I was wondering if anyone else here has tried to find any classic gothic novels online for free? There are a few at Project Gutenberg , others at the Internet Archive's text section and some at Google Books. The Internet Archive has an impressive ammount of old books and most of the scans are excellent if you get the .pdf versions. Google Books isn't nearly as good and I had to struggle for a while to find stuff and they have sometimes ommited a volume of an multi-volume work.

I was thinking that we might pool our results into a single thread to save each other time if anyone else is interested. We could each post direct links to the titles we found.

Anyone interested?

I'm sorry no one's responded to this.

When I saw the topic title, I thought of Archive.org, because I make good and frequent use of it. I crave the occasional Victorian novel, lately M.E. Braddon, and Mrs. Henry Wood.

Googlebooks is pretty much worthless! I'm disgusted by the poor quality; most of what I've seen is unreadable.

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Yeah, I figured there wouldn't be much response here. (Frankly, I don't know how this place stays open with no traffic and no ads.) Of course, I could have gotten the ball rolling by posting the links I already had to texts at Project Gutenberg but I was too lazy at the time.

I recently checked out the book The First Gothics by Fred Frank. It looks like it has 500 old gothics listed and reviewed. I'm sure it will drive me to find at least a few of them. If I find them online I'll put the links here.

I'd love to get gothics online for free, but I don't like to read off the computer, and I can't print it out. I would be interested in knowing the actual titles of gothic books.

(12-19-2009 11:32 AM)paigenumber Wrote:  I would be interested in knowing the actual titles of gothic books.

As part of something I'm working on I made a list of some titles, but some of them are very rare and I'm not sure how many are online. I thought I'd at least share the list and maybe share links to online editions if I find them. I think all the below titles are "first wave" gothics of the 18th and 19th centuries. Sorry I didn't include author or year but I didn't need them for my project. Google will probably turn up that info.

Adeline St. Julian: or, The Midnight Hour
The Affecting History of Louisa, The Wandering Maniac
Alexena: or, The Castle of Santa Marco
Almahide: or, The Captive Queen
Ariel: or, the Invisible Monitor
Correlia: or, The Mysterious Tomb
Durston Castle: or, the Ghost of Eleonora, a Gothic story
Ellen: Countess of Castle Howel
Ellen: Heiress of the Castle
Eliza: or, The Unhappy Nun
Emily Moreland: or, The Maid of the Valley
Emily: or, The Fatal Promise
Emmeline; or The Happy Discovery
Emmeline: The Orphan of the Castle
Ethelinde: or, The Recluse of the Lake
Ethelwina: or, The House of Fritz-Auburne
Eva of Cambria: or, The Fugitive Daughter
Fanny; or, The Happy Repentance
Fatherless Fanny
The History of Emily Montague
The History of Lady Julia Mandeville
Jaqueline of Olzeburg; or Final Retribution
Letitia: or, The Castle Without A Spectre
Lucretia: or, The Robbers of the Hyrcanean Forest
Madelina: A Tale Founded On Facts
Madeline: or, The Castle of Montgomery
Margiana: or, Widdrington Tower
Mary-Jane
Phedora: or, The Forest of Minski
Rosalie: or, The Castle of Montalabretti
Rosa; or, The Child of the Abbey
Rosella: or, Modern Occurrences
The Sorrows Of Edith
The Story Of Morella De Alto
Vesuvia: or Anglesea Manor

Those are what I call the "girl title" gothics because they all have a girl's name in them. Below are some titles that imply females in the second or third person.

The Abbess
The Abbess of Valtiera
The Castle of Montabino: or, The Orphan Sisters
The Heroine
The Idiot Heiress
The Mysterious Sisters
The Nuns of Misericordia
Owen Castle: or, Which Is The Heroine?
The School For Widows
She Would Be A Heroine
The Sisters of St. Gothard
The Witch of Ravensworth

It's interesting to see that even the earliest gothics were considered "chic lit" as early as the 1700s. It sort of negates the claim that everything is chic lit today because of some decline in education, taste or the increase of women's spare time. Those same criticisms were used on gothics 200 years ago and they weren't any more accurate back then than they are today.