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Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 10h

I don’t think it was me, but now I want to add it to my TBR too! Let me know when you figure out what it is. Haha

Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 11h

The true curse of the Secret Chamber is not just what it contains, but the fact that it is secret. The haunted lords cannot tell what plagues them.

Lindores wants to open the chamber for all to see in daylight, but it refuses to reveal itself. The ending is left vaguely hopeful...

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Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 11h

But the secret chamber of Gowrie Castle holds no ordinary ghost. It holds what I would call a manifestation of the inclination toward evil.

Unfortunately, many of the lords of the castle are too weak-willed to resist the spirit's wicked whispers. Can young Lindores break the curse?

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Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 11h

Day 9 of #AScareADay is "The Secret Chamber" by Margaret Oliphant.

There are three tropes in one here: a hidden chamber, a haunting, and a family curse!

Those who know only of the existence of the secret chamber, but not what it contains, romanticize it. "A ghost is a sign of importance."

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Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 1d

Ooh, interesting!

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Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 1d

Of course, we never get to see Mrs. De Wynt's reaction to learning that a young man has died in the house she found for her friend. Does she believe in the haunting now? Does she feel responsible for his death? Will she be wary of renting cheap houses in the future?

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Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 1d

I absolutely loved Mrs. De Wynt's over-the-top writing style, especially when she waxes poetic about what a good friend she is. She anthropomorphizes the house in a particularly interesting way: " I feel a sort of godmother to it, and responsible for its good behaviour."

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Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 1d

Of course, one young man has to go stay in the haunted bedroom to prove his manliness to his lady love. This scenario reminded me of Edith Nesbit's "The Pavilion."

But what on earth does he mean by "Seven white ghostisses Sifting on seven white postisses"?

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Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 1d

Day 8 of #AScareADay is "The Truth, The Whole Truth, And Nothing but the Truth" by Rhoda Broughton--another new to me author!

The story is epistolary, told in letters between Mrs. De Wynt and Mrs. Montresor. It's got the classic trope of one bedroom that leaves inhabitants dead or mad.

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Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 2d

It is interesting to juxtapose a performance of Hamlet with the apparition of Mrs MacArthur’s mother. The ghost in Hamlet is a murdered man come back to reveal the betrayal to his son.
But Mrs A’s mother doesn’t seem to be a sentient spirit with any purpose, just briefly visiting fam

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Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 2d

I wonder what the relationship is between the narrator and Mrs MacArthur. We know nothing about the narrator except a vague sense that she is a young lady who identifies closely with Mrs A’s younger self and seems more affected by the failed love story than the ghost.

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Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 2d

Mrs MacArthur’s father got the full visual apparition of his wife’s ghost and seemed to understand it’s importance, but young Mrs MacArthur and her maid only heard a faint rapping at the window—not unlike in Poe’s “The Raven.”

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Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 2d

Day 7 of #AScareADay was “The Last House in C____ Street” by Dinah Mulock (1856).
I wasn’t familiar with either this story or this author before, but I enjoyed it. It is subtle, sad, and sweet. A classic ghost story of the deceased appearing to far off loved ones at the moment of death.

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Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 3d

Yes, if he were genuinely a supernatural being, the animals are usually the first to notice!

Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 3d

My brain also went down the cursed immortal wanderers route!

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Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 3d

I don’t think I’ve read any of Emily Brontë’s poetry before, but I really liked this one!
She really sets a mood in such a short poem, and I like the imagery of “his basilisk charm.”

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Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 3d

What is it about this stranger that makes his eyes shine in a way that “None but a spirit's look may beam”?
To me, this brought to mind “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and other tales of cursed wanderers.

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Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 3d

Day 6 of #AScareADay is the poem “And now the house dog stretched once more” by Emily Brontë.

Such an innocuous title. And, really, an innocuous scene of a stranger taking a meal with a shepherd and his family. Yet an uncanny gleam in the man’s eye frightens all present—except for the dog.

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Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 3d

You are very welcome! Thank you for writing such wonderful books!

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Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 3d

New blog post! Check out my thoughts on why AMERICA’S MOST GOTHIC by @leannareneehieber.bsky.social and Andrea Janes should be your next Halloween read:

www.thegothiclibrary.com/review-of-am...

Review of America’s Most Gothic: Haunted History Stranger Than Fiction - The Gothic Library

Can Gothic literary tropes help us better understand real life? Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes certainly think so! These two queens of ghostlore who brought us A Haunted History of Invisible Wom...

www.thegothiclibrary.com

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Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 4d

I like the wording of “uninvaded sleep.” Who would dare invade a kraken’s sleep?

There’s something Cthulhu-like about this big monster sleeping beneath the waves. Or I guess Cthulhu is Kraken-like—except he gets to dream.

I’ve never thought of “millennial growth” sponges before…

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Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 4d

Day 5 of #AScareADay is the poem “The Kraken” by Lord Tennyson.

Somehow, I don’t think I’ve read this one before. It’s kind of sad😢

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Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 5d

Even worse than being conscious for his own funeral and burial is that several of the narrator’s friends recognize him on the dissecting table, and do nothing!

Do we think the galvanic experiment is what restored him? Or would he have woken up at the slice of the knife regardless?

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Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 5d

I was particularly struck by this line in today’s story:

“The world was then darkened, but I still could hear, and feel, and suffer.”

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Julia O’Connell @juliajoyce.bsky.social · 5d

Day 4 of #AScareADay is “The Buried Alive” by John Galt (1821)

This made me think of a chapter I recently read in AMERICA’S MOST GOTHIC by Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes, which explores the cases of 19th-c spiritualists who went into deep trances and their family feared burying them alive

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