the nearby asylum, Father Gabriel receives a strange, troubling confession: hidden under her dress he will find the notebooks that contain Rose's harrowing story... -
![The Way of a Serpent by Torgny Lindgren]()
The Way of a Serpent by Torgny Lindgren
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratings"Unto him that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance; but from him who hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath."As the narrator suggests, that is the inescapable conclusion of this slim, moving parable about a Swedish peasant family at the end of the 19th century... -
![Fitzwilliam Darcy An Honourable Man by Brenda J. Webb]()
Fitzwilliam Darcy An Honourable Man by Brenda J. Webb
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsFitzwilliam Darcy, An Honourable Man is a Pride and Prejudice variation. Not a simple retelling, it is an intriguing new story. Leaving England after his disastrous proposal was refused at Hunsford, Darcy spent two lonely years in Scotland and Ireland before returning home to face Elizabeth Bennet, certain that he could regard her as an indifferent acquaintance... -
![Orpheus Builds a Girl by Heather Parry]()
Orpheus Builds a Girl by Heather Parry
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsBased on a true story, Orpheus Builds a Girl is a novel of sisterly love, sinister obsession, and the battle for control of the story. A dark, chilling debut novel from award-winning writer Heather Parry.German doctor Wilhelm Von Tore shares with the reader the story of his one true ove; a love written in the stars, decades in the making, a love so strong it transcended death itself...Categorized as:
gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction horror fiction retellings historical dark -
![H.G. Wells: Six Novels by H.G. Wells, Michael A. Cramer]()
H.G. Wells: Six Novels by H.G. Wells, Michael A. Cramer
Rated: 4.33 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsHe was the first to popularize the concept of time travel. He disturbed - and fascinated - us with a frightening doctor's island. He wrote of an invisible man, of men on the moon, and of a war of the worlds. He has influenced countless other writers, artists, and even scientists. H. G...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction action-adventure adult anthologies fiction historical -
![The Fiery Angel by Valery Bryusov]()
The Fiery Angel by Valery Bryusov
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratings"In a vividly atmospheric recreation of the occult underworld of sixteenth century Germany, during an age of Inquisition, three souls meet: an innocent young man choosing between Love and Duty, a woman prone to visions and a Knight, who is either angel or demon." Religious experience and sexual hysteria meet in an apocalyptic vision of the spiritual crisis of modern life...Categorized as:
classics gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction transgressive-mc adult book fiction -
![I Burn Paris by Bruno Jasieński]()
I Burn Paris by Bruno Jasieński
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratings"This is a superb text of astonishing modernity, a veritable manifesto of the wretched of the earth ..."— MarianneBruno Jasienski’s I Burn Paris has remained one of Poland’s most uncomfortable masterstrokes of literature since its initial and controversial serialization in 1928 in the French magazine L’Humanité (for which Jasienski was deported)...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book dystopia epidemy -
![Whispers in the Dark by Jonathan Aycliffe]()
Whispers in the Dark by Jonathan Aycliffe
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsIn this second chilling novel by Jonathan Aycliffe, orphaned Charlotte Metcalf arrives on the doorstep of her relatives, the mysterious Ayrtons, in the hope of locating her younger brother Arthur. Their home, Barras Hall, is at first a welcome refuge, until Charlotte realizes that the manor has become her prison, and that she is surrounded by a horror she cannot escape... -
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![Skin Lane by Neil Bartlett]()
Skin Lane by Neil Bartlett
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsShortlisted for the 2007 Costa Novel Award“I read Skin Lane with one eye closed out of sheer animal terror. Then, unimaginably, it brought me to tears; what a work of art—so unexpected and heartbreaking and lovely.”—Armistead Maupin“A powerful and complex story of sexual obsession. . . . A profoundly original meditation on thwarted desire... -
![In a Shallow Grave by James Purdy]()
In a Shallow Grave by James Purdy
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA soldier named Garnet Montrose returns home to coastal Virginia bearing a grotesque injury which is nauseatingly repellent to anyone who sees him. He hires two young male caretakers, Quintus Pearch and Potter Daventry, who look after his disability...Categorized as:
classics gothic historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction 20th-century adult audiobook -
![Eustace Chisholm and the Works by James Purdy]()
Eustace Chisholm and the Works by James Purdy
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsHis fifth novel...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction lgbtq literary-fiction transgressive-mc 20th-century adult book -
![Tales of Suspense by Edgar Allan Poe]()
Tales of Suspense by Edgar Allan Poe
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsTales of Suspense - Edgar Allen Poe - Illustrations by: Steve Salerno - THE WORLD'S BEST READING - The Reader's Digest Association...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction adult anthologies audiobook early-modern fiction -
![My Fantoms by Théophile Gautier]()
My Fantoms by Théophile Gautier
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsRomantic provocateur, flamboyant bohemian, precocious novelist, perfect poet—not to mention an inexhaustible journalist, critic, and man-about-town—Théophile Gautier is one of the major figures, and great characters, of French literature... -
![Whiteoak Heritage by Mazo de la Roche]()
Whiteoak Heritage by Mazo de la Roche
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsWhen Renny Whiteoak came home from the war he discovered many strange things at Jalna. Not least among them was his young brother Eden's romantic affair with an attractive widow. Renny determined to put a stop to it. But when he met the infamous Mrs. Stroud, Renny found himself reluctantly entangled in her dangerous web... -
![Enlightenment by Sarah Perry]()
Enlightenment by Sarah Perry
Rated: 4.00 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsA dazzling new work of literary fiction from the author of The Essex Serpent, a story of love and astronomy told over the course of twenty years through the lives of two improbable best friends. Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh...Categorized as:
historical-fiction literary-fiction lgbtq gothic fiction fantasy historical religion -
![Hawthorne's Short Stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne]()
Hawthorne's Short Stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Rated: 4.05 of 5 stars · 21 ratingsTwenty-four of Hawthorne's best-known short stories plus many that are virtually unknown to the average reader. Introduction by Professor Newton Arvin of Smith College... -
![Imaginary Lives by Marcel Schwob]()
Imaginary Lives by Marcel Schwob
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 14 ratings'Imaginary Lives' contains 22 mythopoeic literary portraits of figures from ancient history, art history, and the history of crime and punishment... -
![A Christmas Carol and Other Stories by Charles Dickens, John Irving]()
A Christmas Carol and Other Stories by Charles Dickens, John Irving
Rated: 4.13 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsAn immediate bestseller when it was first published in December 1843, A Christmas Carol has endured ever since as a perennial Yuletide favorite. Charles Dickens's beloved tale about the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge, who comes to know the meaning of kindness, charity, and goodwill through a haunting Christmas Eve encounter with four ghosts, is a heartwarming celebration of the spirit of Christmas...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction adult anthologies fiction historical holidays -
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![Uncollected Stories of William Faulkner by William Faulkner]()
Uncollected Stories of William Faulkner by William Faulkner
Rated: 4.17 of 5 stars · 6 ratingsThis invaluable volume contains some of the greatest short fiction by a writer who defined the course of American literature. Its forty-five stories fall into three categories: those not included in Faulkner’s earlier collections; previously unpublished short fiction; and stories that were later expanded into such novels as The Unvanquished , The Hamlet , and Go Down, Moses... -
![The King in the Golden Mask and Other Stories by Marcel Schwob]()
The King in the Golden Mask and Other Stories by Marcel Schwob
Rated: 4.06 of 5 stars · 11 ratingsFirst published in French in 1892 and never before translated fully into English, The King in the Golden Mask gathers 21 of Marcel Schwob’s cruelest and most erudite tales. Melding the fantastic with historical fiction, these stories describe moments of unexplained violence both historical and imaginary, often blending the two through Schwob’s collaging of primary source documents into fiction...Categorized as:
classics gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction adult anthologies fiction historical -
![The Children of Dynmouth by William Trevor]()
The Children of Dynmouth by William Trevor
Rated: 3.90 of 5 stars · 10 ratingsWilliam Trevor's The Children of Dynmouth (Winner of the Whitbread Award and shortlisted for the Booker Prize) was first published in 1976 and is a classic account of evil lurking in the most unlikely places. In it we follow awkward, lonely, curious teenager Timothy Gedge as he wanders around the bland seaside town of Dynmouth...Categorized as:
classics historical-fiction literary-fiction 20th-century adult book fiction historical -
![The Dark Domain by Stefan Grabiński]()
The Dark Domain by Stefan Grabiński
Rated: 4.02 of 5 stars · 13 ratingsPoland's strong Catholic faith engendered in its literature a lively awareness of the Devil and a love of the supernatural and the fantastic. These stories are explorations of the extreme in human behaviour, where the bizarre chills the spine, and few authors can match Grabinski's depiction of seething sexual frenzy... -
![Late Victorian Gothic Tales by Roger Luckhurst, Vernon Lee]()
Late Victorian Gothic Tales by Roger Luckhurst, Vernon Lee
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsThe Victorian fin de siecle has many associations: the era of Decadence, The Yellow Book, the New Woman, the scandalous Oscar Wilde, the Empire on which the sun never set...Categorized as:
classics gothic historical-fiction literary-fiction adult anthologies fiction ghosts -
![The Sound of Building Coffins by Louis Maistros]()
The Sound of Building Coffins by Louis Maistros
Rated: 3.88 of 5 stars · 8 ratingsMeticulously-drawn in lyrical prose, this tale of death and rebirth, devastation and redemption, will draw you into a world of beauty and pain, as alluring as it is dangerous...
![Selected European Short Stories (Classic Books on CD Collection) [UNABRIDGED] by Guy de Maupassant, Saki](https://48f-1.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/books/small/6239ffddd63f4e53714f1ab6.jpg)
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